President Donald Trump pushed back on his own energy secretary&#8217;s gas price prediction on Monday as Americans continue to get pinched at the pump.
Trump said Energy Secretary Chris Wright is &#8220;totally wrong&#8221; after Wright told CNN on Sunday that average gas prices in the United States could stay above $3 into 2027.
&#8220;I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” Trump told The Hill.
The president added that gas prices would start dropping “as soon as this ends,” referring to the ongoing conflict with Iran.
During an interview on Sunday, Wright said he wasn&#8217;t sure when exactly gas prices would start coming back down, but predicted, &#8220;That might not happen until next year.&#8221;
“But prices have likely peaked and they will start going down,” Wright added. “Certainly, with a resolution of this conflict, you will see prices go down. Prices across the board on energy prices will go down.”
Gas prices appeared ready to drop late last week when oil prices tumbled to under $90 per barrel shortly after Trump and Iran announced a ceasefire that would allow ships to traverse the Strait of Hormuz. The agreement to open the strait, however, was short-lived as Iran said on Sunday that it was once again blocking ships in response to Trump keeping the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports in place.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard attacked two oil tankers over the weekend, and shipping traffic through the strait came to a standstill once again, CNBC <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/20/strait-hormuz-ship-tanker-oil-iran-war.html">reported</a>.
Brent crude jumped back up to over $95 per barrel on Monday morning, and average gas prices in the United States remain above $4 per gallon as of Monday afternoon, according to <a href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/">AAA</a>. Recent <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/poll-trumps-approval-rating-hits-second-term-low-economy-iran-war-rcna331462">polls</a> indicate that many Americans are <a href="https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3956">frustrated</a> with the sharp rise in gas prices that followed Trump&#8217;s decision to launch &#8220;Operation Epic Fury.&#8221;
Democrats have attacked the Trump administration over the rise in gas prices, with Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/19/world/middleeast/energy-secretary-gas-prices.html">saying</a> on Sunday, “Americans literally can’t afford the Trump presidency.” At $4.04 per gallon on average, gas prices are at their highest level since June of 2022, when President Joe Biden was in office.
Vice President JD Vance is expected to meet with Iranian officials in Pakistan this week for another round of negotiations as the ceasefire is set to expire at 8:00 p.m. EST Tuesday. Trump said on Monday that he feels &#8220;no pressure whatsoever&#8221; to secure a deal with Iran.
&#8220;Time is not my adversary, the only thing that matters is that we finally, after 47 years, straighten out the MESS that other Presidents let happen because they didn’t have the Courage or Foresight to do what had to be done with respect to Iran,&#8221; he said.

President Trump Holds Roundtable On The Ratepayer Protection Pledge At The White House

Trump Says His Energy Secretary’s Gas Price Prediction Is ‘Totally Wrong’

