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The newly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump, has chosen Chris Wright as energy minister in his incoming government.
Trump announced this on Saturday, according to the Reuters news agency.
Wright is today director of the company Liberty Energy, which supplies equipment for oil fields.
He caused a stir in 2019 when he openly drank liquid used for fracking to show that it is not dangerous.
Fracking is a method of extracting oil that is reviled for polluting more than other methods.
Chris Wright is an ardent advocate of continuing the use of fossil fuels.
And during the election campaign, he has donated money to Trump’s election campaign.
If Wright is approved in the Senate, as the new ministers must, it will be a victory for the American oil industry, which has supported his candidacy. The Financial Times writes.
He is expected to support Trump’s plan to maximize oil and gas production.
He is also likely to share Trump’s opposition to global cooperation to fight climate change.
Wright has called climate activists alarmists and compared Democrats’ efforts to fight global warming to Soviet communism.
“There is no climate crisis, nor are we in the middle of an energy transition,” Wright said in a video he shared on the LinkedIn social media last year.
Wright, who has no political experience, has written extensively about the need for greater fossil fuel production. He believes that it can help lift people out of poverty.
Under outgoing President Joe Biden, US oil production reached the highest level ever produced by any country, writes Reuters.
It is uncertain how much Wright and the incoming administration can increase production further.
Most decisions to drill for oil are made by private companies working on land not owned by the US federal government.
In the United States, the energy secretary’s responsibilities also include overseeing the country’s aging nuclear weapons complex, nuclear waste disposal and 17 national laboratories.
If Wright is confirmed by the Senate, he will replace Jennifer Granholm.
As energy minister under President Biden, she has been an advocate for electric cars, new energy sources such as geothermal energy and support for cleaner wind, solar and nuclear energy.
Source: politiken.dk
