The Senate confirmed that Chris Wright directed the US Energy Ministry on Monday, putting the former oil frame in a key position to help shape President Trump’s energy policies.
Mr. Wright, the founder and chief executive officer of Liberty Energy, a hydraulic fracturing company, was confirmed by a vote from 59 to 38, with the support of all the Republicans present and a smaller number of democrats. He would be the 17th energy secretary, a position created in 1977.
During his confirmation hearing, Wright said that his absolute priority was to “release” the production of inner energy, including liquefied natural gas and nuclear energy. He also told Democrats that he thought that climate change was a “global challenge that we must resolve” and that he would support the development of renewable energies such as wind and solar energy.
At the same time, Wright said that he “would work tirelessly” to support the “daring” energy agenda by Mr. Trump. The president frequently rejected climate change as a hoax, wind and solar energy disparaged and said he wanted to extend the use of oil, gas and coal, whose combustion stimulated climate change.
The energy department plays a central role in the development of new energy technologies. The agency supervises a Network of 17 national laboratories This conducts advanced research as well as a powerful loan office which supported dozens of low carbon energy projects, including battery factories in Ohio and Tennessee and two giant nuclear reactors in Georgia.
Wright would also oversee the approvals of liquefied gas export terminals, which Biden administration has tried to slow down and anger industrial groups. Trump has already ordered the Energy Department to restart the proposed export facilities.
The energy department is a sprawling agency. About 80% of departments Annual budget of $ 52 billion Will maintain the country’s nuclear arsenal, to clean the environmental damage of the Cold War and to carry out research in areas like high energy physics.
As part of the Biden administration, the ministry has aggressively supported new clean energy technologies such as advanced nuclear energy, improved geothermal energy, green hydrogen fuels, new generation batteries and more . Supported by new funding from the Congress, he issued tens of billions of loans and subsidies to everything, from companies to low carbon cement to electricity companies that build new lines of transmission.
During his confirmation hearing, Wright especially refused to go into details of the way he directed the department.
Some conservative groups have urged Mr. Wright to reorient or even close the agency’s loan programs office, which has received around $ 400 billion in the Congress to market promising energy technologies. Under the Biden Administration, the Office has finalized more than $ 60.6 billion in loans and guarantees of companies that operated lithium, restarting a closed nuclear power plant, converting wind and solar energy in hydrogen fuels and more. He also issued $ 47 billion in conditional loans that have not been finalized.
Since January 17, there were still 160 companies Search for more than $ 200 billion in loans and loan guarantees. But the work of the loan office was largely interrupted since Mr. Trump took office, and we do not know what will happen to these requests.
Most of the major environmental groups and many democrats have opposed Mr. Wright’s confirmation, saying that he had minimized the risks of a warming planet. In an article on social networks in 2023, Mr. Wright wrote“There is no climate crisis, and we are not in the midst of an energy transition.” On a podcast last year, he declared that climate change would have “a modest slow and modest impact to two generations from now on”.
On podcasts and in speeches, Mr. Wright has often pleaded moral for fossil fuels, arguing that the poorest people in the world need access to oil, gas and coal to enjoy the advantages of life modern that rich nations are trying for granted.
However, some Senate Democrats joined the Republicans to vote to approve the appointment of Mr. Wright. They understood Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper from Colorado, Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, as well as Angus King, a freelance of Maine who Normally of Caucus with Democrats.
“Although I do not agree with Mr. Wright on a number of questions, he undertook to work with us in good faith” on questions such as investment in national laboratories and the construction of High -voltage power lines, Heinrich said last month.
Mr. Wright graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has studied solar energy at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which created software to measure the movement of the fluid below the surface of the earth. The software has helped to provoke a commercial shale revolution.
Mr. Wright launched Liberty Energy in 2011 and the company worked with others on geothermal energy and small modular nuclear reactors.
Mr. Wright holds 2.6 million shares of the company, which were worth around $ 47 million depending on the closing course on Monday. In a Written declaration in the Senate He promised to withdraw from Liberty Energy and give in his assets within 90 days of his confirmation. According to his ethical agreement, he should be paid for his last bonus of the company in March.
Lisa Friedman Contributed reports.
