Trump picks fracking company CEO Chris Wright as next Energy Department secretary

CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday named Chris Wright, CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy, as his pick to be the next secretary of the Department of Energy.

Wright will also serve as a member of the newly created Council of National Energy, which Trump said will be made up of all agencies involved in the “authorization, production, production, distribution, regulation, transportation” of energy. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Interior — will be the chairman.

“Chris has been a leading energy technologist and entrepreneur. He has worked in 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 transformed global energy markets and geopolitics, Trump wrote in a statement Saturday.

In addition to his company’s work in oil and natural gas fracking, Wright also sits on the board of a modular nuclear reactor company and has spoken about the potential of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy development has become a major focus of the Biden administration’s energy department. The department also houses the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency that maintains the nuclear stockpile.

Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma-based fracking billionaire who has had Trump’s ear on energy issues during the campaign, said professional publication Hart Energy on Monday that Wright was his top choice for the position, calling him a “really, really sharp person.”

Wright has acknowledged the link between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change, but has expressed doubt that climate change is linked to worsening extreme weather. He has also been a staunch supporter of fossil fuels in public interviews, saying they are necessary to lift developing countries out of poverty.

“The world runs on oil and gas, and we need that,” Wright told CNBC in a 2023 interviewand said calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels in a decade were an “absurd timeframe.”

By 2021, the International Energy Agency said that for the world to contain the worst effects of global warming, no new fossil fuel developments should be approved. Many countries, including the United States under President Joe Biden, have approved new projects since then.

“To stand in the way of today’s energy system before we’ve built a new energy system, there’s just no upside to it,” Wright told CNBC. “I don’t think you’re going to see meaningful changes in our hydrocarbon system in the next three decades.”