WASHINGTON: Donald Trump has named oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright as his pick to lead the US Energy Department.
He is expected to fulfil the president-elect’s promise to increase fossil fuel production – an aim summed by the campaign slogan “drill, baby, drill”.
Wright is the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy, which serves companies extracting oil and gas from shale fields in a process known as “fracking”, reports BBC.
Trump wrote in a statement: “Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fuelled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.
“As Secretary of Energy, Chris will be a key leader, driving innovation, cutting red tape, and ushering in a new Golden Age of American Prosperity and Global Peace.”
Wright is a climate change sceptic who previously said he does not care where energy comes from, “as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives”.
In a video posted to his LinkedIn profile last year, he said: “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”
Associated Press reports, Wright has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change, and could give fossil fuels a boost, including quick action to end a year-long pause on natural gas export approvals by the Biden administration.
Frequently criticizing what he calls a “top-down” approach to climate by liberal and left-wing groups, Wright has argued that the climate movement around the world is “collapsing under its own weight.” He has never served in government, but has written that more fossil fuel production is needed around the globe to lift people out of poverty.
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Consideration of Wright to head the administration’s energy department won support from influential conservatives, including oil and gas tycoon Harold Hamm.
Hamm, executive chairman of Oklahoma-based Continental Resources, a major shale oil company, is a longtime Trump supporter and adviser who played a key role on energy issues in Trump’s first term. Hamm helped organize an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in April where Trump reportedly asked industry leaders and lobbyists to donate $1 billion to Trump’s campaign, with the expectation that Trump would curtail environmental regulations if re-elected.
Wright will also be appointed to a new Council of National Energy, the Trump campaign said.
The council will oversee “the path to US energy dominance by cutting red tape, enhancing private sector investments across all sectors of the Economy,” Trump said.
The Trump campaign cited Wright’s work with Pinnacle Technologies, a company he founded before Liberty Energy, as being critical to the US’s fracking boom, which has made the country the largest oil producer in the world.
Wright’s appointment is a win for the fossil fuel industry, which expects a boom under the next administration. Trump has pledged to increase production of US fossil fuels rather than investing in renewable energy sources such as wind power – a goal Wright will be instrumental in driving.
