WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (FL-14) grilled Trump-appointed Energy Secretary Chris Wright on policies that are costing Americans.

Trump and GOP policies and their war with Iran are driving massive price hikes and inflation. Rep. Castor grilled Energy Secretary Chris Wright over the painful energy squeeze, channeling the frustration of hardworking Americans over their wallets. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, household energy bills have skyrocketed. In March 2026 alone, energy inflation increased by 10.9 percent, and gas prices increased by more than 21 percent—the largest increase in recorded history. Meanwhile, Wright and Trump have illegally canceled hundreds of clean energy projects already in progress, bent a knee to powerful oil and gas lobbies, and contributed to the rampant affordability.

“At best, the policy priorities from the DOE and the administration are incoherent. At worst, they pose a real risk to our energy reliability and resilience,” said Rep. Castor. “This budget does nothing to help hardworking American families. In fact, it actively hurts them. It’s a budget that will leave the United States further behind our competitors in the global energy race, while callously telling Americans, ‘good luck to you’ as they continue to scrape by.” 

Castor pressed Secretary Wright to prioritize cheaper, cleaner energy in the Department’s budget, keeping Americans top of mind, rather than corporations and polluters.

Below are Castor’s remarks as delivered:

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Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, the policies of the Trump administration have made life very expensive for our neighbors back home. It is truly soul-crushing what they are experiencing right now. Electric bills are way up under the Trump administration — household electric bills have risen as much as 13% nationally, and utilities are imposing massive rate hikes.

Trump’s war in Iran has sent an energy shock rippling through the economy with huge price spikes. Energy inflation is up 10.9% — that’s the highest in 20 years. Gas prices jumped over 21% in March alone, the biggest increase since records began in 1967.

Americans are grappling with wildly higher gas and diesel prices. And you know, consumer goods are transported across the country by trucks running on diesel, so folks are bracing for higher costs for consumer goods, too. The pain in the pocketbook comes at a rotten time for hard-working Americans.

They’re already paying more due to arbitrary and illegal Trump tariffs, and over the past few days, Republicans have been celebrating the Big Ugly Bill, but the impact has been devastating when it comes to energy bills for our neighbors back home. Because to pay for tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans in Congress rolled back many of the clean energy initiatives from the Inflation Reduction Act, which had been helping consumers save on energy costs. The Trump administration [and] the GOP eliminated tax credits for solar, wind, electric vehicles and home efficiency upgrades. 

So altogether, what is happening is you’re really sticking hard-working Americans with higher electric bills. On top of all that, despite higher energy demand and the need to lower prices, the Department of Energy has effectively killed cleaner, cheaper energy projects — some fully permitted and under construction — to the point that the country, in many places, is grappling with a shortage of power, and rate payers are paying even higher electric bills. And it's troubling that the DOE is making it all the more expensive by forcing expensive, dirty coal plants to stay online — counter to the plans of utilities, state regulators and grid operators due to the cost of ongoing operation. 

But do you know who’s making out like bandits through all this? Oil and gas executives.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Trump’s war in Iran is yielding a windfall for America’s top oil executives, particularly CEOs who have pocketed—get this—over the past couple of months, $1.4 billion. When the Chevron chief executive sold shares, he pocketed $104 million. ConocoPhillips’ CEO netted about $54.3 million in March alone. The CEO of Baker Hughes sold about $33 million worth of stock during the same month.

The Trump Administration and fossil fuel executives certainly have consumers over the barrel in more ways than one. You know, this Trump energy crisis almost seems intentional, and this is the context for the President's proposed budget. Aside from the NNSA, you’re proposing an 11% cut in areas that help consumers save, like full elimination of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the weatherization program that this committee reauthorized in a bipartisan fashion last year.

You proposed to cut initiatives for critical minerals, geothermal energy and hydropower—those are bipartisan issues that we all support. That seems backwards. As usual, the only thing that the administration reliably supports are polluters. The President's budget proposes $23 million to subsidize the dying coal industry. It requests over almost $2 billion for a new baseload power account to preserve coal, oil and gas industries.

At best, the policy priorities from the DOE and the administration are incoherent. At worst, they pose a real risk to our energy reliability and resilience. 

You've lost a lot of employees. They were DOGE’ed. They were fired. Now, the DOE faces a historic labor shortage. It calls into question whether you can administer the law as Congress intended. You've now lost so many people that, rather than address it, you request new power for political appointees alone to make these decisions, and this opens the door to more corruption and grift that has become a hallmark of the Trump Administration. 

This budget does nothing to help hardworking American families. In fact, it actively hurts them. It's a budget that will leave the United States further behind our competitors in the global energy race, while callously telling Americans ‘good luck to you’ as they continue to scrape by. 

Our neighbors back home deserve better, Mr. Secretary. They deserve cheaper, more affordable, reliable, clean energy. I hope you can answer these questions, because we have a lot of them today. I yield back. Thank you very much.