Chris Wright

Donald Trump

Economy

Gas Prices

Iran

Over a dozen Republican attorneys general demanded Wednesday that the Trump administration suspend or yank funding for a taxpayer-funded scientific organization over politically biased climate change activism, according to a letter obtained by The Daily Wire.
Led by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, the GOP officials <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1010506858/AG-Letter-To-DOT-DOW-And-DOE">said</a> that a chapter included in the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Fourth Edition” produced by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine failed to disclose links to climate litigation advocacy. Knudsen demanded that the Departments of Energy, War, and Transportation cut funding to the National Academies over the chapter in question. 
Knudsen <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MTAG/2026/03/10/file_attachments/3579240/2026-03-11%20AGs'%20Ltr%20to%20Agencies%20re%20NASEM_ex%20A.pdf">wrote</a> that the chapter “was designed to influence judges in multi-billion-dollar climate cases, was funded by climate litigation funders, was written by academics with little relevant scientific expertise and documented financial and institutional ties to climate litigation advocacy, and was shaped by a climate plaintiffs’ attorney.”
The letter was addressed to Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The Pentagon declined to comment.
Knudsen said that the academies should be suspended or disbarred from “all federal contracts and grants across the executive branch.” The National Academies received tens of millions of dollars in grant money every year from the federal government. 
&#8220;Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund efforts that impartially influence judges. Given multiple opportunities, NASEM and NSF still refuse to take responsibility for publishing a biased climate science manual violating their public commitments and legal obligations,” Knudsen told The Daily Wire. “The organizations producing these manuals and pushing their climate agendas on judges must be investigated and all funding to them should stop. As Attorney General, I will continue to sound the alarm until we put an end to their deception.”
The <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26919/chapter/1">manual</a> was produced with the Federal Judicial Center to serve as a guide for federal judges. Last month, the judicial center <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/reference-manual-on-scientific-evidence-climate-science-elena-kagan-federal-judges-f8e8604a?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=AWEtsqenuW1BIeQcsljVCaPocCtWHummF76Pu_cnQ0KlguiQAeIUNm7GcmAXGmI1sSg%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6997208c&amp;gaa_sig=wVTzH3siKR3DaS1OsCzap4UGuaUWOHjVYeBgLh2Y2IVt5AfO9iotN2ZjJgaB3QunvcBEg3kfNQRJ2dCjybLV0Q%3D%3D">removed</a> the climate chapter from its version of the book after more than two dozen Republican attorneys general warned it could improperly influence their decisions. They <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/taxpayer-funded-science-org-faces-demands-from-gop-officials-over-climate-activism">urged</a> the National Academy in February to do the same. 
One issue raised by Knudsen regarding the flagged chapter was that the manual was funded in part by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has <a href="https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-activist-side-third-party-litigation-support/">reportedly</a> donated to the Collective Action Fund, a group that has <a href="https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/anti-energy-lawfare-congressional-investigation-uncovers-dark-money-fueling-climate-change-lawsuits-nationwide/">contributed money</a> to climate litigation firm Sher Edling. The attorneys general argue that this creates a conflict of interest and violates the terms of an $875,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to the National Academy to develop the manual. 
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation told The Daily Wire that it donated $100,000 to the Collective Action Fund in 2017 and hasn&#8217;t provided any more funds to the group since then.
&#8220;We were not involved in either the development or review of the final guide,&#8221; the foundation said. &#8220;As you have likely seen on our website, the focus of our environmental work is not climate-driven but instead focused on conservation of landscapes and seascapes.&#8221;
The attorneys general also pointed to the ties between the chapter’s authors and reviewers and climate change advocacy. Jessica Wentz, one of the authors, is a fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. She wrote in an <a href="https://climate.law.columbia.edu/sites/climate.law.columbia.edu/files/content/Willow%20amicus%20brief%20-%20FILED.pdf">amicus brief</a> opposing the development of an oil drilling project in Alaska that “the world needs to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible in order to avert potentially catastrophic levels of global warming and climate change.”
The Sabin Center has <a href="https://climate.law.columbia.edu/content/support-us">received support</a> from the Rockefeller Family Fund, which has, in turn, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2024/05/28/nx-s1-4977572/rockefellers-profited-on-fossil-fuels-these-days-theyre-taking-aim-at-the-industry">reportedly</a> funded “a wave of litigation” against the fossil fuel industry. 
Radley Horton, another co-author of the chapter in question, is a professor at Columbia University’s Climate School. Horton, who has <a href="https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/educating-judges-climate-litigation-today-and-tomorrow">previously</a> trained judges on climate litigation, has <a href="https://therealnews.com/rhorton1127climate">said</a> that “it’s absolutely critical that there be a global effort to do everything we can to dramatically draw down emissions.”
Columbia University’s Climate School, which has a Center for Sustainable Development <a href="https://ccsi.columbia.edu/donate/">funded</a> by the Rockefeller Brothers, a group that has also donated to the Collective Action Fund. 
Those acknowledged in the chapter included Michael Burger, who is representing Honolulu in litigation against energy companies, and Michael Gerrard, who has advocated for “decarbonization” through climate-related lawsuits. Burger serves as counsel for Sher Edling, the climate activist firm. 
In the initial stages of planning for the fourth edition of the manual, it was <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/26231/chapter/1">suggested</a> by the National Academies that the new manual would be “accessible to judges who might be more skeptical of climate science’s methods and conclusions.” Scientists skeptical of climate change theories were listed off as “not credible.” 
The attorneys general also say that no reviewers of the manual represented “materially different viewpoints on climate science,” which they said was a violation of the National Science Foundation grant. 
In light of these issues, the Republican officials say that the Trump administration should cut funding for the National Academies, which in 2024 received $84 million in contracts or grants from the Department of Transportation, $7 million from the Department of Energy, and $33 million from the Department of War. 
They also called for Congress to initiate an investigation into the development of the manual.
Other states that signed on include Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
The National Science Foundation declined to comment.

Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump Holds Rally In Bozeman, Montana

