On September 5, 2025, Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright defended the Trump administration’s decision to cancel a $6.2 billion offshore wind farm near Rhode Island. In the course of his remarks, the Secretary contradicted scientific research showing that climate change is already, and will continue to, cause impacts directly felt by Americans.
Secretary Wright claimed, for example, that “[c]limate change, for impacting the quality of your life, is not incredibly important… if it wasn’t in the news, in the media, you wouldn’t know.” He also falsely stated that offshore wind turbines lead to higher electricity prices and claimed that the transition away from fossil fuels had hurt the United States. Jesse Jenkins, an associate professor of energy at Princeton University, said “[Wright] is doing the classic correlation equals causality” and called the assertion that green energy caused higher electricity prices in the U.S. false and that the opposite was true in many parts of the country.