WHEN: Today, Friday, February 7, 2025
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC exclusive interview with U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET) today, Friday, February 7. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/02/07/u-s-energy-sec-chris-wright-we-can-absolutely-lower-oil-gas-prices-without-impacting-stocks.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
BRIAN SULLIVAN: We are here in a CNBC exclusive with the new secretary of energy that is Chris Wright. He’s the former CEO of Liberty Energy Services, the founder as well. Former board member of nuclear company Oklo. And we appreciate you giving us this exclusive, Mr. Secretary. Thank you very Much,
CHRIS WRIGHT: Brian. Thrilled to be here with you.
SULLIVAN: Alright, we’re gonna talk about oil, we’re gonna talk about tariffs, talk about nuclear, talk about all that stuff. But I’ve got to talk about what everybody’s talking about here in DC, which is this cost cutting brigade, this DOGE group. There were reports out that it was 23-year-olds poking around computer systems here. Nobody seems to know what’s going on. Can you give us on the record clarity about who these people are and exactly what they’re doing in computer systems? Because literally, I want to talk about what matters, but this is all anybody else seems to be talking about.
WRIGHT: Yeah, well, let’s address that. Look, I’m excited about that. Look, the government is is old and maybe a little bit stodgy, and we’ve got some young kids think, think young gun management consultants coming in to take a critical look at how things are run. Can we do things a little bit more efficiently? Are our systems as efficient as they should be? I’ve heard these rumors. They’re like seeing our nuclear secrets and all that. None of that is true at all. They don’t have security clearances—
SULLIVAN: What is true? Who are these people and what are they doing?
WRIGHT: They’re part of a team assembled by DOGE, friends in Elon’s broader circle that are very good at IT and very good at systems. And they’re just doing a critical evaluation of how do we do things today, and come up with some ideas about maybe how we could do things better.
SULLIVAN: We know who they are. You said they have badges—
WRIGHT: Oh absolutely.
SULLIVAN: They’re in the systems. They’re not random people on the internet that are act — I want to be clear on who these people are because there is a fear, like they have my social security number. They might have access to the codes, as you said.
WRIGHT: They don’t have anybody’s proprietary information, but I know exactly who they are. We have three people in our building run through, checked by our security, and they have access to look around, talk to people and give us some good feedback on how things are going. I think nothing to be worried about here.
SULLIVAN: Okay, we’ll move on from that. Get to the topical issues, price of oil. The president says, drill, baby, drill. You’re a frack, you’re a guy that ran a fracking company. How do we balance out bringing down the price of gasoline, adding to US production, but yet not destroying the oil and gas investments as well that the CNBC audience talks about and looks at every day?
WRIGHT: Yeah, of course, it’s a business and prices are dictated by supply and demand, but we’ve had four years of an administration that’s done everything it could to raise the cost to produce a barrel of oil. We’re not sure if you can get a permit, you know, to drill here, or it’s going to take 18 months. You’ve got uncertainty. You’ve got to build pipelines or gathering lines to move that to product to market. Well, we’re not sure if you can do that. You’ve got to do another study, another this. So when you add the costs, of course, you hurt the economics. Now we’re going to have a more efficient operating environment. I think we’re going to see some efficiencies from scale, some efficiencies from certainty and more more credible capital markets. We’ve tried to starve the oil and gas industry globally somehow, thinking that’s going to help climate change. There’s been a lot of nonsense. And I think the agenda, this administration, this President, is to bring back common sense.
SULLIVAN: Can we have lower oil and gas prices and still have stocks that are not much lower than they are right now?
WRIGHT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you lower the cost of operations, there’s a lot of fat in the cost of operations. If you lower the cost of operations, that’s going to that’s going to flow through to lower prices, but not necessarily lower profits.
SULLIVAN: And that margin you think can remain steady and thus hold up because you are the CEO of a public or were of a publicly traded company, and on the board which you have now left of another publicly traded company?
WRIGHT: Absolutely. And look, it’s capitalism and businesses driven by profit motives that have driven innovation, that have driven efficiency and driven improvements in our system. And that’s exactly what we want going forward in nuclear and natural gas and oil and geothermal, whatever it is.
