HOUSTON: The US energy secretary vowed Monday to reset federal energy policy to favor fossil fuels and deprioritize climate change as industry leaders gathered at their biggest event since President Donald Trump returned to office.
In the conference’s opening session, Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited the Trump administration’s moves to cut red tape that is delaying oil projects and promote liquefied natural gas exports as examples of a pivot away from policies pursued under former president Joe Biden.
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright told a packed auditorium for the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference.
Since returning to Washington seven weeks ago, Trump and his team have overhauled the existing economic order at a dizzying pace, launching trade wars against allies and hollowing government agencies the president and his allies dislike.
Trump made energy policy a central part of his agenda with his day-one “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, promising during his inaugural address to “end the Green New Deal” in favor of “that liquid gold under our feet.”
But Mark Brownstein, senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said Wright’s tone was “long on rhetoric,” adding, “at some point the administration needs to get off the campaign stump speech and get on with the business of governing.”
Brownstein described many CERA attendees as uncertain about investments, not only because of Trump’s shifting position on energy and climate change, but also the nearly daily pivots on tariffs.
“The energy industry is a capital-intensive business and what they need to deploy capital at scale is certainty and consistency,” Brownstein told AFP.
CERA’s opening day coincided with deep stock market losses after Trump over the weekend refused to rule out a US recession.
Protesters held boisterous demonstrations outside the event in Houston. Advocacy group Oil Change International blasted the oil industry for pollution near industrial facilities and for fossil fuel investments that are worsening climate change.
Energy played a key supporting role in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, in which he pointed to higher gasoline prices as a reason more production was needed, embodied by his slogan: “Drill, baby, drill.”
Trump’s January 20 executive order represents a potentially wide-ranging attack on tax incentives which had been embraced by energy companies to advance billions of dollars of energy transition projects.
These projects were connected to laws enacted under Biden to mitigate climate change.
Some pundits think Trump will stop short of actions canceling existing projects where workers have been hired, including many in conservative districts.
Appearing just after Wright, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth warned that “swinging from one extreme to the other” on policy is “not the right policy approach in a long cycle industry like this.”
Wirth welcomed Trump’s executive orders on permitting reform, but said “we need to see some of this stuff put into legislation so that it’s more durable and it’s not at risk of being swung back in another direction by a future administration” with different priorities.
Wright downplayed the upheaval on trade policy after his remarks, noting Trump dropped many of his most impactful tariffs in his first term.
It’s “too early to say on tariffs, but I feel quite confident having a smart businessman every day working for America writ large, not an interest group or a particular industry,” Wright said. “I’m pretty optimistic about the outcome.”
Wright said there were “vigorous” closed-door debates about tariffs within the administration, rejecting the idea that there was ideological uniformity on the issue.
He also suggested the Trump administration wouldn’t challenge all Biden administration renewable energy projects, saying that while he wouldn’t have picked some of the same projects for loans, “we inherit a loan book... and we follow the rule of law.”
Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies
https://arab.news/jnppw
Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies
- “The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright says
Ethiopia accuses Eritrea of arming rebels in escalating war of words
- The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea
- The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian police said they had seized thousands of rounds of ammunition sent by Eritrea to rebels in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, an allegation Eritrea dismissed as a falsehood intended to justify starting a war.
The charge by Ethiopia’s federal police escalates a feud between Ethiopia and Eritrea, longstanding foes who reached a peace deal in 2018 that has since given way to renewed threats and acrimony.
The police said in a statement late on Wednesday they had seized 56,000 rounds of ammunition and arrested two suspects this week in the Amhara region, where Fano rebels have waged an insurgency since 2023.
“The preliminary investigation conducted on the two suspects who were caught red-handed has confirmed that the ammunition was sent by the Shabiya government,” the statement said, using a term for Eritrea’s ruling party.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told Reuters that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Prosperity Party (PP) was looking for a pretext to attack.
“The PP regime is floating false flags to justify the war that it has been itching to unleash for two long years,” he said.
In an interview earlier this week with state-run media, Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki said the Prosperity Party had declared war on his country. He said Eritrea did not want war, but added: “We know how to defend our nation.”
The two countries fought a three-year border war that broke out in 1998, five years after Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia. They signed a historic agreement to normalize relations in 2018 that won Ethiopia’s Abiy the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. Eritrean troops then fought in support of Ethiopia’s army during a 2020-22 civil war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.
But relations soured after Asmara was frozen out of the peace deal that ended that conflict. Since then, Eritrea has bristled at repeated public declarations by Abiy that landlocked Ethiopia has a right to sea access — comments many in Eritrea, which lies on the Red Sea, view as an implicit threat of military action.
Abiy has said Ethiopia does not seek conflict with Eritrea and wants to address the issue of sea access through dialogue.
