Chris Wright confirmed as US Energy Secretary

New member of Donald Trump’s cabinet says Energy Department will play an important role in fighting climate change, despite previously saying the threat was exaggerated

Chris Wright testifies during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. Reuters

Chris Wright was confirmed as Secretary of Energy on Monday, putting the founder of an oil and gas fracking services company in charge of an agency that will play a key role in President Donald Trump’s plans for a sweeping overhaul of US energy policy.

Mr Wright is poised to help Mr Trump carry out plans that include expanding the power grid, building power plants and bringing more nuclear power online. He supports the President’s desire to increase exports of liquefied natural gas amid a broader goal of promoting fossil fuel production and curbing efforts against climate change.

Mr Trump said that, from his first days in office, he will "drill, baby, drill", in an effort to increase America's energy independence.

Confirmed by a vote of 59 to 38 in the Senate, Mr Wright reassured Democrats during his hearing he supports renewable energy sources and that the Energy Department would play an important role in fighting climate change, the threat of which he previously has said is exaggerated.

The chief executive of Liberty Energy has no previous Washington experience but is known as an unapologetic defender of the oil and gas industry. He once drank fracking fluid to refute critics who questioned its safety.

While the Energy Department does not play a direct role in oil and gas development, it has disparate missions ranging from maintaining the nation’s 700 million barrel capacity reserve of crude oil to managing America’s arsenal of nuclear war heads. The agency has an annual budget of about $50 billion.

It is also responsible for giving permits to companies that want to ship liquefied natural gas overseas as well as overseeing a $400 billion green bank that has been marked for review by the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Mr Wright grew up in Colorado, earned an undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.

He said he would sever all ties across the energy industry when confirmed.

As Energy Secretary, Mr Wright will join Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as a key player on energy policy. Both will serve on a new National Energy Council that Mr Burgum will head. The panel will include all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transport, with a focus on “cutting red tape” and boosting domestic energy production, Mr Trump has said.