Chris Wright DOE Nomination Underscores Trump’s Pay to Play Cabinet

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Nov. 18, 2024)-Liberty Energy oil executive Chris Wright has been announced as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Energy (DOE), an agency charged with overseeing national energy policy and the U.S. nuclear weapons program. While this year alone the United States has experienced 24 confirmed weather/climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, Wright, a Trump campaign donor, has a history of downplaying and outright denying the climate crisis.

Below is a statement by Jeff Deyette, deputy director of the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

"The nomination of Chris Wright makes crystal clear the fossil fuel industry's outsized and undue influence on shaping and implementing the Trump Administration's agenda. The DOE must inform its policies based on the best available science, not the financial interests of its Secretary. Wright's roles as CEO of a major fracking company and board member of Oklo, a nuclear reactor company that receives millions from the DOE, pose serious questions about conflicts of interest.

"DOE must prioritize confronting the reality of the climate crisis, maintaining focus on the technological and policy innovation required to enable a rapid phase out of dirty fossil fuels and transition to clean and reliable renewable energy. Unfortunately, Wright seems to prefer keeping the public on the hook for subsidizing big polluters and lining oil and gas executives' pockets-even if it sacrifices the nation's health, environment and economy.

"During the first Trump Administration we witnessed science get sidelined in agency after agency as political appointees censored scientists, undermined science-based safeguards, cut funding and suppressed independent research. Wright must be held accountable for any erosion of scientific integrity within DOE, whether it be curtailing the work of scientists or science-based analysis."

Below is a statement by Stephen Young, a senior Washington representative for the UCS Global Security program.

"A major role of the DOE is maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, yet the department is pursuing an unnecessary, provocative and expensive plan to replace the entire stockpile with new warheads. President-elect Trump has expressed a desire to cut government spending. An effective step would be to discontinue that $1 trillion rebuild of the current U.S. nuclear stockpile. Instead, Wright should commit the DOE to continuing a strong, science-based approach to keeping the existing weapons safe, secure and reliable, backed by regulations to protect public health and security, without developing new weapons."

Additional UCS resources:

• UCS Position on Fossil Fuel Phaseout
• Accelerating Clean Energy Ambition: How the US Can Meet its Climate Goals While Delivering Public Health and Economic Benefits, 2023 report
• An A to Z of Fossil Fuel Industry Deception
• The State of Science in the Trump Era: Damage Done, Lessons Learned, and a Path to Progress, 2019 report
• How Do Nuclear Weapons Work?
• "Advanced" Isn't Always Better: Assessing the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of Non-Light-Water Nuclear Reactors, 2021 report