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BROWNSVILLE — U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright delivered brief remarks and took questions from media at the Port of Brownsville administration building on Tuesday.
It was originally planned as a double billing, with Wright meant to accompany Vice President J.D. Vance to Brownsville, though Vance was unable to make it due to “schedule changes,” according to the secretary.
“I came down to Brownsville today and was going to be here with Vice President Vance for a simple reason,” Wright said. “Brownsville illustrates exactly what the Trump administration is about. In the simplest terms, I’d say the Trump administration’s goal is to build big things in America again, lean in on our energy industry, grow our energy production in this country, use that energy to power local industries as we’re seeing them spring up and grow to scale around Brownsville, and export that energy to our friends and allies all around the world.
“We are thrilled to see the range of large projects, the major investments in job creation going around Brownsville, and that doesn’t just happen, it needs to be made to happen.”
Construction of Rio Grande LNG is well underway at the port, Texas LNG is also planning to build a terminal, and America First Refining plans to build a major refinery there. Wright also cited SpaceX as among the “big things” happening in Brownsville, again tying the community to the administration’s priorities.
“We look at this community as perfectly in sync with the Trump administration, so we came down to meet the business leaders, thank them for their efforts and their investments in this community.”
Port executives and Brownsville Navigation District board members stood behind Wright as he spoke to reporters from behind a podium, characterizing the administration’s agenda as being “higher wages (and) lower costs.”
“It’s that simple,” he said. “Our criteria is pretty simple. If we can partner together with business leaders and investors on private projects that will deliver lower cost of energy, we support a lot of those, certainly including ones in the Brownsville area here.”
Wright blamed the Biden administration for supporting energy projects that mainly “drove up the price of energy.”
As for the war the United States and Israel launched against Iran on Feb. 28, and which has sent oil and fuel prices soaring, he said it was a necessary action to prevent Iran’s regime from developing nuclear weapons despite “short-term disruptions in energy prices.”
Asked by MyRGV.com whether the Trump administration should be pursuing alternative sources of energy in addition to hydrocarbons in light of more frequent catastrophic weather events around the globe, which most climate experts attribute to climate change, Wright cited a report from the “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
“(According to) their summary on extreme weather, there has not been an increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, of tornadoes, of floods, of droughts,” he said. “So there’s a lot of talk about scaring people about extreme weather. The data actually doesn’t show a change.
“There’s been a small increase in the amount of extreme precipitation events. Because as the world gets a little bit warmer, it’s getting a little bit wetter, it’s getting a little bit greener. So we do have a little bit more rain on average.”
Jim Kossin, one of the IPCC report’s lead authors, was quoted by Yale Climate Connections news service saying that “we have high confidence that extreme precipitation events are increasing in intensity and frequency and that human actions are playing a substantial role.”
Although the science is less clear when it comes to drought, Kossin is quoted as saying, “we still have good confidence that drought extremes are increasing and that human actions are playing a role.”