Wright in 2018. Photo: Andy Cross/The Denver Post via Getty Images
Chris Wright, President-elect Trump's choice for energy secretary, has dismissed the urgent need to address climate change, throwing into doubt DOE programs to transition away from fossil fuels.
Why it matters: If confirmed, Wright could cause whiplash at an agency that has stood up programs to spend billions on decarbonizing wide swaths of the economy.
- While the Energy Department doesn't oversee fossil fuels leasing, Wright could close the spigot of money to rapidly scale up technologies aimed at slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
- He could redirect money to carbon management, nuclear and geothermal projects.
Zoom in: Wright is founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, a fracking technology and oilfield services company.
- He also sits on the board of nuclear power startup Oklo, which is developing a microreactor at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory.
- "Nuclear appears to be the most viable option to add sizable new energy resources in the coming decades," Wright wrote in a "Bettering Human Lives" report this year.
- Liberty Energy also invested $10 million in Fervo Energy, a next-generation geothermal company that has partnered with DOE and signed deals with Google.
The big picture: Wright — whose firm fracks roughly 20 percent of the onshore wells drilled in the U.S. and Canada — argues that climate initiatives have hampered oil and gas production and hurt people without access to energy.
- Impoverished countries are "going to need more oil, more natural gas, and certainly in the next few decades, likely more coal as well — I'm not anti-coal," he told a podcast interviewer in April.
- Under President Biden, the agency has hired about 1,000 people to serve in the Clean Energy Corps to "fight against the climate crisis" and solve "the world's greatest challenge."
Between the lines: Wright has been willing to fight critics and the media.
- After a Wall Street Journal article reported that Wright "fights climate science," he wrote a response on the company's website: "My goal is to short-circuit the media, activists, and politicians who thrive on frightening, alarmist climate pronouncements that are often at odds with the facts."
- Asked on the podcast this year whether people have criticized his positions, he said: "I don't mind taking the arrows."
What they're saying: Democrats vilified Wright's nomination.
- Rep. Sean Casten — who had a tense exchange with Wright at a House Financial Services hearing this year — called him "a science-denying, self-serving, sanctimonious fracker who consistently puts the wants of energy producers over the needs of American energy consumers."
The other side: American Petroleum Institute CEO Mike Sommers said the group looks forward to Wright "lifting DOE's pause on LNG export permits and ensuring the open access of American energy for our allies around the world."
- Scott Segal, partner at law and policy firm Bracewell, said Wright "supports a full range of energy sources."
- "Rather than opposing renewables, he seems to have cautioned against relying solely on any one source of energy," Segal said in a statement.