Top Science Org’s Taxpayer Lifeline In Jeopardy Over Climate Activism

Climate Change

Department of Energy

Department of Transportation

Department of War

Montana

Pete Hegseth

Science

Sean Duffy

Interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez said Wednesday that her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, is “innocent” and remains the “legitimate president” of the country despite his imprisonment in the United States. 
Maduro, who was captured by American special forces last month, is in federal prison in New York awaiting trial for drug trafficking. 
“I can tell you President Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president. I will tell you this as a lawyer, that I am. Both President Maduro and Cilia Flores, the first lady, are both innocent,” Rodríguez, who became acting president of Venezuela after Maduro was taken into custody, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/world/venezuela/maduro-legitimate-president-venezuela-delcy-rodriguez-interview-trump-rcna258687">told</a> NBC News. 
The Justice Department accuses Maduro of masterminding a decades-long narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy involving senior Venezuelan officials that allegedly used state power to facilitate large-scale cocaine shipments bound for the United States. Prosecutors say the scheme transformed the government into a criminal enterprise, known as the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns).
“I can tell you I am in charge of the presidency of Venezuela, as it’s stated clearly in the constitution of Venezuela. And from the amount of work that I have, from how busy I am, I can tell you it’s very, very hard work and we’re doing it completely day by day,” Rodríguez said. 
She added that she has been invited to the United States and contemplated making a trip “once we establish this cooperation and we can move forward with everything.”
Last month, CIA Director John Ratcliffe <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/cia-director-meets-with-venezuelas-interim-leader-as-u-s-shifts-policy">met with Rodríguez</a> in Caracas to discuss economic cooperation and intensifying efforts against drug trafficking. At the time, an American official told The Daily Wire that the meeting focused on “trust building measures and laying the groundwork for continued communication and room for collaboration between the two governments.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright was in Venezuela on Wednesday, and he praised Rodríguez.
“She’s delivered information. Everything we know so far has turned out to be true. She’s made enormous positive changes, including already changing the hydrocarbon law in the country in the first few weeks,” he told NBC News. “So I would say that cooperation is off to a tremendous start.”
Wright is in Venezuela to examine the country&#8217;s oil industry. He said more than $1 billion in sales of Venezuelan oil had already been made, with another $5 billion expected in the next few months. 
“So the Venezuelans are in charge here in Venezuela, but the United States has enormous leverage over the interim authorities in Venezuela — the largest revenue source that funds&#8230; the government of Venezuela is now controlled by the United States,” Wright said.

Interim President Delcy Rodríguez of Venezuela Meets With U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright

Acting Venezeula President Says Maduro Is ‘Innocent,’ Still The ‘Legitimate’ Leader

Nicolas Maduro

Venezuela

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright expanded on President Donald Trump&#8217;s plan to control Venezuelan oil on Wednesday, saying the United States would soon begin selling Venezuelan crude &#8220;into the marketplace&#8221; and use the sales as &#8220;leverage&#8221; to push the Venezuelan government toward lasting &#8220;change.&#8221;
Wright addressed the situation in Venezuela at the annual Goldman Sachs energy conference in Miami, saying the Trump administration&#8217;s goal is to get Venezuelan crude &#8220;moving again and sell it.&#8221; The U.S.-controlled oil would be sold to buyers in the United States and around the world, with the revenue &#8220;deposited into accounts controlled by the U.S.,&#8221; according to Wright.
&#8220;If we control the flow of oil, the sales of that oil, and the flow of the cash that comes from those sales, we have large leverage,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But without large leverage &#8230; you don&#8217;t get change.&#8221;
&#8220;This should be a wealthy, prosperous, peaceful energy powerhouse,&#8221; Wright said of Venezuela. &#8220;That&#8217;s the plan.&#8221;
President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-says-venezuela-will-turn-over-30-50-million-barrels-of-oil-to-u-s">said</a> on Tuesday that Venezuela would turn over 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States following the U.S. strikes on the country and the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
“This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have asked Energy Secretary Chris Wright to execute this plan, immediately.”
Wright, a former oil and gas CEO, said Wednesday that Venezuela&#8217;s oil infrastructure is in poor condition, adding that he&#8217;s been speaking to the leaders of energy companies about how it could be improved.
&#8220;The history is bad, but what are the necessary conditions it would take you to kind of help nudge things along?&#8221; Wright said he asked of the energy companies. &#8220;What are the necessary conditions it would take you to put billions of dollars in to develop fields and build infrastructure?&#8221;
The United States continues enforcing a naval blockade around Venezuela, blocking sanctioned tankers from transporting oil to other countries. Earlier on Wednesday, U.S. forces seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker that had evaded the blockade after being linked to Venezuelan oil shipments, officials said.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/live-updates-united-states-strikes-venezuela-captures-president-maduro?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Daily+Wire&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=LIVE+UPDATES%3A+U.S.+Military+Seizes+Sanctioned+Oil+Tanker+Sailing+Under+Russian+Flag">LIVE UPDATES: U.S. Military Seizes Sanctioned Oil Tanker Sailing Under Russian Flag</a>
Venezuela&#8217;s oil production dropped significantly after the country was taken over by socialist dictators. At its peak in the 1970s, Venezuela produced about 3.5 million barrels per day, but as of last year, it had plunged to roughly 1.1 million barrels per day, Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-wants-venezuelan-oil-flowing-again-with-revenues-us-accounts-wright-says-2026-01-07/">reported</a>.
&#8220;We could get several hundred thousand barrels a day of additional production in short to medium term if the conditions are there for just small capital deployments,&#8221; Wright said. He added that it will &#8220;take tens of billions of dollars and significant time&#8221; for the United States to return Venezuela to its &#8220;historical numbers&#8221; of crude output, but said it would be worth the effort.
&#8220;Don&#8217;t we want a better world? A better world for Americans, a better world for Western Hemisphere, a better world for Venezuelans?&#8221; he asked.

U.S. To Control Venezuelan Oil Sales As ‘Leverage’ For ‘Change,’ Energy Secretary Says

U.S. To Control Venezuelan Oil Sales As 'Leverage' For 'Change,' Energy Secretary Says

Trump Administration

U.S.

