← Videos · Energy & Permitting

Wright Defends Reversal of California EV Mandate on Fox News

June 12, 2025 · U.S. Department of Energy · 0:06:12

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Fox News’s Sandra Smith that he supports electric vehicles as a technology but that adoption should be consumer choice, according to the Department of Energy’s upload of the June 12, 2025 interview. The segment covered that day’s signings reversing California’s electric vehicle mandate, including its 2035 deadline for selling only electric vehicles.

Wright said the California mandate was a national problem because well over a dozen states had tied their regulations to California’s, forcing automakers selling to all Americans toward phasing out internal combustion engines even though consumers, in his words, voted that that is not what they want. He said California had been granted a special right by Congress to set its own regulations, had abused that authority beyond local air quality concerns into climate politics and top-down control, and that Congress had voted to remove the special privilege — which he predicted California would ultimately lose in litigation.

Smith reported that California and ten other states were filing lawsuits over the signings. Wright responded that those states had signed on to follow California’s regulations. On gas prices, Wright cited an AAA national average of $3.12 and described prices as adjusted and at their lowest in 20 years at the start of the summer driving season, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The interview states the administration’s federalism argument on vehicle standards — a congressionally granted waiver, abused and now revoked — on the day the reversal was signed and immediately challenged in court.

Sources: U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Wright Joins Fox News’ Sandra Smith - June 12, 2025”, 2025-06-12 (official upload, embedded above; published 2025-06-12). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.