Energy Dominance and China's Renewable Strategy

Energy dominance, Secretary. Um, I just ask you a simple yes/no question.

Do you agree that China is also trying to achieve total energy

dominance?

Yes/no.

I-

Okay, if that's not a yes/no-

M-

... I'll, I'll reclaim my time. Do you know how much new energy China put

online

last year?

New energy.

Intermittent or base load?

An- any, all, all energy. Five hundred forty-three gigawatts.

Do you know how much of that was renewable?

Uh, I do not know how much of it did not

operate-

It was four hundred thirty-four gigawatts.

Uh, eighty percent-

Oh, but only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining

... eighty percent. They put on four hundred thirty-four

gigawatts annually.

Uh, eighty percent of the new energy that they put online last year

was renewable.

Eighty percent. You don't have to take my word for it.

I'm As- I am Asian, so good at math, but you can look that up.

Eighty percent of the energy they put up was renewable.

Meanwhile, the United States under your, quote, "total energy dominance" strategy

of rejecting renewable energy, put up fifty-three gigawatts of new energy

last year, less than ten percent of what China put

up.

Now, your clear bias against renewable energy

in the face of all evidence is

harming our national security, harming our ability to have energy

independence, and

putting us further and further behind the Chinese.

And the cancellation of TotalEnergies offshore wind leases last year is

a case study on your department's economically illiterate and

unlawful energy strategy.

In March 2026, uh, Trump settled with TotalEnergies, a

French oil company, for one billion dollars in exchange for

ca- cancellation of its

offshore wind leases. If completed, uh, TotalEnergies

projects would have produced enough energy to power one point seven million homes

in the United States. Furthermore, the administration paid this

company a billion dollars, again, from a fund strictly reserved for

settlements

resulting in active or imminent litigation requiring monetary

compensation. Which was not the case with Total, uh,

because in fact in

March 2026, the CEO of Total, uh, told CNBC

that their company had approached you, had approached the federal government for

reimbursement after Trump had paused all offshore wind permitting.

So again, a, a simple yes/no question for you.

Uh, while constituents deal with sky-high

utility prices, do you think it's

appropriate that your department sent one billion dollar to a

foreign oil company to stop producing energy?

I-- There, there's so many things that you said that are, uh, false

or misleading,

I don't know where to start.

I pointed out a few things that you said that were false initially.

But I, but I will start with, I will start with one thing, that-

Mm-hmm

... Total was refunded their money.

They essentially gave the US government a, a interest-free loan-

Mm-hmm

... and their money was refunded to them.

Yeah, I know you've described this as a refund

in the past.

I, I'm not in- interested in semantics.

You gave them a billion dollars-

It's, it's not, it's not semantics

... to stop producing energy.

It's not semantics.

It, it is semantics. You gave them-

It is their, it's their money

... a billion dollars out of a fund reserved

for settlements to...

Is that not true? You gave them a billion dollars out of a

fund reserved for-

I didn't

... legal settlements.

I didn't give them anything. I ref-

It-

We refunded their money.

Okay, it is-

But only under, only if, only if they-

But you gave them a billion dollars, right?

A re-- How would you wanna characterize a refund

to stop producing energy?

Which, which, which they have already, which they've already invested in energy

pro-

I'll, I'll reclaim my time. Thank you very much

... they've already invested that money in energy projects-