When America developed the atomic bomb that would eventually bring an end to World War II, a secret city in Tennessee was vital for the uranium enrichment that powered the Manhattan Project. Now, that once-secret city is the hub of a new arms race, and The Daily Wire got an exclusive, inside look.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/manhattan-project-2">Manhattan Project 2.0</a> follows Daily Wire senior reporter Cabot Phillips as he heads to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which has been reborn as the front line of a global competition against China that the United States cannot afford to lose. Inside the halls of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, President Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright delivers an unmistakable warning: If America throttles its own energy supply and innovation, China will seize the lead in artificial intelligence.
&#8220;AI has been around for a long time, but it&#8217;s hitting critical mass now. In the next few years, AI is going to change our world, not just economically, but in science and also in national defense,&#8221; Wright says. &#8220;China is working aggressively in AI. If they get a meaningful lead on us on AI, it will be a different world in the future.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/videos/manhattan-project-2">WATCH: Manhattan Project 2.0 On DailyWire+</a>
To understand what’s at stake, Phillips was given rare access to Frontier, the world&#8217;s leading supercomputer driving a modern scientific sprint toward the future. Here, America’s top researchers, led by OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman, use AI to accelerate nuclear fusion breakthroughs, model entire reactor cores before they’re built, design next-generation aircraft engines, and rebuild America’s manufacturing edge atom by atom. Frontier isn’t just running calculations, it is collapsing years of research into days, giving the United States a chance to outpace China’s rapidly expanding digital warfare capabilities.
But the story doesn’t end with the future. Phillips was escorted into the X-10 Graphite Reactor, a sealed historic site where workers once loaded uranium into a massive graphite cube without knowing they were launching the nuclear age. Standing before the original channels and concrete shielding, he learns how that dangerous experiment birthed nuclear engineering itself and paved the way for the Navy’s first nuclear submarines — proof that breakthroughs at Oak Ridge have shifted global power before.
The Manhattan Project 2.0 reveals a nation at another historic crossroads, where nuclear energy, supercomputing, and artificial intelligence converge into a single generational test. It asks whether America will once again accept the risk and responsibility of leading the world into a new age of power, or watch China define that future instead.

Manhattan Project 2.0

Manhattan Project 2.0: Inside The Once-Secret City Now Powering America’s AI Fight Against China

Artificial Intelligence

China

Daily Wire

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday launching a “national effort” to integrate artificial intelligence into research and accelerate innovation and scientific discovery.
The Trump administration has made AI research and innovation a top priority as it seeks to win the AI “race” against China. The White House said the new national effort, named the Genesis Mission, will be one of the largest research and development projects in the history of the United States.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright <a href="https://x.com/ENERGY/status/1993102758812303725">compared</a> the effort that the Trump administration is coordinating for AI advancement to the Manhattan Project that developed the nuclear bomb and the Apollo Program that landed the first humans on the moon.
“In this pivotal moment, the challenges we face require a historic national effort, comparable in urgency and ambition to the Manhattan Project that was instrumental to our victory in World War II and was a critical basis for the foundation of the Department of Energy (DOE) and its national laboratories,” the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/11/launching-the-genesis-mission/">order</a> states.
The aim of the Genesis Mission is to build an AI model that will learn from and incorporate federal datasets “to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs.”
Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at <a href="http://dailywire.com/blackfriday" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dailywire.com/blackfriday</a>.
The project will partner researchers at each of the United States’ 17 national laboratories with businesses and academic research centers to work on AI development and models.
“The Genesis Mission will dramatically accelerate scientific discovery, strengthen national security, secure energy dominance, enhance workforce productivity, and multiply the return on taxpayer investment into research and development, thereby furthering America’s technological dominance and global strategic leadership,” the order states.
The project will largely be run through the Department of Energy and its network of national laboratories that conduct some of the most sensitive research in the United States.
“The Order directs the Department of Energy to create a closed-loop AI experimentation platform that integrates our Nation’s world-class supercomputers and unique data assets to generate scientific foundation models and power robotic laboratories,” a White House <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/11/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-unveils-the-genesis-missionto-accelerate-ai-for-scientific-discovery/">fact sheet</a> on the order says.

