Trump Chooses Oil Fracking Boss Wright as Energy Secretary

News

  • Today's news
  • US
  • Politics
  • World
  • Tech
    • Reviews and deals
    • Audio
    • Computing
    • Gaming
    • Health
    • Home
    • Phones
    • Science
    • TVs
  • Climate change
  • Health
  • Science
  • 2024 election
  • Originals
    • The 360
  • Newsletters

Life

  • Health
    • COVID-19
    • Fall allergies
    • Health news
    • Mental health
    • Relax
    • Sexual health
    • Studies
    • The Unwind
  • Parenting
    • Family health
    • So mini ways
  • Style and beauty
    • It Figures
    • Unapologetically
  • Horoscopes
  • Shopping
    • Buying guides
  • Food
  • Travel
  • Autos
  • Gift ideas
  • Buying guides

Entertainment

  • Celebrity
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Music
  • How to Watch
  • Interviews
  • Videos

Finance

  • My Portfolio
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Stock Market
    • Originals
    • The Morning Brief
    • Premium News
    • Economics
    • Housing
    • Earnings
    • Tech
    • Crypto
    • Biden Economy
  • Markets
    • Stocks: Most Actives
    • Stocks: Gainers
    • Stocks: Losers
    • Trending Tickers
    • Futures
    • World Indices
    • US Treasury Bonds Rates
    • Currencies
    • Crypto
    • Top ETFs
    • Top Mutual Funds
    • Options: Highest Open Interest
    • Options: Highest Implied Volatility
    • Sectors
    • Basic Materials
    • Communication Services
    • Consumer Cyclical
    • Consumer Defensive
    • Energy
    • Financial Services
    • Healthcare
    • Industrials
    • Real Estate
    • Technology
    • Utilities
  • Research
    • Screeners
    • Screeners Beta
    • Watchlists
    • Calendar
    • Stock Comparison
    • Advanced Chart
    • Currency Converter
    • Investment Ideas
    • Research Reports
  • Personal Finance
    • Credit Cards
    • Balance Transfer Cards
    • Cash-back Cards
    • Rewards Cards
    • Travel Cards
    • Credit Card Offers
    • Banking
    • CD Rates
    • Best HYSA
    • Best Free Checking
    • Student Loans
    • Personal Loans
    • Insurance
    • Car insurance
    • Mortgages
    • Mortgage Refinancing
    • Mortgage Calculator
    • Taxes
  • Videos
    • Invest
    • Latest News
    • Editor's Picks
    • Investing Insights
    • Trending Stocks
    • All Shows
    • Morning Brief
    • Opening Bid
    • Wealth
    • ETF Report

Sports

  • Fantasy
    • News
    • Fantasy football
    • Best Ball
    • Pro Pick 'Em
    • College Pick 'Em
    • Fantasy baseball
    • Fantasy hockey
    • Fantasy basketball
    • Download the app
  • Daily fantasy
  • NFL
    • News
    • Scores and schedules
    • Standings
    • Stats
    • Teams
    • Players
    • Drafts
    • Injuries
    • Odds
    • Super Bowl
    • GameChannel
    • Videos
  • MLB
    • News
    • Scores and schedules
    • Standings
    • Stats
    • Teams
    • Players
    • Odds
    • Videos
    • World Baseball Classic
  • NBA
    • News
    • Draft
    • Scores and schedules
    • Standings
    • Stats
    • Teams
    • Players
    • Injuries
    • Videos
    • Odds
    • Playoffs
  • NHL
    • News
    • Scores and schedules
    • Standings
    • Stats
    • Teams
    • Players
    • Odds
    • Playoffs
  • Soccer
    • News
    • Scores and schedules
    • Premier League
    • MLS
    • NWSL
    • Liga MX
    • CONCACAF League
    • Champions League
    • La Liga
    • Serie A
    • Bundesliga
    • Ligue 1
    • World Cup
  • College football
    • News
    • Scores and schedules
    • Standings
    • Rankings
    • Stats
    • Teams
    • MMA
    • WNBA
    • Sportsbook
    • NCAAF
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • NASCAR
    • NCAAB
    • NCAAW
    • Boxing
    • USFL
    • Cycling
    • Motorsports
    • Olympics
    • Horse racing
    • GameChannel
    • Rivals
    • Newsletters
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • RSS
    • Jobs
    • Help
    • World Cup
    • More news

