Trump picks oil industry CEO Chris Wright as energy secretary
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Incoming US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, seen here in a 2018 photo, is expected to support President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to maximise production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - US President-elect Donald Trump
Mr Wright is the founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, an oil field services company based in Denver, Colorado. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximise production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades.
He is also likely to share Trump’s opposition to global cooperation on fighting climate change.
Mr Wright has called climate change activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism.
“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either,” he said in a video posted to his LinkedIn profile in 2023.
Mr Wright, who does not have any political experience, has written extensively on the need for more fossil fuel production to lift people out of poverty.
He has stood out among oil and gas executives for his freewheeling style and describes himself as a tech nerd.
He made a media splash in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on camera to demonstrate it was not dangerous.
US oil output hit the highest level any country has ever produced under current US President Joe Biden, and it is uncertain how much Mr Wright and the incoming administration could boost that.
Most drilling decisions are driven by private companies working on land not owned by the federal government.
The Department of Energy handles US energy diplomacy, administers the Strategic Petroleum Reserve – which Trump has said he wants to replenish – and runs grant and loan programmes to advance energy technologies, such as the Loan Programs Office.
The secretary also oversees the ageing US nuclear weapons complex, nuclear energy waste disposal, and 17 national laboratories.
If confirmed by the Senate, Mr Wright will replace Ms Jennifer Granholm, a supporter of electric vehicles and emerging energy sources, such as geothermal power, and a backer of carbon-free wind, solar and nuclear energy.
Mr Wright will also likely be involved in the permitting of electricity transmission and the expansion of nuclear power, an energy source that is popular with both Republicans and Democrats but which is expensive and complicated to permit.
Power demand in the US is surging for the first time in two decades amid growth in artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and cryptocurrencies. REUTERS