President Trump Signs Executive Order On Energy Production

Trump Signs Order Launching ‘Manhattan Project’ For Artificial Intelligence

Communist China

Technology

United States

Last month, President Donald Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s Climate Working Group completed its work, and quietly achieved something few expected: they reset the national conversation on climate policy.
For years, Washington’s climate agenda has been dominated by alarmism, junk science, and a revolving cast of “experts” whose warnings are backed not by empirical evidence but the billions of dollars flowing from dark money climate advocacy groups and left-wing billionaires more focused on concentrating power than global temperatures.
The federal government has relied heavily on so-called “climate attribution” studies, which claim to link every hurricane, wildfire, and heatwave to carbon emissions.
These studies are widely criticized, even within the scientific community, for flawed methodology and confirmation bias. Yet policymakers have treated them as gospel, driving expensive and economically damaging regulations. Craven politicians have used them to attempt to condition the American people to believe every storm is the result of energy producers, and the only answer is multi-trillion-dollar energy transitions.
The Climate Working Group ripped that narrative apart. Its report exposed the flimsy assumptions, the overreliance on discredited models, and the tendency to inflate worst-case scenarios while ignoring economic realities. The group didn’t simply question climate orthodoxy; it demanded that science, logic, and reality guide policy — rather than ideology and grant-driven research agendas.
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Predictably, the backlash was immediate and loud. Dark-money-funded climate groups with questionable credibility, like the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund, and self-styled “scientists” who have been discredited within peer-reviewed circles, launched predictable attacks, dismissing the report as reckless or even dangerous. They sued to prevent the report from even seeing the light of day.
The rapid, even frantic mobilization to shut this report down told us everything we need to know.
Because this report poked holes and raised questions about the “climate consensus,” it served as an existential threat to an entire constellation of dark money interests, NGO’s, political candidates and groups, and non-profits that rely on Americans believing that every raindrop and gust of wind they experience is actually the fault of the oil and gas companies.
The truth is simple: the group accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do. It recentered the debate on facts, not fear, and reminded policymakers that exaggerated claims of catastrophe do not replace rigorous analysis. And that those with genuine scientific curiosity should not kowtow to a politically driven “consensus” that shuts down questions and intellectual challenge.
Events at Climate Week in New York highlighted just how important this shift has been. Secretary Wright joined David Gelles of The New York Times for a <a href="https://youtu.be/XzkZ-a0UMN8?si=NTNKgD4wEYOaSBhe&amp;t=1304" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discussion</a> on Energy in the Trump administration.
Gelles asked questions using the Left’s normal framing about extreme weather and climate change, and Secretary Wright pushed back forcefully, saying, “These crazy convoluted links &#8230; making weather more extreme, more hurricanes, more intense hurricanes. That’s not what’s in the IPCC reports, it’s not what’s in the data. It’s what the media says, it’s what activists say, it’s what politicians say. It’s not in the data.”
Gelles pushed back: “There’s a ton of attribution science, though. Are you saying that the studies that are showing attribution science that do the actual scientific work to link global temperature rise to specific weather events are not to be trusted?”
“Attribution science is not science,” Wright responded. “You can’t draw a long-term slow trend to a weather event, tornadoes, hurricanes, extremely complicated phenomena. Attribution science is someone reaching for something.”
Thanks to the Climate Working Group, discussions about climate policy can no longer ignore economic costs, energy realities, or the limits of current science. For the first time in years, the debate has been pulled back from ideological extremes and into the light of scrutiny.
Mission accomplished. And if the critics are howling, that’s just proof the Working Group hit the mark.
The Honorable Jason Isaac is the Founder and CEO of the American Energy Institute, a trade organization that unapologetically champions free markets and American energy. Previously, he served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

