Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the Trump administration’s pivot away from renewable energy in Italy on Wednesday, saying their plans to sharply expand U.S. fossil fuel exports were crucial to “peace and prosperity.”
The secretaries are swinging through Europe this week on a mission to secure contracts to sell more American fossil fuels and lobby the European Union to loosen environmental regulations that they have said are too onerous.
Mr. Wright said he and Mr. Burgum would be in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the European Union’s requirements that oil and gas companies limit leaks of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and a law requiring companies to prevent adverse human rights and environmental effects in their production process.
“There are a number of non-tariff barriers that are I think are problematic,” he said, speaking at a news conference in Italy.
The United States is currently the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas as well as the largest producer of oil. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Europe has largely replaced its purchase of Russian fuels with American ones, while heavily investing in wind and solar power. Renewable energy has taken off in Europe in part because many countries see it as a way of not having to rely on anyone else for their supply when they themselves don’t have significant reserves of fossil fuels.
But European policymakers have also taken the threat of climate change much more seriously. The European Union has a law that mandates a 55 percent reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a zeroing them out by 2050.
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