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Energy secretary blames "blue state" policies for grid risks and pledges to roll back appliance rules
Summary
In the same interview, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said policies in Democratic-led states and prior administrations have degraded the electric grid and said his department will move to reverse federal appliance-efficiency rules through technical processes, arguing they make appliances costlier and less effective.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned in an interview that policies adopted by Democratic administrations and many state governments have, in his view, increased risks to grid reliability and raised electricity prices, and he said the Department of Energy will begin reversing certain federal appliance-efficiency rules.
Responding to a host question that cited a Wall Street Journal list of risks to the power grid this summer'including high temperatures and new data centers'Wright said the biggest threat was what he called "blue state policies." "These are blue state policies, and they were Obama administration policies and Biden administration policies," he said, arguing that closing coal and nuclear plants and restricting new gas-fired generation had reduced the ability to meet demand.
On federal appliance standards, the secretary said the administration would "get rid of all of those nonsense rules through a technical process," naming rules affecting stoves, shower heads and incandescent bulbs and saying the changes would let consumers choose the products they want. The host noted that some states have abundant natural gas reserves but that regulations can limit access.
The interview records the secretary's policy positions and intentions; it does not provide independent evidence in the transcript to substantiate causal links between the policies he described and current grid reliability or price changes. The remarks should be read as the secretary's assertions of administration views and planned rulemaking or regulatory action rather than as completed policy outcomes.