How The Trump Administration Changed The Climate Conversation

One of the biggest moves made in modern history in the regulatory state occurred this week. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/epa-endangerment-finding-repeal-greenhouse-gases-obama-trump-steve-koonin-67fcb2ce?mod=hp_opin_pos_1">moved to repeal</a> the 2009 so-called endangerment finding for greenhouse gas emissions.
The Clean Air Act, which was put into place in the 1970s, authorized the EPA to regulate pollutants like ozone, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and others that might endanger public health or welfare. 
But the EPA suggested, under Barack Obama, that the Clean Air Act could be used to regulate carbon emissions, which is insane. 
The Clean Air Act was meant to stop particulate matter. It was meant to stop the breaking down of the ozone layer. It was not meant to deal with carbon, and particularly carbon dioxide, which is a natural byproduct of breathing. 
Carbon dioxide is not a danger to human beings in the environment. You may not like what it does in terms of global climate change. But the idea that the EPA has authority under the Clean Air Act is wrong. If Congress wants to give the EPA that authority, then it certainly could. But it never did. 
The Supreme Court found in 2007 that greenhouse gases could qualify as pollutants under an extraordinarily broad misreading of the law. “There is some evidence that elevated carbon dioxide concentrations and climate changes can lead to changes in aeroallergens that could increase the potential for allergenic illnesses,” the Obama 2009 endangerment finding stated. 
Now the EPA is revoking the previous policy. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/epa-endangerment-finding-repeal-greenhouse-gases-obama-trump-steve-koonin-67fcb2ce?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAjNDB5-v2W5AWInkM3wgvwDH7QHcGNmdXIjN6_-Uu1CHb-Ilh_p391soX3w2uE%3D&amp;gaa_ts=688a5b6a&amp;gaa_sig=qeRIhaSN78lB5BrQ0s6rFUZyXLR8Enkln4V2Bv7sQbiCNXOc57C5dRowpTEBDBXQLeD75GPTigdc2QTCjcjnJA%3D%3D">wrote</a>: 
<blockquote>The Energy Department on Tuesday published a comprehensive analysis of climate science and its uncertainties by five outside scientists. One is Steven Koonin who served in the Obama Administration and is a contributor to these pages. The crucial point is that CO2 is different from the pollutants that Congress expressly authorized EPA to regulate.
Those pollutants “are subject to regulatory control because they cause local problems depending on concentrations that include nuisances (odor, visibility), damage to plants, and, at high enough exposure levels, toxicological effects in humans,&#8221; the report notes. “In contrast, CO2 is odorless, does not affect visibility and has no toxicological effects at ambient levels.”</blockquote>
In other words, higher levels of CO2 in the air from fossil fuels won’t make you sick.
You&#8217;re not going to get sick from CO2 in the air. Thus, the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are taking this on. The Clean Air Act no longer applies in our interpretation to greenhouse gases. 
What does that mean? It means something extraordinary for the American economy. Among other things, such as a massive deregulatory environment, the alleged cost of regulating greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act amounts to roughly $54 billion per year. If you multiply that out over the course of the last decade and a half, you&#8217;re talking about a cost in excess of $800 billion, all based on a regulatory agency radically exceeding its boundaries.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2249-winning-trump-s-epa-wrecks-the-radical-green-agenda?elementPosition=2&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Energy Secretary Chris Wright told me:
<blockquote>It&#8217;s just been a huge entanglement into American life. Big brother climate regulations from the government that don’t do anything meaningful for global greenhouse gas emissions. They don&#8217;t change any health outcomes for Americans, but they massively grow the government. &#8230; So administrator Lee Zeldin, is reviewing that and saying, “Hey, we don&#8217;t believe that greenhouse gases are a significant endangerment to the American public, and they shouldn&#8217;t be regulated by the EPA.”
The EPA does not have authority to regulate them because Congress never passed such a law. &#8230; I reached out to five, prestigious climate scientists that are real scientists in my mind … and we published a long critical overview of climate science and its impact on Americans. And that was released yesterday on the DOE Website, and I highly recommend everyone to give it a read. </blockquote>
I asked him what were the biggest findings from that report that he commissioned at the Department of Energy.
“Maybe the single biggest one that everyone should be aware of is the ceaseless repeating that climate change is making storms more frequent and more severe and more dangerous. It&#8217;s just nonsense. That&#8217;s never been in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. It&#8217;s just not true. But the media and politicians and activists just repeatedly repeat it,” he replied.
“We&#8217;ve just driven up the price of energy and reduced choice to American consumers without meaningfully moving global greenhouse gas emissions at all,” he said. “And when I talk to activists or politicians about it, they&#8217;re not even that concerned about it and say it. They don&#8217;t act as if their real goal is to incrementally reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Their real goal is for the government and for them — a small number of people — to decide what&#8217;s appropriate behavior for all Americans.”
“We just need some common sense back around energy and climate change. That&#8217;s where the Trump administration is headed across the administration, not just in Zeldin and myself, but everyone in the administration. We just want Americans to have a government that follows basic common sense,” he concluded.
Exactly.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin Testifies On Capitol Hill

WINNING: Trump’s EPA Wrecks The Radical Green Agenda

WINNING: Trump's EPA Wrecks The Radical Green Agenda

Ben Shapiro

Energy

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

federal regulation

Lee Zeldin

Opinion

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced at a press conference Tuesday that the agency would begin rolling back Obama-era policies that have allowed the federal government to heavily regulate vehicle emissions and more.
The new rule reverses the &#8220;Endangerment Finding,&#8221; a 2009 decision that classified gases like methane and carbon dioxide as detrimental to the environment and people&#8217;s health. Based on that rule, the EPA was able to justify regulating emissions standards across all industries under the Clean Air Act.
&#8220;This has been referred to as basically driving a dagger into the heart of the climate change religion,&#8221; Zeldin <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/epa-chief-zeldin-delivers-dagger-to-the-heart-of-obamas-climate-change-agenda-on-ruthless-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a podcast appearance Monday.
The rule &#8220;Would repeal all resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, thereby reinstating consumer choice and giving Americans the ability to purchase a safe and affordable car for their family while decreasing the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver,&#8221; the EPA said in a <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-releases-proposal-rescind-obama-era-endangerment-finding-regulations-paved-way" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>.
Zeldin says the move will slash unnecessary spending for individual businesses and eliminate the contentious <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-admin-is-slashing-fuel-efficiency-standards-claims-it-will-make-cars-affordable-again?author=Hank+Berrien&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Admin+Is+Slashing+Fuel+Efficiency+Standards%2C+Claims+It+Will+%E2%80%98Make+Cars+Affordable+Again%E2%80%99" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Electric Vehicle mandates</a>. He also plans on opening a line of communication for public comment on the effects of emission regulations.
&#8220;If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families,&#8221; Zeldin said.
Jeff Clark, the acting administrator of the Office of Management and Budget, similarly touted the economic benefits of this proposed rule in a Tuesday morning <a href="https://x.com/JeffClarkUS/status/1950161513949302990" target="_blank" rel="noopener">post</a>. Clark said that an estimated national savings from this decreased regulation ranges from $1.7 to $8.2 trillion from 2027 to 2055.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who appeared with Zeldin to make the announcement, praised President Trump for &#8220;returning to free and open dialogue around climate and energy policy, driving the focus back to following the data.&#8221;
&#8220;Today&#8217;s announcement is a monumental step toward returning to commonsense policies that expand access to affordable, reliable, secure energy and improve quality of life for all Americans,&#8221; Wright added.
This regulatory change will not be without legal challenge. The <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/549/497/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">landmark</a> 2007 Supreme Court case, Massachusetts v. EPA, determined that the Clean Air Act sufficiently allowed for the federal government to regulate emissions if it determined that climate change or pollutants pose a harm to the American public.
Other similar <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases-by-topic/climate-change-environment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rulings</a> have strengthened the EPA&#8217;s hold on emission standards for vehicles and businesses. The proposal will face a lengthy review process, including public comment, before it is finalized.
Zeldin hopes to slash red tape holding back businesses by redefining what the EPA can regulate.
&#8220;With regard to the endangerment finding, they&#8217;ll say carbon dioxide is a pollutant and that&#8217;s the end of it. They&#8217;ll never acknowledge any type of benefit or need for carbon dioxide,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s important to note, and they don&#8217;t, how important it is for the planet.&#8221;
Zeldin continued, saying that &#8220;We shouldn&#8217;t shy away from all of the innovation in the way that we tap into an energy supply here in the United States.&#8221;
He praised the EPA&#8217;s quick and decisive action in this move to commit to the massive deregulation.
&#8220;It&#8217;s one agency, in one year, doing more deregulation than the entire federal government across all agencies across entire presidencies when you look back in history. That&#8217;s how much of a mess it is that we inherited,&#8221; Zeldin said.

