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Wright and Burgum Discuss the CP2 LNG Export Approval, Mar. 21, 2025

March 21, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:08:12

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What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum addressed the press following a White House meeting with oil and gas executives, in the Department of Energy’s upload of the March 21, 2025 session. Burgum, who introduced the pair as chair and vice chair of the National Energy Dominance Council, said the meeting was led by President Trump and that none of the 15 to 20 executives in the room, as he gave the count, had been invited to the White House in the previous four years; he put the industry’s workforce at almost 11 million employees, as he stated the figure.

Wright said he had signed another LNG export approval that morning, for the CP2 facility, which he described as a very large export facility that had been ready to be approved in the previous administration before the export pause. He said the department had also released publicly an exhaustive department report on LNG exports completed in September 2023 — months before the pause study was announced, as he dated it — which, in his account, showed that in all scenarios the impact of exports on domestic natural gas prices was negligible and that increased U.S. LNG exports would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions; he said the report had been buried and its existence denied until congressional subpoenas and digging produced it.

In questions, Burgum said permitting processes routinely take longer than the building itself and framed the AI contest with China as requiring the country, in his phrase, not just to drill but to build. Wright said electricity prices had risen well over 20% in the previous four years with almost no increase in output and that the administration was moving urgently to reverse that trajectory, with impacts he expected later in the year. Asked about a $50 barrel of oil, Wright declined to name a price, saying prices are set by supply and demand and the administration’s work is to remove barriers and grow supply; Burgum added that regulatory costs could amount to more than 10%, and perhaps more than 20%, of the cost of energy, as he estimated it. Both secretaries said tax credits were not discussed in the meeting, and Wright said there had been no discussion that day of U.S. operation of Ukrainian nuclear plants.

Why it matters

The session is the National Energy Dominance Council’s two chairs presenting jointly: the CP2 approval as the day’s concrete action, and Wright’s buried-study account as the administration’s evidentiary case that the export pause was political rather than analytical — an account this page attributes to Wright as he stated it.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the CP2 LNG export approval signed by Secretary Wright on March 21, 2025, as he announced it at this session. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Discusses LNG Export Approval for CP2 and Report on LNG Exports” (official upload, embedded above; proceedings as delivered at the session, including remarks by Secretary Wright and Secretary Burgum).