International Courant
President-elect Donald Trump introduced Saturday that he has nominated Chris Wright, a fracking firm government who has fiercely criticized the existence of a local weather disaster and the transition to renewable vitality sources, to steer the Division of Power.
“As Secretary of Power, Chris will likely be a key chief driving innovation, chopping crimson tape and ushering in a brand new ‘Golden Age of American prosperity and world peace,’” Trump stated in a Reality Social put up.
On this Jan. 12, 2018, file photograph, Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Oilfield Providers Inc., rings a ceremonial bell to have a good time the corporate’s preliminary public providing on the ground of the New York Inventory Alternate shortly after the opening bell in New York.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters, FILE
The Senate should approve Wright earlier than he can take over his position.
He has a protracted historical past within the vitality sector and has been outspoken about fracking.
After incomes a bachelor’s diploma in mechanical engineering and a grasp’s diploma in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how within the Nineteen Eighties, Wright labored for a number of vitality corporations, a lot of which targeted on gasoline manufacturing, based on his LinkedIn web page.
Wright, who has by no means labored in authorities workplace, in 2010 based publicly traded oilfield providers firm Liberty Power, which fracks 20% of the nation’s oil wells. In keeping with Wright, the $3 billion firm is concerned in practically 10% of complete vitality manufacturing in america.
Outspoken critic of insurance policies aimed toward curbing local weather change
Wright has made a number of public feedback chastising efforts to fight local weather change with unproven claims.
“There isn’t a local weather disaster, and we’re not in the course of an vitality transition,” Wright stated in an interview video posted on LinkedIn final yr.
On this Jan. 17, 2018, file photograph, Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Oilfield Providers, is seen in Denver.
Andy Cross/Denver Publish by way of Getty Photos, FILE
“The one factor that resembles a local weather change disaster is the regressive alternatives that suppress insurance policies justified within the title of local weather change,” he added.
A 2021 examine printed within the environmental journal Environmental Analysis Letters reveals this 99% of local weather scientists agree that people are inflicting world warming and local weather change.
Wright has been an outspoken critic of insurance policies aimed toward curbing local weather change, together with the Division of Power’s aim of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“There isn’t a such factor as clear vitality or soiled vitality,” Wright stated final yr.
Nevertheless, the Workplace of Power Effectivity and Renewable Power says clear vitality, similar to photo voltaic and wind, produces little or no carbon emissions, the greenhouse gases liable for human-fueled world warming.
Whereas Wright doesn’t dispute the existence of local weather change, he has argued that insurance policies aimed toward lowering the influence of local weather change are deceptive and alarmist, describing the phrases local weather disaster, vitality transition, carbon air pollution, clear vitality and soiled vitality as “harmful deceptions ‘. ‘ and ‘nonsense’.
Wright claims that any detrimental impacts of local weather change are “clearly overwhelmed by the advantages of accelerating vitality use” and believes that excessive climate occasions similar to hurricanes, tornadoes and floods haven’t elevated because of local weather change.
His claims are opposite to real-world information and analysis into these pure disasters.
“It’s unequivocal that human impacts have warmed the environment, ocean and land,” stated a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) stated.
The US Fifth Nationwide Local weather Evaluation discovered that human-amplified local weather change is making excessive rainfall and excessive warmth extra frequent and intense.
‘All-in on vitality’
In his LinkedIn profile, Wright says he’s “all in on vitality” – together with oil, pure gasoline, nuclear, photo voltaic and geothermal sources – though he sharply criticizes photo voltaic and wind proponents who recommend these sources are higher are for the surroundings. referring to the quantity of vitality for the development of wind or photo voltaic parks.
“It could be tough to name wind and photo voltaic vitality clear or have a low environmental influence with a straight face,” Wright stated final yr.
The World Assets Institute has stated that “renewable vitality sources generate extra vitality than is used of their manufacturing and produce fewer emissions over their lifetime than different vitality sources.”
Wright additionally led a cost towards a few of the Biden administration’s local weather insurance policies, together with the Securities and Alternate Fee rule requiring corporations to reveal climate-related dangers. Liberty Power efficiently satisfied a federal appeals court docket to droop the rule shortly after it was finalized earlier this yr.
Wright has donated usually to Republican candidates and political motion committees, together with $228,390 to Trump’s joint fundraising committee earlier this summer time. Final yr, Wright’s complete compensation as CEO of Liberty Power was $5.6 million, based on a latest SEC submitting.
Wright steered in an interview on Bloomberg TV in July that the Trump administration would increase drilling on federal lands and make it simpler to authorize infrastructure similar to pipelines. Requested how the Biden administration has overseen file oil manufacturing, Wright emphasised that america should do extra for oil and gasoline manufacturing.
In 2023, through the Biden administration, america broke a file for home oil manufacturing. The US produced extra crude oil than every other nation in historical past – a mean of 12.9 million barrels per day, based on the USA, Power Info Administration .
Wright has pledged to cut back vitality prices for the US, consistent with a promise Trump made usually throughout his marketing campaign.
On this Jan. 12, 2018, file photograph, Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Oilfield Providers Inc., smiles as he celebrates the corporate’s preliminary public providing on the ground of the New York Inventory Alternate shortly after the opening bell in New York.
Lucas Jackson/Reuters, FILE
“I make this promise to the nice individuals of America: I’ll instantly finish the devastating inflation disaster, decrease rates of interest, and decrease vitality prices,” Trump advised the Republican Nationwide Conference. “We’ll drill, child, drill.”