Vice President JD Vance

EPA Announces Plan To Throw Out Obama-Era Climate Restrictions

Barack Obama

Carbon Emissions

Prominent community members of Alaska’s North Slope warmly welcomed top Trump administration officials last week while ripping into the prior administration led by former President Joe Biden.
A trio of Trump cabinet officials – Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright – traveled to northern Alaska last week to announce that Biden-era restrictions on oil development in the region would be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-moves-to-unlock-millions-of-oil-rich-acres-in-alaska-from-biden-environmental-rules?author=Tim+Pearce&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=15&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+Moves+To+Unlock+Millions+Of+Oil-Rich+Acres+In+Alaska+From+Biden+Environmental+Rules">rescinded</a>. The cabinet officials met with North Slope residents in Utqiagvik, Alaska.
Inupiat tribal leaders and officials greeted the news enthusiastically, according to video of the meeting obtained by The Daily Wire.
“When we had a similar meeting with the former Secretary of the Interior, that rule was announced after everybody got on the plane and flew out,” said Josiah Patkotak, mayor of North Slope Borough. He added that the prior administration’s rule “was contrary to what the public comment was.”
“Here we are, full transparency from our own secretary, and I think that deserves another round of applause,” Patkotak said after Burgum announced the administration’s intent to scrap the Biden-era restrictions.
Last year, the Biden administration banned oil and gas exploration and drilling across 10.6 million acres in the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska (NPRA), a reserve set aside decades ago by Congress for future oil development. The administration put tight restrictions on development on another roughly three million acres of the reserve. In total, over half of the roughly 23-million acre reserve was locked to development.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>
“Our ask is the same as always: that the North Slope Inupiat be central to discussions and decisions about land use in our region,” said Rex Rock, Sr., the president and CEO of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.
“Under the previous administration, as you heard, there were many actions that undermined our people’s self-determination, ignored our voices, and negatively impacted our communities. Their 2024 rule, Management and Protection of the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska, was not supported by a single entity in our region – and they still chose to implement it,” he said.
“Our region opposed the 2022 NPRA integrated activity plan because it took 50% of the NPRA off the table for development, which impacts the ability of our region to provide services to our people and communities,” Rock added.
Charles Lampe, the current president of the Kaktovik Inupiat Corporation, said that under the Biden administration, the North Slope and its residents “were under attack” by environmental groups. Groups such as <a href="https://www.wilderness.org/wild-places/alaska/oil-drilling-arctic-national-wildlife-refuge">The Wilderness Society</a> have long pushed for federal restrictions on Alaska’s North Slope that would ban development and industry, even in the petroleum reserve.
“On Day 1, President Trump told the Fish and Wildlife Department to deny that request. And that was such an amazing thing for us to be able to see. And we were so proud of our president then because he made sure that our ancestral homelands weren’t going to be stolen, [but] protected,” Lampe said. “So, I really need to bring back this just immense gratitude to President Trump for that action.”
“If the other guy would have won,” said Lampe, refering to former President Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, “there&#8217;s no doubt in my mind that our homeland would have been stolen, and there&#8217;s nothing we could have done about it.”

