Who’s the biggest climate villain in the Trump administration — other than President Donald Trump himself? Our Heatmap braintrust had one clear answer: Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Wright entered the Trump administration 2.0 with lots of good will in the energy sector and wonky academia because of his education at MIT and tenure as CEO of a power and fuels company. But his Trumpian turn — terminating billions in energy and climate spending and pivoting to misinformation-riddled tweets — has shocked essentially everyone who thought he’d be a cooler head on energy and climate. Wright’s official X account has become a receptacle for questionable statements about the energy sector, such as the provably false claim that covering the entire planet in solar panels would only produce a fifth of the world’s energy. This prompted Heatmap executive editor Robinson Meyer to suggest that one might call him “Chris Wrong,” instead.
Turns out climate insiders agree. Approximately 32% of respondents in our annual Insiders Survey named Wright as the Trump administration’s biggest decarbonization opponent. Participants spanning professional backgrounds focused on his transformation from Ivy League-adjacent energy wonk and business executive to an anti-renewables cultural crusader, with multiple survey respondents describing Wright’s rhetoric on energy as “stupid.” They also pointed specifically at his decision to help prop up aging coal plants, a step that former Energy Secretary Rick Perry tried to take under the first Trump administration but did not follow through with.
“I think he’s smart enough to know exactly how stupid what he’s saying really is,” one reformer told us. One academic complained: “I really wish he would have come in and been the businessman that I thought he was.”
Some survey respondents pointed to Wright after naming other officials they thought were doing more damage to climate policy. Illinois Democratic Representative Sean Casten argued that Office of Management and Budget head Russ Vought — the third most popular climate villain — was the most disruptive to the energy transition because Vought handles the intricacies of the administrative state, laying the blame for any DOE policies at his doorstep, not Wright’s.
“Chris Wright is a stupid guy with not a lot of power,” Casten said. “Russ Vought is a smart guy with a lot of power.”
Holly Jean Buck, a former management and program analyst in the Energy Department’s fossil and carbon management division, told us that “the worst” of this administration has come from its cancellation of DOE decarbonization projects. But it’s unclear whether Wright himself led the charge to derail those efforts. “A lot of that rests with Chris Wright, but I don’t know if there were other people driving those decisions. The internal politics within the administration are kind of opaque to me.”
As a factual matter, few have been more harmful for federal decarbonization efforts than Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin, who is in the process of shredding regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Zeldin was the second most popular answer to this particular question overall, but only eight people said he was the most harmful. Even fewer people — only three — named Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose secretarial orders under White House direction have all but frozen new solar and wind approvals across the government.
A non-trivial number of respondents told us they see Trump’s cabinet officials simply taking orders from the top of government. “I don’t want to point the finger at anyone other than this president because he owns it all,” one former government official told us. “He’s the one that is going to bear the brunt and be responsible.”
We reached out to the Energy Department for comment. Here is spokesperson Ben Dietderich’s response, in full:
Secretary Wright is proud of the Trump administration’s work to restore commonsense energy policy at home and abroad. Our priority is making energy affordable, reliable, and secure for every American — not catering to far-left activists.
And here’s the irony: President Trump’s push for a true American nuclear renaissance and expanded U.S. natural gas exports will likely make him the most effective leader in history at reducing carbon emissions. When that happens, we trust you’ll be ready to hand him the award he’s earned.
The Heatmap Insiders Survey of 55 invited expert respondents was conducted by Heatmap News reporters during November and December 2025. Responses were collected via phone interviews. All participants were given the opportunity to record responses anonymously. Not all respondents answered all questions.
A view of Drax's wood-burning plant in North Yorkshire, England. Christopher Furlong/Getty Images