The vote was 59-38, with seven Democrats and one Independent, who caucuses with Democrats, crossing the aisle.
Wright, 60, the CEO of Liberty Energy since 2011, has said he will step down from the company once confirmed. He wrote in a Liberty report last year he believes human-caused climate change is real, but that its hazards are “distant and uncertain.” He has also said that top-down governmental policies to curb it are destined to fail.
Wright will be in charge of an agency whose budget is around $50 billion, around half of which goes toward maintaining the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
He will also be in charge of the department’s 17 national labs that cover everything from research fusion energy to supercomputing. In his nomination hearing, Wright said his first priority is to expand domestic energy production including liquefied natural gas, a super-chilled exportable form of the fuel, and nuclear energy.
The U.S. became the world’s top LNG exporter in 2023 and shipments could double before the end of the decade. Wright and Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, are expected to dismantle aspects of former President Joe Biden’s climate policies and push for more fossil fuel infrastructure including gas pipelines and power plants.
Wright also said in his hearing that deadly wildfires that devastated Los Angeles are “heartbreaking,” but he stood by his comments on social media in 2023 that “hype over wildfires is just hype to justify” policies to curb climate change. He is expected to play a big role in a new national energy dominance council, to be led by former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate to head the Department of the Interior.
The council is expected to seek policies to maximize output of oil and gas, though the U.S. is already the world’s largest producer of both, and it is unclear how much more energy companies want to drill on federal lands. Wright will also be tasked with managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest crude oil stockpile. Biden sold more than 180 million barrels, a record amount, from the reserve in 2022 to balance rising gasoline prices after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The sale sank the reserve to its lowest level in 40 years. Trump has pledged to fill the SPR to the top, but doing so will require Congress to appropriate funds. Filling it quickly could lead to higher oil prices.
Like his predecessor, Jennifer Granholm, Wright says he believes geothermal power has a lot of potential to provide the U.S. with emissions-free energy by tapping heat below the ground.
Geothermal projects, however, will need greater access to power transmission lines. Congress has failed to pass permitting legislation to fund new transmission lines that are needed for geothermal and other renewable energy projects.
Like Granholm, Wright also supports expanding nuclear power. He was a board member of small modular reactor startup Oklo, which has not yet built a commercial plant. Wright will likely also be tasked with helping the U.S. build out a uranium fuel supply chain, after Biden signed a ban on imports of enriched uranium from Russia.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, David Morgan and Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler, Sandra Maler and Matthew Lewis)
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