Secretary Wright Delivers Remarks at Dairyland Power Cooperative - October 27, 2026

Well, thank you for joining us today. We were blessed with a beautiful day, and every day I'm blessed with a fantastic team that runs Dairyland and operates this coal plant, John P. Magit. We call it JPM. It's been around for 47 years providing baseload reliable energy for this region. Couldn't be more proud of the team. Couldn't be happier that Secretary Wright has visited us today. We've been around 85 years. First Energy Secretary to visit us. We've got a congressman and Derek Van Orden that has visited visited us many times. In fact this is maybe your third trip to this plant and we really appreciate your engagement and we're really looking forward to the future here at Dairyland. I have never been more optimistic to be in this business. There are so many opportunities and here at Dairyland we believe challenges and chaos represent opportunities to make our members wealthy. And that's our number one goal is to provide safe, reliable, and affordable energy. And it's my pleasure to introduce Congressman Derek Van Orden. Thank you very much. Good, yeah. Thank you very much. Thanks to all the men and women at Dairyland Power for keeping our homes warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It's going to get 20 degrees below zero in the state of Wisconsin, whether or not you want it to or not. And the reason that Wisconsinites are not freezing to death is because of this coal plant behind us and other coal plants around the state and nuclear energy. That provides baseline power, and that's what we need to make sure that when you flip a light switch, the light actually goes on. And that does not happen with wind and solar. It doesn't matter what you think. That's a fact. So we have to make sure that we're investing in clean burning coal, nuclear energy, and gas. So, I'm incredibly proud to have the Secretary here. This man actually knows what the heck he's talking about. And you have been more assertive in making sure that Americans have baseline power that we need for our civilization than any Secretary of Energy that I think has ever been in office. So thank you very much for coming. Welcome to the coolies. You are always welcome here in your second home of Wisconsin, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Congressman. Thank you. Yeah, I want to thank the people at JPM Plant that work on this every day. We don't have the American quality of life without this plant ready to run and running 365 days a year. Now, when it's down for maintenance as it is right now, its sister plants are up and covering for it. But there has been a political movement probably for two decades now. I date it to the start of the Obama administration, so maybe it's only 17 years. That somehow we benefit the world and we benefit America by closing coal plants. This could not be more wrong. I can slice that argument a couple of different ways. One on cost. Ten states through politics, ignorant politics that doesn't do math, have closed all their coal plants. Those ten states on average have 80 percent higher electricity prices than the ten states. That have made no efforts to close their coal plants. Some of them have closed. They've been out-competed. But they've focused on energy as a public good and not energy as a talking point at the Chardonnay parties. But the Chardonnay partiers that closed all their coal plants raised their electricity prices by 80%. I've yet to meet an American that said, yes, please raise my energy prices by 80%. Please make my factories and jobs leave. New England or California or the United States and send them overseas, they don't reduce emissions, they just move emissions, but they impoverish Americans and they push American business out of jurisdictions that get energy policy wrong. Fortunately, President Trump and our whole administration is coming back just to bring common sense. Energy is about humans and it's about math. We want to have affordable, reliable, secure energy so people can afford to pay their bills and that businesses will come to their regions and areas and create more jobs. If there's more jobs than there are workers, wages go up and people migrate into your region and you have prosperity and opportunity. That's what Congressman Van Orden and myself And the Republicans in Washington have fought relentlessly for for two years. We will fight relentlessly until the day we die to put humans first. It's about human beings. It's about life. It's not about politics. And willing to be extremely ignorant about energy and say you're doing it for human well-being. You are not. The math doesn't work. This plant makes our lives great. It gives our kids and our grandkids opportunities. I'm so proud to meet the workers here that run this plant, that make our lives awesome. God bless you. Thank you. Let's fight to have sober, reasonable, human-focused energy policies in all 50 states in the United States.