WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump said on Saturday that oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright, a strong advocate of using fossil fuels, would be his choice to lead the Energy Department.
Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, a Denver-based oilfield services company. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximize oil and gas production and look for ways to boost electricity generation, demand for which is increasing for the first time in decades.
He is also likely to share Trump’s opposition to global cooperation in the fight against climate change. Wright has called climate change activists alarmists and compared Democrats’ efforts to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism.
“There is no climate crisis and we are not in the middle of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted to his LinkedIn profile last year.
Wright, who has no political experience, has written extensively about the need for greater fossil fuel production to lift people out of poverty.
He has stood out among oil and gas executives for his freestyle and describes himself as a tech nerd.
Wright caused a media sensation in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on camera to prove it was not dangerous.
U.S. oil production reached the highest level any country has ever produced under Biden, and it’s unclear how much Wright and the incoming administration could boost.
Most drilling decisions are driven by private companies working on land not owned by the federal government.
The Energy Department handles U.S. energy diplomacy, administers the Strategic Petroleum Reserve — which Trump has said he wants to replenish — and runs grant and loan programs to advance energy technologies, such as the Office of Loan Programs.
The secretary also oversees the United States’ aging nuclear weapons complex, nuclear energy waste disposal and 17 national laboratories.
If confirmed by the Senate, Wright will replace Jennifer Granholm, a supporter of electric vehicles, emerging energy sources such as geothermal energy and a supporter of carbon-free wind, solar and nuclear power.
Wright is also likely to be involved in permitting electricity transmission and the expansion of nuclear power, an energy source that is popular with both Republicans and Democrats but is expensive and complicated to authorize.
Energy demand in the United States is rising for the first time in two decades amid the growth of artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and cryptocurrencies.