Trump Chooses Oil Fracking Boss Wright as Energy Secretary

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(Bloomberg) — President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Chris Wright, who runs a Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services company, to lead the Department of Energy.

Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy Inc., has no prior experience in Washington. He has made a name for himself as a strong proponent of oil and gas, saying fossil fuels are essential to spreading prosperity and lifting people out of poverty. He said the threat of global warming was exaggerated.

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“Chris was a pioneering technology expert and energy entrepreneur,” Trump said in a statement on Saturday. He has worked in the fields of nuclear, solar, geothermal, and oil and gas. Most importantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American shale revolution that fueled American energy independence and changed global energy markets and geopolitics.

Trump said Wright, if confirmed, would also be a member of the newly formed National Energy Council that will be chaired by Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department.

The Department of Energy has a different mission that includes helping maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the U.S. crude oil stockpile of several hundred million barrels.

It also plays a key role in approving liquefied natural gas export projects, something that has been temporarily halted under the Biden administration. Trump vowed to retract the comment.

While the department does not have much authority over oil and gas development, Wright will play a leading role in helping Trump implement his energy priorities.

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Trump’s selection of Wright, whose company is among the world’s largest providers of hydraulic fracturing services, is a show of support for the hot oil and gas extraction method that Trump has frequently touted during the campaign to attack his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

Harris said she would consider banning the technology during her 2020 primary campaign and reversed course in her 2024 campaign.

“There is no climate crisis”

Wright published a 180-page paper this year concluding that climate change “is not the world’s greatest threat to human life,” and that “hydrocarbons are essential to improving the wealth, health, and life chances of less active people.”

“There is no climate crisis. We’re not in the middle of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video he posted on his LinkedIn page. “Humans, and all complex life on Earth, are impossible without carbon dioxide — hence the term “Carbon pollution is outrageous.”

Wright holds engineering degrees from MIT and UC Berkeley. On his Denver-based company’s website, he describes himself as a “tech geek turned entrepreneur and dedicated humanitarian.”

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While Wright warns that wind and solar subsidies lead to higher energy prices and increased grid instability, he supports alternative energy. He is on the board of small modular reactor developer Oklo Inc., and his company invests in geothermal energy and sodium-ion battery technology.

“I’m not here to protect oil gas market share,” he said during a 2022 interview with Bloomberg TV. “We have to do things that are credible, driven mostly by market forces. But removing subsidies for wind and solar, which account for 3% of global energy, will not meaningfully change greenhouse gas emissions. But it will lead to higher electricity prices.”

Wright also sits on the board of directors of EMX Royalty Corp., a global mining company, according to his company bio.

Trump appointed Wright with the support of Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm, a Trump energy adviser and donor. Hamm said in an interview with Houston-based trade magazine Hart Energy that Wright was his choice for the job.

If Congress approves Wright, he will play a leading role in Trump implementing his campaign pledge to declare a national energy emergency. Trump has touted such an announcement as helping to increase domestic energy production — including electricity — which he says is needed to help meet the energy needs of burgeoning artificial intelligence.

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Under Trump’s first administration, the Energy Department played a crucial role in the president-elect’s efforts to revive American coal power, an initiative he has hinted he might try again.

Wright will also oversee Trump’s promise to refill the country’s emergency stockpile of crude oil. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, with a capacity of more than 700 million barrels, has reached lows not seen since the 1980s after the Biden administration’s unprecedented withdrawal of a record 180 million barrels in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump’s first energy secretary, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, called for abolishing the agency entirely during his 2012 presidential bid. He later apologized and pledged to defend the agency “after being briefed on the many critical functions” it plays.

– With assistance from David Wyeth.

(Adds Wright’s previous positions on climate change and energy needs.)

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