Secretary Wright Joins Fox Business - July 7, 2026

Energy Secretary Chris Wright joins me now. Mr. Secretary, even though you have these sporadic attacks ongoing by the Iranians, you still have oil down below 70 today. I mean, I'm just wondering, has the oil market adjusted to the Iranian uncertainty? David, I think what you're seeing there is confidence in President Trump's leadership and confidence in the American military. On July 4th, our 250th birthday, 22.5 million barrels of oil came from the Persian Gulf region. More than pre-conflict levels. The vast majority of that through the Strait of Hormuz. It's not with Iranian cooperation, it's with the might of the American military and confidence that President Trump will keep flows restored in the Strait of Hormuz. Well, that being true, it also has something to do with the Saudis and others rerouting so that they don't have to go through the Strait, correct? That's right. Of the 22.5 million barrels that flew out on July 4th, 6 million came from those rerouted pipeline oils and 16.5 million through the Strait. And, of course, those pipelines that avoid the Strait, they'll expand and they'll grow in the next 12 to 24 months. We're not going to let Iran hold the world hostage as much as they're desperately trying to do that. Now, as oil prices come down, a lot of people are wondering when the United States is going to refill our strategic petroleum reserves, which is right now at its lowest level since 1983. When will that happen? That'll happen over the next 24 months. You know, as we're releasing this oil right now because of these flows, we're not selling any of these barrels, we're trading them. We're bringing a barrel out today to get one and a quarter barrels back next year sometime. So, ultimately, we'll have 30 to 40 million barrels of oil additional in the SPR than when we started these releases. Very different than the Biden administration that sold the barrels to drive down gasoline prices and drained it. We're just borrowing barrels and replacing one and a quarter barrels for every barrel we take out. Yeah, well, clearly they were doing that for sure political reasons because an election was coming up. It was a hell of a way to use up our reserves. I want to bring it back home to energy here in the United States. Take a look at this Wall Street Journal article, the five alarm risks facing the power grid this summer. It talks about a perfect storm. We have high temperatures, new AI data centers pulling a lot of energy, and those blue state anti-fossil fuel policies. People are really worried, particularly in blue states, about blackouts because of all this. Is that a possibility? Yeah, David, and that last one is by far the biggest threat. These are blue state policies, and they were Obama administration policies and Biden administration policies. Seventeen years ago, the Democrats decided they're the party of expensive energy. They're the party of unreality. We're going to oppose fossil fuels, even though they're 80% of American energy and 80% of global energy. We're going to close coal plants, make it hard to build new gas plants, close nuclear plants, and we're going to bet the farm on the sun and the wind. That was a disastrous bet that drove high electricity prices and stopped any growth of American electricity production. Fortunately, with the Working Families Tax Cut, July 4, we just passed a day that those subsidies are no longer available if you start construction on a project today. Ironically, spending hundreds of billions of dollars of government subsidies was a driver of increased electricity prices. Normally, you have a huge subsidy. You push the price of something down. They lost twice. Spend massive subsidies, make electricity more expensive, but the Trump administration is reversing all of that. You will see an end to the rise of the electricity prices, and our pragmatic policies will keep the lights on and keep the air conditioners running this summer, but it will be a massive challenge, given 17 years of Democrat policies degrading the quality of our electric grid. I live in New York where we have these extraordinary reserves of natural gas which are unattainable because of these blue state regulations. Of course, it's the same in California and elsewhere. One more for you, Mr. Secretary. You've been overhauling all those pesky anti-appliance rules that were imposed by the last administration against stoves, showerheads, incandescent light bulbs, etc. How much more work needs to be done here? What exactly are you going to do? It's another one of these crazy battles against Democratic policies. They want to pass laws that make your appliances more expensive and less effective. It's amazing Americans have put up with that for so long. A clothes dryer. It's about airflow and heat. Both of those cost energy. New clothes dryers have to deliver less heat and less airflow, which means they run for an hour and your clothes still aren't dry, and you have to run them again. Very quickly, are those rules now changed quickly? Yes. We're going to get rid of all of those nonsense rules through a technical process, but yes, we're going to let Americans choose what they want to buy. What a novel idea. Indeed it is. Secretary Chris Wright, thank you so much for being here, sir. Appreciate it.