New on Yahoo

  • Creators
  • Games
  • Tech
  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Your Privacy Choices
  • Feedback

© 2024 All rights reserved. About our ads Advertising Careers Yahoo Finance Yahoo Finance Search query Select edition

  • USEnglish
  • US y LATAMEspañol
  • AustraliaEnglish
  • CanadaEnglish
  • CanadaFrançais
  • DeutschlandDeutsch
  • FranceFrançais
  • 香港繁中
  • MalaysiaEnglish
  • New ZealandEnglish
  • SingaporeEnglish
  • 台灣繁中
  • UKEnglish
  • News
  • Finance
  • Sports
    • News
      • Today's news
      • US
      • Politics
      • World
      • Weather
      • Climate change
      • Health
      • Science
      • 2024 election
      • Originals
      • Newsletters
    • Life
      • Health
      • Parenting
      • Style and beauty
      • Horoscopes
      • Shopping
      • Food
      • Travel
      • Autos
      • Gift ideas
      • Buying guides
    • Entertainment
      • Celebrity
      • TV
      • Movies
      • Music
      • How to watch
      • Interviews
      • Videos
    • Finance
      • My portfolio
      • Watchlists
      • Markets
      • News
      • Videos
      • Screeners
      • Personal finance
      • Crypto
      • Industries
    • Sports
      • Fantasy
      • NFL
      • NBA
      • MLB
      • NHL
      • College football
      • College basketball
      • Soccer
      • MMA
      • Yahoo Sports AM
      • New on Yahoo
        • Creators
        • Games
        • Tech
      • Selected edition

Sign in

    Upgrade to Premium Trump Chooses Oil Fracking Boss Wright as Energy Secretary

    1 / 4

    Trump Chooses Oil Fracking Boss Wright as Energy Secretary

    Ari Natter Sat, Nov 16, 2024, 3:46 PM 4 min read

    In This Article:

    OKLO LBRT EMX

    (Bloomberg) — President-elect Donald Trump nominated Chris Wright, who runs a Colorado-based oil and natural gas fracking services company, to lead the Energy Department.

    Most Read from Bloomberg

    • Under Trump, Prepare for New US Transportation Priorities

    • Zimbabwe City of 700,000 at Risk of Running Dry by Year-End

    • Saudi Neom Gets $3 Billion Loan Guarantee From Italy Export Credit Agency Sace

    • The Urban-Rural Divide Over Highway Expansion and Emissions

    Wright, the chief executive officer of Liberty Energy Inc., has no previous Washington experience. He’s made a name for himself as a vocal proponent of oil and gas, saying fossil fuels are crucial for spreading prosperity and lifting people from poverty. The threat of global warming, he has said, is exaggerated.

    “Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy,” Trump said in a statement Saturday. “He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas. Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics.”

    Trump said Wright, if confirmed, would also sit on the newly formed Council of National Energy that will be chaired by Doug Burgum, Trump’s nominee to lead the Interior Department.

    The Energy Department has a disparate mission that includes helping to maintain the nation’s nuclear warheads, studying supercomputers and maintaining the US’s several hundred million-barrel stockpile of crude oil.

    It also plays a key role in approving projects to export liquefied natural gas, something that was paused during Biden’s administration. Trump has vowed to undo the pause.

    While the department has little authority over oil and gas development, Wright will play a leading role in helping Trump carry out his energy priorities.

    Trump’s selection of Wright, whose company is among the largest providers of fracking services globally, is a show of support for the hot-button oil and gas extraction method that Trump frequently touted during the campaign to attack his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.

    Harris said she’d consider banning the technique during her 2020 primary run and reversed course in her 2024 campaign.

    ‘No Climate Crisis’

    Wright’s company published a 180-page paper this year that concluded climate change “is far from the world’s greatest threat to human life,” and that “hydrocarbons are essential to improving the wealth, health, and life opportunities for the less energized.”

    “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. “Humans, and all complex life on earth, is simply impossible without carbon dioxide — hence the term carbon pollution is outrageous.”