SULLIVAN: Sara and David and Carl, right before we came to this interview, talking about tariffs and the impact they were showing health, beauty stock down 25%. We know there’s a pause on the potential Canada tariffs, 4.4 million barrels a day we bring in from Canada, on average, much of that going to where you’re from, the Rocky Mountain, the Denver area, the upper Midwest. What is your view on potential 10% tariffs? What if it does happen, what is going to happen to U.S. oil and gasoline prices?
WRIGHT: Well, look, obviously, the Canadian energy system is built integrated with the United States energy system. Those pipelines come to U.S. refineries that are tuned to refine that heavier, more viscous crude that Canada produces. I don’t think we’re going to see that change. As the President has said, this is a drug war. This is about concerns and security at our border. This is to get everyone’s attention and focus on how can we reduce criminals and fentanyl and drugs that are a threat to American security coming in our borders. I think things are moving in a productive direction.
SULLIVAN: So you don’t, it doesn’t sound like you think the tariffs would ultimately occur.
WRIGHT: I don’t know what the future will bring there, but I know we’ve got very productive dialogs right now, and we’re going to see a reduction in criminal activity coming across our borders.
SULLIVAN: Because, I’m sure you have many friends in Canada, as do I, and you know they’re angry about this. They’re saying well, you know what? If they want to tariff our oil, let’s just ship it to Vancouver, and we’re going to sell it overseas. I would call that the nuclear option. Do you see anything like that occurring if the tariffs were to occur, Mr. Secretary?
WRIGHT: It’s hard to build new pipeline capacity. Canada does have a West Coast pipeline, which is running today and exporting oil to Asia, but that’s that’s 10% or less than 10% of Canadian oil production. But look, this President is aggressive. He doesn’t like the status quo. He wants to change things and improve things. We had a lot of noise and sound and fury last time he was president about tariffs and inflation. Inflation averaged less than 2% in the four years he was president. His agenda is to lower prices and better American lives. I don’t see any reason to believe that’s not going to happen.
SULLIVAN: You mentioned climate about a couple minutes ago, coming into this administration, one of the big question marks is, what is going to happen to the loans and the grants and the IRA Inflation Reduction Act monies that may be already committed to wind to solar? This matters to CNBC’s audience, the stock market, lot of these companies have seen their share price decline by a lot. What is your view on the Inflation Reduction Act and wind and solar projects and the monies that are required to produce them?
WRIGHT: So look, I’m in this chair three days now. One of the things we are doing is looking at all the projects that are out there. Where are the commitments? Where are the uncommitted funds? What’s the best use to grow the supply of affordable, reliable, secure American energy? Tremendous opportunities there. So there’s upside here as well. But one thing I will say, Brian, that we will not do is follow the German model. And I think the last administration wanted to go down that road. Germany spent half a trillion dollars, made their electricity two to three times more expensive, and they produce 20% less electricity today than they did 15 years ago. We’re not going to go down that road. We want affordable, reliable, secure energy and reindustrialization of America, not deindustrialization of America.
SULLIVAN: Well, that’s something I’ve obviously personally reported on many times for CNBC, been over there, seen what’s happened. So just to be clear, because let’s be honest, a lot of Wall Street makes a lot of money investing in wind and solar and even nuclear. You were on the board of a nuclear company. So final question, should we say that that it’s possible when big wind and solar projects are still going to be okay under that they’re not going to be starved of funds under this administration. What’s the what’s the money situation regarding some of these renewable wind and solar and nuclear type energy programs?
WRIGHT: Look, I think you’re going to see continued development in the United States of all of these energy sources, but obviously a flow of funds from this administration is all going to be about, not what the energy technology is, but will it increase the supply of affordable, reliable, secure energy? Will it better the lives of American consumers and encourage businesses to build things in America.
SULLIVAN: Well, finally, on building things. The first nuclear plant in the United States just opened up last year in Georgia. Took about 20 plus years to build, way over budget. You’re a nuclear guy, you’re on the board of Oklo. You’re not, you resigned that, that seat. What is the future of nuclear in the United States? Some say it’s the future, others say way too doggone expensive up front doesn’t pay off.
WRIGHT: I think the future is very bright, very bright. It’s an energy dense technology that gives reliable energy at all times with a small amount of land and a small amount of materials. Do we need innovation? Do we need some government out of the way to make it work economically? Absolutely, but that’s what America is about.
SULLIVAN: Exclusive Interview with the new Secretary of Energy on day three, Christopher Wright, thank you very much for your time here in Washington, DC. We appreciate it. Carl back to you.
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