Secretary Wright on The Bob Clark Podcast - February 24, 2025

Bob Clark with you the new secretary for the Department of energy Chris Wright is in New Mexico today and tomorrow to visit our National Labs in Los Alamos and here in Albuquerque at Sandia National Labs and he joins us here on the show on 963 news radio kkob secretary right thank you very much for your time this morning welcome to New Mexico how you doing this morning thanks Bob great to join you great to be in the wonderful state of New Mexico and on my way to Los Alamos labs today and San D tomorrow very good and of course you're from Denver Colorado so uh you're no stranger uh to New Mexico that's for sure hey before we get into uh more on your trip here to visit the labs and then of course in general Trump Administration energy policy and what we can expect especially here in New Mexico with oil and gas where the uh are number two in the nation when it comes to oil and gas uh production here just behind uh Texas give give us some insight as to why this opportunity was so attractive to you to to take over as the Energy Secretary oh yeah honor of a life I am thrilled to help bring some common sense back to DC lower energy prices for Americans and strengthen our position around the world and hopefully end some of the conflicts and wars in the world as well well we're all familiar with drill baby drill that's for sure and we've been doing that here in New Mexico but again it's basically you know in the perum Basin a lot of state land uh the last four years under President Biden and his administration more and more federal land has been taken off the table for even the possibility of oil and gas uh drilling so give us give us Beyond just drill baby drill give us a sense of what the Trump Administration uh in this second term and what the energy policy is going to look like yeah so I always say very important for drill baby drill is build baby build there's great resources in New Mexico in the four corners area as well but the inability to build some infrastructure and proceed with development has just stifled it for a decade um the peran is so large and so much momentum that it's a little bit harder to drill on the federal lands in New Mexico than the private lands in Texas and we want to change that I don't want New Mexico at a disadvantage to Texas uh probably the greatest oil and gas resources on Shore in the world uh in the United States that we have around in southeast New Mexico the president Trump wants to unleash all forms of energy we've been closing coal plants across our country for years that's been helping drive up electricity prices and make our grid less stable the president Trump wants to look at everything we can do to make it easier to energize American lives and lower costs Bob let me throw in two more things one is nuclear power look this got launched in the in the in our country decades ago and then it's plateaued and hasn't gone anywhere got gone anywhere for a few decades president Trump is passionate about getting American nuclear energy going and ultimately exporting that technology to our allies around the world Los El and Sania lab are key to that mission also something is common sense is appliances right is our appliances these days are becoming more expensive and their performance is lower like who wins by that President Trump came in with a bold agenda to kind of clear out that nonsense let people buy the appliances they want to wash their dishes clean their clothes dry their clothes save their time to better their lives without emptying their bank accounts a senator excuse me Secretary of Energy Chris Wright with us here on 963 news radio kkob what about wind and solar energy and where that fits in in terms of the a trump Administration portfolio so again the administration's goal is secure aordable reliable energy solar is growing rapidly today in the United States and and when you back that up with some storage there's a lot of room for technical Improvement there but I think it's got a real role to play the wind industry repak several years ago and has been in Decline for a number of reasons people don't like wind turbines all around them and the energy that's produced so far has been expensive and unreliable and when we get these cold high pressure systems or hot High Press systems where we see Peak electricity demand wind disappears so if you can't provide energy when we're at Peak power demand they're just lower value resources that use a lot of land a lot of material materials and have become unpopular they haven't helped Advance the American Energy System what about EV mandates gone look that that that's that that's again these are just Legacy policies that are that are currying favor with wealthy people wealthy people buy electric vehicles and then the idea was let's te tax all the other Americans to help rich people by EVS uh president Trump is absolutely against that if you love EVS wonderful we're not against anyone buying EVS but you should pay for them with your own money what about the the infrastructure that goes along with electric vehicles especially EV charging stations um I is that a path that's going to continue under the Trump Administration that's another one of the things that should be built with private money you know the Biden Administration spent billions of dollars to build a couple dozen charging stations that's a perfect example of how the government is not inefficient provider of services it ends out spending money on politically favored groups and wildly inefficiently so private businesses that are building electric vehicles have been and'll continue to build the charging network but the go the government shouldn't join in as an expensive inefficient partner in that Secretary of Energy Chris Wright with us here on news radio kkob and Mr secretary before we let you uh let you go talk a little bit about your trip to New Mexico you're heading to Los Alamos National Labs and then sanan National Labs uh so basically what's the mission here uh the mission I'm gonna visit all 17 of our fantastic National Labs but I want to start with Los Alamos lab where the Manhattan Project really assured the United States One World War II and established the military supremacy of the United States in the Cold War so to me that is that is a treasured institution in this country I want to visit with the scientists today that are maintaining and improving our nuclear Arsenal look at the other areas of research that are going on there see how I can help and how I can uh congratulate these scientists for their tremendous work and tomorrow sand Labs an equally critical lab in in the Strategic deterant of the United States where our next Generation modernized weapons are being designed and planned for so these are just two powerful American institutions I'm here to learn and I'm here to say thanks well and Mr secretary obviously we all know about Doge uh and Elon Musk and and the mission there do you still Envision Sandia and Los Los Alamos National Labs being fully funded to to carry on their missions absolutely like these are essential scientific institutions for the military security of our country and for the future energy security of our country they're critical to our mission but of course our broader effort in Washington is what are the things we do that are inefficient and unnecessary you and I have spoken about a few of those we need to shrink our deficit we need to get our country on Sounder fiscal footing grow opportunities for Americans passionate about all of those but Los Alamos and Sandia fit perfectly in that mission those labs are strong and powerful institutions and they will remain so