CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday nominated Chris Wright, CEO of Denver-based hydraulic fracturing company Liberty Energy, to be the next Secretary of Energy.
Wright will also serve on the newly created National Energy Council, which President Trump said will oversee all agencies involved in the “permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, and transportation” of energy. It is said that it will be configured. It will be chaired by North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who President Trump nominated to be Secretary of the Interior.
“Chris is a leading engineer and entrepreneur in the energy sector. He has worked in nuclear power, solar power, geothermal, and oil and gas. Most importantly, Chris is a leading engineer and entrepreneur in the energy sector. “He was one of the pioneers who helped launch the U.S. shale revolution that accelerated and transformed global energy markets and geopolitics,” Trump said in a statement Saturday.
In addition to his company’s work on hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas, Mr. Wright also serves on the board of directors of a modular nuclear reactor company and speaks about the potential of nuclear energy. Nuclear power development has become a major focus of the Biden administration’s Department of Energy. The ministry also houses the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency that manages nuclear stockpiles.
Harold Hamm, an Oklahoma-based hydraulic fracturing billionaire who has been Trump’s ear on energy issues during the campaign, told trade publication Heart Energy on Monday that Wright was the post’s top He said he was a strong candidate and described him as a “really, really sharp person.”
Wright acknowledges the link between burning fossil fuels and climate change, but expresses doubts that climate change is linked to worsening extreme weather events. He has been a staunch supporter of fossil fuels in public interviews, saying they are needed to lift developing countries out of poverty.
“The world runs on oil and gas, and we need it,” Wright told CNBC in a 2023 interview, calling calls to transition away from fossil fuels within 10 years an “unreasonable time frame.” He said that.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency said no new fossil fuel development should be approved if the world is to stop the worst effects of global warming. Since then, many countries have approved new projects, including the United States under President Joe Biden.
“There’s no benefit to getting in the way of today’s energy system before building a new energy system,” Wright told CNBC. “I don’t think we’ll see any meaningful change in our hydrocarbon system over the next 30 years.”