    Wright holds engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. He describes himself on his Denver-based company’s website as a “tech nerd turned entrepreneur and a dedicated humanitarian.”

    While Wright has warned that subsidies for wind and solar drive up power prices and increase grid instability, he does support alternative energy. He serves on the board of small modular reactor developer Oklo Inc., and his company is an investor in geothermal energy and sodium-ion battery technology.

    “I’m not here to protect market share for oil gas,” he said during a 2022 interview with Bloomberg Television. “We should do credible things, mostly driven by market forces. But shoveling subsidies at wind and solar, which are 3% of global energy, that’s not meaningfully going to change greenhouse gas emissions. But it is going to drive electricity prices up.”

    Wright is also on the board EMX Royalty Corp., a global mining royalties firm, according to his company bio.

    Trump named Wright with backing from Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm, a Trump energy adviser and donor. Hamm said in an interview with the Houston-based trade publication Hart Energy that Wright was his choice for the job.

    If confirmed by Congress, Wright would play a leading role in Trump carrying out his campaign pledge to declare a national emergency on energy. Trump has cast such a declaration as helping increase domestic energy production — including for electricity — which he says is needed to help meet booming power needs for artificial intelligence.

    Under the first Trump administration, the Energy Department played a critical role in the president-elect’s efforts to revive US coal power, an initiative he’s hinted he may attempt again.

    Wright would also oversee Trump’s promise to refill the nation’s emergency cache of crude oil. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has a capacity of more than 700 million barrels, reached lows not seen since the 1980s following the Biden administration’s unprecedented drawdown of a record 180 million barrels in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Trump’s first energy secretary, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, called for eliminating the agency entirely during a run for president in the 2012 cycle. He later apologized and vowed to defend the agency “after being briefed on so many of the vital functions” it plays.

    –With assistance from David Wethe.

    (Adds Wright’s past positions on climate change, energy needs.)

    Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

    • FedEx’s CEO Is Charting His Own Path—in the Smith Family’s Shadow

    • CEOs Brace for the Chaos of Another Four Years of Trump

    • Betting on Tesla Helped Ron Baron Beat the Index. Now He’s Getting a Trump Bump

    • Elon Musk Has a New Project to Run: Trump’s Government

    • Political Ads Can’t Buy the Presidency

    ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

    Terms and Privacy Policy Your Privacy Choices

    Recommended Stories

  • Related Posts

    Exxon group pulls out of talks with Guyana over shallow water oil block, government says

    News Today's news US Politics World Tech Reviews and deals Audio Computing Gaming Health Home Phones Science TVs Climate change Health Science 2024 election Originals The 360 Newsletters Life Health…

    Oil company Phillips 66 faces federal charges related to alleged Clean Water Act violations

    News Today's news US Politics World Tech Reviews and deals Audio Computing Gaming Health Home Phones Science TVs Climate change Health Science 2024 election Originals The 360 Newsletters Life Health…

    Leave a Reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    You Missed

    Website Use of Third-Party Tracking Software Not Prohibited Under Massachusetts Wiretap Act

    • By admin
    • November 22, 2024
    • 0 views
    Website Use of Third-Party Tracking Software Not Prohibited Under Massachusetts Wiretap Act

    Exxon group pulls out of talks with Guyana over shallow water oil block, government says

    • By admin
    • November 22, 2024
    • 0 views
    Exxon group pulls out of talks with Guyana over shallow water oil block, government says

    Oil company Phillips 66 faces federal charges related to alleged Clean Water Act violations

    • By admin
    • November 22, 2024
    • 0 views
    Oil company Phillips 66 faces federal charges related to alleged Clean Water Act violations

    Department of Labor’s New Overtime Rule Overturned by Federal Court in Texas

    • By admin
    • November 21, 2024
    • 5 views
    Department of Labor’s New Overtime Rule Overturned by Federal Court in Texas

    Bosch to reduce hours for 450 employees due to tough economy

    • By admin
    • November 21, 2024
    • 2 views
    Bosch to reduce hours for 450 employees due to tough economy

    Students can now apply for federal college aid. Officials hope for a smoother rollout this year

    • By admin
    • November 21, 2024
    • 4 views
    Students can now apply for federal college aid. Officials hope for a smoother rollout this year