Trump taps oil executive Chris Wright as Energy secretary

President-elect Donald Trump named oil industry CEO Chris Wright to lead the Energy Department, installing a vocal critic of government efforts to fight climate change as the head of the agency at the forefront of the Biden administration’s clean energy push.

Wright, if confirmed by the Senate, is likely to be one of the loudest voices in the administration against measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that are raising the planet’s temperature and causing an upsurge in extreme weather.

He’d be charged with fulfilling Trump’s campaign promise to claw back billions of dollars in funding supporting the Biden administration’s climate and energy agenda — and restarting the department’s issuance of natural gas export permits that had been paused by President Joe Biden early this year.

The CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy, Wright is a Republican fundraiser whose candidacy for the job atop the Energy Department has been pushed by Harold Hamm, the oil executive who has advised Trump on energy issues. At DOE, Wright would lead a department that maintains the country’s nuclear weapons fleet, oversees the network of national laboratories, and has played a key role in disbursing funds under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

“As Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader, driving innovation, cutting red tape, and ushering in a new ‘Golden Age of American Prosperity and Global Peace,’” Trump said in his announcement.

Wright will also serve with Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum on the new National Energy Council, which Trump said “will oversee the path to U.S. ENERGY DOMINANCE by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy, and by focusing on INNOVATION over longstanding, but totally unnecessary, regulation.”

Though it has little direct influence over U.S. oil and gas production, the Energy Department will likely play a critical role in Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” effort to support the fossil fuel industry, increase oil and gas output and cut U.S. energy costs.

“My dedication to bettering human lives remains steadfast, with a focus on making American energy more affordable, reliable, and secure. Energy is the lifeblood that makes everything in life possible,” Wright wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the announcement. “Energy matters.”

Trump has pledged to halt the Biden administration’s climate initiatives, which he has derided as the “green new scam.” The DOE is playing a major role in the effort, delivering billions of dollars in loans and grants to technologies to help transition energy production to renewable sources and curb climate change, including those that capture the heat-trapping carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere.

Many of those Biden initiatives are popular among oil companies — and have support from Republican members of Congress, who have seen their home districts benefit economically from the money.

The future of those programs is now in question, particularly with Wright as Energy secretary. In a video uploaded to LinkedIn last year, Wright said: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

“We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods despite endless fear mongering of the media, politicians and activists,” he said in the video. “The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive, opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change.”

Wright did not reply to an email or phone call.

Republicans were effusive about the pick. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the Energy Committee, in a statement called Wright “an energy innovator who laid the foundation for America’s fracking boom.”

George David Banks, Trump’s former international energy adviser, also praised the Wright nomination.

“I like the way he talks about energy and climate policy,” he said in a text message. “Wright understands the importance of U.S. LNG in reducing global emissions and improving the daily lives of the poor in the developing world. He also points out that offshoring production leads to higher pollution because of the superior environmental performance of U.S. producers and manufacturers.”

Reaction to Wright’s nomination from the fossil fuel sector was positive. Tom Pyle, president of a pro-fossil fuel group American Energy Alliance, in a text message called Wright “a solid choice for Energy Secretary.”

But environmentalists quickly denounced Wright’s nomination.

“Not surprising but still appalling that Trump’s pick for Energy Secretary is a Big Oil CEO…,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president for government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters, said on X.

Wright is a relative unknown in Washington who was being pushed by Hamm, executive chairman of oil company Continental Resources, according to people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Wright’s denial that climate change is a significant threat that requires government intervention indicates his placement at DOE will mean an aggressive paring back of the department’s efforts to develop new energy sources and technology to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, said one oil industry lawyer familiar with the transition team talks.

Hamm was “falling on his sword with Trump over the appointment,” said this person, who was granted anonymity to discuss transition politics before the announcement. His posting to the job is likely to mean the Trump administration next year will go after the Inflation Reduction Act with “a machete rather than a scalpel,” the person said.

The climate law provided billions of dollars to the department for rebates to boost energy efficiency of U.S. homes, grants to increase manufacturing of green energy components and financing for early-stage low-carbon technologies.

Under Biden, the department has transformed with the IRA and bipartisan infrastructure law, adding hundreds of new workers and establishing a new office focused on clean energy demonstrations.

Wright, in the LinkedIn video, took particular issue with the terms “clean energy” and “energy transition,” arguing that solar and wind energy are not “lily-white clean.” And he lambasted “large government subsidies and mandates” that “enrich” the “well-off and connected, while impoverishing everyone else.”

“The truth is there is no energy transition happening now, no matter how much money, how many climate policies, activism or hot air thrown at the problem,” Wright said.

Wright was a significant Trump donor and also contributed to other Republican political action committees, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He gave nearly $229,000 to the Trump 47 Committee this election cycle, along with $41,300 to the Republican National Committee. His wife also reportedly co-hosted an August fundraiser in Big Sky, Montana, for Trump.

Wright studied engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2011, he founded Liberty, a natural gas fracking service company. He also serves on the board of Oklo, a start-up Silicon Valley-based company developing a new type of small nuclear reactor. He caught Trump’s attention at a fundraiser gathering of oil industry executives in Houston in April.

Liberty and Wright are among the entities that sued the Securities and Exchange Commission over its climate disclosure rule. He testified before a House committee in April against the rule, where he argued that climate change is not within the SEC’s purview and derided the “destructive mission creep” of the agency.

“He’s a smart guy,” Dan Eberhart, CEO of Denver-based oil field service company Canary and a Trump donor, said of Wright.

Wright’s comments on climate change run contrary to the underlying accepted scientific facts about what is driving global temperatures higher and the toll that is taking on the economy, property, public health and ecosystems.

Human activities have “unequivocally” boosted global temperatures at least 1.1 degrees Celsius since the mid-19th Century, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in its 2023 synthesis of climate science. Global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are 54 percent higher than in 1990, with burning of fossil fuels and industrial processes driving most of that growth.

Human-driven climate change has resulted in more death and illness from extreme heatwaves, sparked food insecurity, damaged agricultural, fisheries and tourism sectors, caused real estate losses and intensified precipitation events, droughts and tropical cyclones, the IPCC said.