U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Power Chris Wright testifies throughout his Senate Power and Pure Assets affirmation listening to on Capitol Hill.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures North America
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Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures North America
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Who: Chris Wright
Nominated for: Secretary of Power
You may know them from: Wright is the CEO of Liberty Power, a Denver-based oil and gasoline firm.
- He has a background in oil and gasoline, in addition to geothermal, nuclear, and photo voltaic vitality.
- He has a protracted historical past creating applied sciences for fracking, a sort of oil and gasoline extraction.
- A few of his past online posts about climate change have contradicted the scientific consensus, together with a video the place he mentioned, inaccurately, that international warming didn’t make extra intense hurricanes, droughts and floods.
What does this function do: The secretary of vitality manages 17 national laboratories that conduct a big selection of analysis, together with in renewable vitality. The company additionally maintains nuclear weapons.
This is what occurred on the listening to
Wright is a fossil gasoline government, and on the affirmation listening to, he pledged to help all types of “dependable” vitality – together with photo voltaic, wind, nuclear and geothermal.
However Wright’s previous social media posts drew controversy. In a 2023 Linkedin post he wrote, “The hype over wildfires is simply hype to justify extra impoverishment from unhealthy authorities insurance policies.”
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California questioned Wright particularly over this publish, referring to the Los Angeles fires. Padilla is from Los Angeles. “Given the devastation that we’re at present experiencing in Los Angeles, do you continue to consider that wildfires are simply hype?” Padilla requested.
Wright mentioned he has watched the fires with “sorrow and concern” and added when pressed by Padilla, “I stand by my previous remark.”
A recent analysis by scientists at UCLA discovered that local weather change made the area’s vegetation roughly 25 % drier previous to the fires, boosting the possibilities of intense, fast-paced blazes.
Local weather change and the Los Angeles fires
Whereas the senators’ questioning was largely cordial, no less than half a dozen local weather activists spoke out in the course of the hearings.
“The local weather disaster is right here, L.A. is burning, it’s due to fossil gasoline firms,” one activist shouted.
In response to questions from Sen. Angus King, impartial from Maine, Wright confirmed that he accepts the scientific consensus that the first driver of worldwide warming is burning fossil fuels.
“Largely from the combustion of hydrocarbons to allow our fashionable world, we have elevated atmospheric CO2 focus… [making] it more durable for the Earth to shed warmth,” Wright mentioned.
Wright instructed Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado that local weather change “is a worldwide concern. It’s a actual concern. It is a difficult concern. And the answer to local weather change is to evolve our vitality system.”
Wright added, “Are there issues we will do, investments collectively via the Division of Power to speed up improvement of latest vitality applied sciences which can be actually the one pathway to handle local weather change? Completely.”
“Inexpensive, dependable” vitality
A number of occasions Wright mentioned he would help “inexpensive, dependable” vitality. The phrase “reliable energy” can generally be a dig at photo voltaic and wind vitality, as the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. Renewable researchers level to the truth that that is being addressed with enormous batteries that retailer vitality.
Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, questioned Wright’s views on photo voltaic vitality specifically, as Nevada is a state with a big photo voltaic trade.
Wright expressed his enthusiasm for photo voltaic vitality. “I labored in photo voltaic vitality,” Wright mentioned. “We’re seeing quite a lot of progress in photo voltaic vitality, and I count on that to proceed.”
Wright additionally mentioned he supported increasing vitality manufacturing in nuclear and geothermal vitality, and increasing fossil gasoline energies like liquified pure gasoline.
The query of analysis and censorship
Padilla additionally requested Wright if he would decide to not censoring the Power Division’s analysis.
“I’ll observe the scientific methodology,” Wright mentioned. “I’ll observe the legal guidelines and statutes of our nation, in fact I’ll, Senator.”
