Trump Chooses Oil Fracking Boss Wright as Energy Secretary
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(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump nominated Chris Wright, who runs a Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services company, to lead the Energy Department.
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Wright, the chief executive officer of Liberty Energy Inc., has no previous Washington experience. He’s made a name for himself as a vocal proponent of oil and gas, saying fossil fuels are crucial for spreading prosperity and lifting people from poverty. The threat of global warming, he has said, is exaggerated.
“Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy,” Trump said in a statement Saturday. “He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas. Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.”
Trump said Wright, if confirmed, would also sit on the newly formed Council of National Energy that will be chaired by Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department.
The Energy Department has a disparate mission that includes helping to maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the US’s several hundred million-barrel stockpile of crude oil.
It also plays a key role in approving projects to export liquefied natural gas, something that was paused during Biden’s administration. Trump has vowed to undo the pause.
While the department has little authority over oil and gas development, Wright will play a leading role in helping Trump carry out his energy priorities.
Trump’s selection of Wright, whose company is among the largest providers of fracking services globally, is a show of support for the hot-button oil and gas extraction method that Trump frequently touted during the campaign to attack his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.
Harris said she’d consider banning the technique during her 2020 primary run and reversed course in her 2024 campaign.
‘No Climate Crisis’
Wright’s company published a 180-page paper this year that concluded climate change “is far from the world’s greatest threat to human life,” and that “hydrocarbons are essential to improving the wealth, health, and life opportunities for the less energized.”
“There is no climate crisis. And we are not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted on his LinkedIn page. “Humans, and all complex life on earth, is simply impossible without carbon dioxide — hence the term carbon pollution is outrageous.”