
Chris Wright, President-elect Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Energy (DOE) for his second term, spent his 60th birthday today facing questions in a mostly drama-free confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Wright is currently the CEO, founder, and board chairman of Denver, Colorado-based Liberty Energy, a fracking services company.
[Related: Trump's Energy Secretary nominee, Chris Wright, is a fossil fuel 'pragmatist']
Aside from a few protestors who were quickly removed by Capitol Police during the hearing, Wright faced a relatively friendly committee whose members spoke highly of Wright's candidacy because of his unique background. "[He] is someone who understands energy from the scientific perspective, entrepreneurial perspective, economic perspective, to the security perspective," said Alaska's Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. "Someone like you is extraordinarily unique. You have the ability to communicate why energy is so key and can explain why energy is an asset, not a liability. You are not denying climate change."
Wright told the committee in his opening statement that he calls himself "a science geek turned tech nerd turned lifelong energy entrepreneur. Energy is the essential agent of change that enables everything that we do. Everything.” He then said he's focused on three key issues if confirmed, specifically unleashing American energy, leading the world in energy technology innovation and strengthening the country's network of national laboratories, and the drastic need to begin building again by removing red tape, enabling private sector investment, and developing infrastructure to make affordable energy.
Not surprisingly, Republican senators were more cordial towards Wright than some of their Democrat colleagues, specifically California Senator Alex Padilla. A brief but tension-packed exchange between the two men occurred when Padilla pointed out Wright's past social media posts on wildfires being just "hype" due to bad government policies. A visibly emotional Wright reminded Padilla he lived in California for nearly two decades and still has many friends living there who are now impacted by the LA wildfires. However, Wright stated he still stands by those posts.
7 key takeaways
1. Bettering Human Lives (also the title of Wright's book, published in 2024):
- Wright repeatedly stated he wants to improve people's lives with energy and that America requires energy from a variety of sources, including solar, wind, nuclear, and fossil fuels.
2. Nuclear energy must expand
- The country has lost ability to enrich uranium because it's been importing uranium from Russia and China. Those imports must stop. "Nuclear today is a little less than 20 percent of our electricity," he explained. "We need to get Americans more comfortable with new nuclear reactor construction technologies. Nuclear can provide high impact energy that can be applied to key manufacturing industries, such as steel." Wright further pointed out that "nuclear is only 4 percent of global energy [and that he] wants to see it move faster [through the use of] small modular reactors (SMRs), for example."
3. Energy independence and grid resilience
- The country must grow its supply of electricity in order to bring down energy prices. To accomplish this, America's electrical grid needs to be stable. "In the energy world, [the electricity grid is] the most pressing problem we have. This problem is only going to get worse and I'm very concerned about it. We must keep the grid stable."
4. National Security
- The DOE needs to take a leadership role in this. Enriching our own uranium is one major example. The country has lost the capacity for domestic uranium enrichment and has been dependent on foreign imports from Russia and China to fuel nuclear reactors. "We must fix this," Wright stressed. "We need to build American nuclear infrastructure, mining, enrichment, and waste disposal."
5. How to power the AI revolution?
- Wright made his position on this very clear: natural gas is essential for powering the future data centers critical for AI to thrive. Nothing was mentioned about the continued use of natural gas as a fuel for commercial trucks, but Wright enthusiastically endorsed its general use. His position will likely result in a showdown with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in several ways, among them the recently updated Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) rule.
6. Next generation of fossil fuel innovations
- The nominee stated that "the economy is underpinned by energy from oil and natural gas" and he also wants to utilize "any source of energy that be a growth engine for reliable and affordable energy." This includes wind and solar but Wright's background will undoubtedly lead to greater use of fossil fuel resources.
7. Climate Change
- Wright clarified that he is not a climate change denier but did not hold back the fact he views the issue differently than others. "I've studied and followed the data and evolution of climate change for 20 years. It's a global and challenging issue. The solution is to evolve our energy system via solar, nuclear, battery storage, and fossil fuels. Do I wish we can make faster progress? Absolutely. The only real pathway is to invest and expand in new technologies and nothing but American leadership is necessary [to achieve this]."
Final remarks
Regarding whether Wright will enforce the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), he told the committee that he doesn't make the laws. "My goal is to implement the laws of the land. I will seek to allocate DOE funds and make decisions based on what was passed by Congress."
Wright concluded his time in the hot seat by emphasizing to the senators the country requires "affordable and reliable supplies of energy. We need to continue improving technologies that can't [do that job] today but will in the future. [We must harness] emerging technologies which are not at commercial scale yet. That's the DOE's role."