North Slope Borough, Alaska

Alaskan Tribal Leaders Offer ‘Immense Gratitude’ To Trump For Killing Biden Oil Development Bans

Alaska

Doug Burgum

Oil and Gas

The second Trump administration has made a point of rolling back regulations that restrict the functionality of home appliances in the name of efficiency during its first 100 days.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright laid out what the administration has accomplished on appliance efficiency standards that should result in a better quality of life for consumers during a trip to a Georgia factory that could have been shut down if not for deregulation.
At the Rinnai America Corporation’s manufacturing facility in Griffin, Georgia, they make tankless water heaters, one of the appliances for which the Department of Energy has postponed new, more restrictive standards. Tankless water heaters, of course, are beloved appliances in households across the country where residents have decided they don&#8217;t like running out of hot water for showers.
Wright&#8217;s agency postponed water heater rules on March 24. The rules would have punished companies such as Rinnai, according to the Department of Energy.
“Rinnai is the only company manufacturing non-condensing tankless water heaters in the United States. A Biden-era rule would have effectively banned these products — putting more than 200 Georgia jobs at risk, undermining U.S. manufacturing, and stripping away a cost-effective, high-efficiency option from American households,” a department <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-energy-chris-wright-visit-rinnai-america-griffin-georgia-mark-100-days" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a> said.
On the same day in March that Wright’s department took action on water heater rules, the Energy Department postponed and rescinded rules on a slate of other household appliances, as well. It lifted rules and deadlines on appliances such as walk-in coolers and freezers, central air conditioners and heat pumps, electric motors, ceiling fans, dehumidifiers, and external power supplies.
“Today, Americans are paying less at the pump and have more choices for home appliances thanks to President Trump cutting red tape and unleashing the production of affordable, reliable, secure American energy,” Wright said in a <a href="https://www.energy.gov/articles/secretary-wright-highlights-100-days-unleashing-american-energy-under-president-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> marking Trump’s 100th day in office.
President Donald Trump joked about actions his administration took on showerheads during a rally on Tuesday.
“We&#8217;ve opened up your faucets,” Trump <a href="https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1917358070298193943" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “I don&#8217;t like taking a shower where the water goes drip, drip, drip onto my luxuriant hair. I need a lot of water. I need everything I can get. I don&#8217;t need to be under a shower trying to get water to come out of that damn thing.”
Last month, Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/maintaining-acceptable-water-pressure-in-showerheads/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ordered</a> the repeal of a 13,000-word regulation defining the term “showerhead.” The Energy Department also postponed Biden-era efficiency standards for manufactured housing and began the process to lift efficiency regulations on portable electric spas.

How Trump’s Team Made Home Appliances Great Again In First 100 Days

Here's All The Ways Trump Is Making Appliances Great Again In Just 100 Days

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright will travel to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on Friday to tour nuclear facilities and take part in a summit on the future of artificial intelligence development in the United States.
Wright’s visit to Oak Ridge, one of the original sites of the Manhattan Project, comes after he spent Monday at New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Lab touring its highly secure supercomputing and plutonium facilities. At Oak Ridge, Wright will tour the site’s supercomputer and Y-12, a facility that produces and stores enriched uranium.
GOP Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, the chairman of the Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, will be one of several lawmakers hosting Wright.
“Oak Ridge and East Tennessee are at the forefront of developing groundbreaking new technologies such as AI, revitalizing our defense industrial base, and working to deliver on President Trump’s and Secretary Wright’s agenda to unleash American-made energy by expanding new nuclear power and technologies,” Fleischmann told The Daily Wire, adding that such advancements “are essential to our national security, economic prosperity, and powering our nation through the 21st Century.”
Wright’s visit to the Tennessee nuclear site comes as the administration prioritizes AI research and development to outperform U.S. adversaries like China. Wright will meet with OpenAI’s president and co-founder, Greg Brockman, on Friday and take part in a virtual summit described as a “1,000 Scientist AI Jam Session,” according to an Oak Ridge spokesman.
The summit is a “first-of-its-kind event being co-hosted by OpenAI and nine of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national labs to explore how AI can accelerate scientific discovery,” the spokesman told The Daily Wire. “Participants will have access to leading frontier AI models to test research applications, evaluate model responses, and help improve future AI systems. Secretary Wright and Mr. Brockman will give remarks and visit with participating Oak Ridge scientists.”
The participating national labs are Argonne, Berkeley, Brookhaven, Idaho, Livermore, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Pacific Northwest, and Princeton Plasma Physics.
Wright’s visits to Oak Ridge and Los Alamos emphasize the administration’s view of the importance of nuclear power. In an order signed on his first day as Energy Secretary, Wright said that the Trump administration aims to spark an “American nuclear renaissance” and that the United States should lead the “commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy.”
That energy will be needed to power the U.S. development of energy-intensive AI models. In a video of his tour of Los Alamos, the secretary described the AI race as the “next Manhattan Project,” a reference to the U.S. research program that developed the atomic bomb during the Second World War.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
More than 70 years ago, the Manhattan Project brought together the world’s greatest scientists and engineers here in Los Alamos for a patriotic effort that changed the world.
The next Manhattan Project has arrived and with <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@POTUS</a> leadership, we will win this critical race. <a href="https://t.co/E40rNzKgJJ">pic.twitter.com/E40rNzKgJJ</a>
&mdash; Secretary Chris Wright (@SecretaryWright) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecretaryWright/status/1894545339899641936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Energy Sec To Visit Tennessee Nuclear Facility, Take Part In AI Summit

EXCLUSIVE: Trump Energy Sec To Visit TN Nuclear Facility, Take Part In AI Summit

Politics

Tennessee

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