(Bloomberg) — Donald Trump’s choice for Energy secretary said the US must remove bureaucratic barriers and “unleash” production of nuclear power as well as liquefied natural gas during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday.
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“The security of our nation begins with energy,” Chris Wright told the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “Previous administrations have viewed energy as a liability instead of the immense national asset that it is.”
Wright, the founder of Liberty Energy Inc., an oil and natural gas fracking services company, said his priorities would also include a focus on innovation and technology breakthroughs.
In response to a question from Senator John Hickenlooper, a Colorado Democrat, Wright said he had studied climate change and that it was a “real issue.”
The solution to slowing global warming, Wright said, involved investments by the Department of Energy to accelerate new technologies. “We should have nothing but American leadership in this area,” Wright said.
Testifying on his 60th birthday, he said his first priority was to “unleash American energy at home and abroad to restore energy dominance,” a term that resonated throughout the first Trump administration.
As Liberty’s chief executive officer, Wright has been an unapologetic advocate for his industry, proclaiming the moral virtues of fossil fuels and even drank fracking fluid to refute opponents who questioned its safety.
The choice of Wright, who has no previous Washington experience, is indicative of the incoming president’s hard pivot toward fossil fuels after years of Biden administration policies that benefited renewable energy and sought to restrict global warming.
He has assailed subsidies for wind and solar power and said fossil fuels were crucial for spreading prosperity and lifting people from poverty. He has called the threat posed by climate change exaggerated.
“There is no climate crisis. And we are not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video posted on his LinkedIn page. “Life on earth is simply impossible without carbon dioxide — hence the term carbon pollution is outrageous.”
The hearing was disrupted several times by climate protesters, including by one shouted to Wright: “Can your fracking fluid put out the fires in LA?”
The discourse between Wright and the senators questioning him, however, was largely congenial.
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While the Energy Department has little authority over oil and gas development, Wright, if confirmed, would oversee an organization with a vast, complex mission that includes helping to maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the country’s several-hundred-million-barrel stockpile of crude oil.
Alluding to some of the department’s many responsibilities, Wright said “we must protect and accelerate the work of the department’s national laboratory network to secure America’s competitive edge and its security.”
The secretary also plays a crucial role in approving projects to export LNG, something that was paused during the Biden administration.
Wright would also almost certainly be instrumental in trying to fulfill Trump’s promises to help the coal industry, build more power plants, expand electrical grids and cut the overall price of energy by half. He would will also serve on Trump’s newly created National Energy Council alongside North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, Trump’s choice for Interior secretary.
(Adds details from the hearing starting in the fourth paragraph.)
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