Washington: President-elect Donald Trump said that oil and gas industry executive Chris Wright, a staunch defender of fossil fuel use, would be his pick to lead the Department of Energy.
Wright is founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services firm based in Denver. He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximise production of oil and gas and to seek ways to boost generation of electricity, demand for which is rising for the first time in decades.
Liberty Energy chief executive Chris Wright is a staunch defender of fossil fuel use.Credit: LInkedIn
He is also likely to share Trump’s opposition to global co-operation on fighting climate change. Wright has called climate change activists alarmist and has likened efforts by Democrats to combat global warming to Soviet-style communism.
“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either,” Wright said in a video posted to his LinkedIn profile last year.
Wright, who does not have any political experience, has written extensively on the need for more fossil fuel production to lift people out of poverty.
He has stood out among oil and gas executives for his freewheeling style and describes himself as a tech nerd.
Wright made a media splash in 2019 when he drank fracking fluid on camera to demonstrate it was not dangerous.
US oil output hit the highest level any country has ever produced under Biden, and it is uncertain how much Wright and the incoming administration could boost that.