Senate confirms fossil fuel CEO Chris Wright as Energy secretary

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Monday confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as Energy secretary under President Trump.

Wright, chief executive of Denver-based Liberty Energy, has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He says more fossil fuel production can lift people out of poverty around the globe.

The Senate approved his nomination, 59 to 38. Eight Democrats — including both senators from Wright’s home state of Colorado — voted in favor.

The centerpiece of President Trump’s energy policy is “drill, baby, drill,” and he has pledged to dismantle what he calls Democrats’ “green new scam” in favor of boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases.

“President Trump shares my passion for energy,” Wright said at his confirmation hearing last month, promising that if confirmed, he would “work tirelessly to implement [Trump’s] bold agenda as an unabashed steward for all sources of affordable, reliable and secure American energy.”

That includes oil and natural gas, coal, nuclear power and hydropower, along with wind and solar power and geothermal energy, Wright said.

Trump’s energy wishes are likely to run into real-world limits, including the fact that U.S. oil production is already at record levels. The federal government cannot force companies to drill for more oil, but production increases could lower prices and reduce profits.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican, called Wright an innovator who “tells the truth about energy production.”

While Wright “acknowledges that climate change is real, he knows more American energy is the solution — not the problem,’’ Barrasso said, calling Wright’s “energy realism” welcome news.

While acknowledging that climate change is real, Wright said at his hearing that he believes “there isn’t dirty energy or clean energy.” Rather, he said, there are different sources of energy with different trade-offs.

Wright, 60, has been chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy since 2011 and has no prior experience in government. He grew up in Colorado, earned an undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at UC Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.

As Energy secretary, Wright will join Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as a key player on energy policy. Both will serve on a new National Energy Council that Burgum will chair. The panel will include all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, with a focus on “cutting red tape” and boosting domestic energy production, Trump said. The council’s mission represents a near-complete reversal from actions pursued by Democratic President Biden, who made fighting climate change a top priority.

Wright had said he would sever all ties across the energy industry if confirmed.

Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, an environmental group, said Democrats should have unanimously opposed Wright.

“Senate Republicans just handed Trump’s Big Oil allies the keys to the Department of Energy,” she said in a statement. “Chris Wright built his career expanding fossil fuels and denying climate science. Now, he’ll be in a position to help Trump” stall clean energy investments, hike energy prices “and keep Americans addicted to expensive, volatile fossil fuels.”

Now is the time, she added, “for Democrats to stand united and fight back against Trump’s relentless push to rig the system for Big Oil.”

Daly writes for the Associated Press.