Coloradan tapped to lead Department of Energy likely to expand fossil fuel production, decenter climate change

President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to tap a Colorado fracking executive to head the country’s energy policy prompted hope of a fossil-fuel boom for the state’s oil and gas industry and fears among environmentalists that climate change will not be taken seriously enough under his leadership.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Chris Wright would lead the U.S. Department of Energy, which administers the country’s energy policy and builds and maintains the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons. The agency oversees 17 national research laboratories, approves natural gas exports and ensures environmental cleanup of the nation’s nuclear weapons complexes.

Oil and gas groups in Colorado and across the nation applauded the nomination of the Denver-based Liberty Energy CEO, who is well-known in industry circles, and said he would help the U.S. develop fossil fuels.

“He has shown how American oil and natural gas is a powerful force for bettering human lives and has carried that message literally throughout the world,” said Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based trade group. “He is also able to intelligently discuss how natural gas has helped the United States reduce greenhouse gas emissions while increasing access to clean energy.”

Environmentalists and conservationists, however, criticized the selection of a fracking executive who has decentered climate change and is opposed to fully transitioning away from the fossil fuels that exacerbate the warming of the atmosphere.

“I can only assume his favorite place in Colorado is the Great Sand Dunes because that’s the only pile of sand big enough to bury his head in,” said Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation and advocacy organization.

Wright has acknowledged climate change is real, but said in a video he made last year that “there is no climate crisis.” He has said the movement to mitigate it by reducing the use of fossil fuels will slow global progress.

A lack of access to affordable, reliable energy is also a risk to human health, Wright argued in a letter included in a company report published in January. He wrote that while he is “quite passionate” about alternative energies, wind and solar can never fully replace oil and gas.

“Climate change is a real and global challenge that we should and can address,” Wright wrote. “However, representing it as the most urgent threat to humanity today displaces concerns about more pressing threats of malnutrition, access to clean water, air pollution, endemic diseases and human rights, among others.”

Wright did not respond to a request from The Denver Post for an interview Monday.

Deep ties to oil and gas industry

Wright grew up in metro Denver and in 2011 founded Liberty Energy, which provides fracking services across the U.S. and Canada. Liberty Energy is not a direct producer of crude oil and natural gas and is similar to the industry giant Halliburton. Liberty helps operators with all of the work that goes into fracking and provides the equipment needed.

Liberty is considered a pioneer in “quiet fleet technology,” meaning the equipment does not make as much noise because it uses electric and natural gas technology to pull oil and natural gas from the ground, said Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association.

Fracking — short for hydraulic fracturing — is a drilling technique where water, sand and chemicals are injected into the Earth under intense pressure to crack open rock formations and push oil and gas out. Opponents of the highly controversial technique say the practice can contaminate water sources, trigger earthquakes and increase air pollution. Proponents say the technique makes accessible deposits of oil and gas that otherwise could not be economically developed.

Wright has spent his entire career in oil and gas and is a respected figure in Colorado’s energy industry, said Kait Schwartz, director of API Colorado, a division of the American Petroleum Institute.

“I’ve been disappointed that he’s been characterized as a climate skeptic,” she said. “He believes that it is a global challenge, but it’s far from the greatest threat to human life. This is an area where it’s not fair to classify someone as black and white. We can make peoples’ lives better and we can get cleaner.”

Wright’s nomination is a sign that Trump is serious about “reinstituting his successful energy dominance agenda that established the United States as the number one energy producer in the world,” said Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance.

Haley and other oil and gas industry leaders will be watching to see whether Wright overturns the Biden administration’s ban on exporting liquified natural gas. Colorado’s economy would benefit from that move, he said, and it would send a cleaner form of fossil fuel to other parts of the world that currently burn coal to produce electricity.

“We should be producing that resource with the standards we have here and getting it out to the rest of the world,” Haley said.

“Full-out assault on clean energy”

Wright and Liberty Energy have been outspoken for years about their desire to allow oil and gas companies to frack whenever and wherever they want, said Jeremy Nichols, a senior advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity.

“They’re a behind-the-scenes company doing all of the oil and gas industry’s dirty work,” Nichols said. “This guy bleeds oil through and through.”

Wright is well known for moving in political circles and showing up at policy meetings to advocate for fracking and fossil fuels, Nichols said.

“The Colorado oil and gas industry is looking to ride the Trump wave and to launch a full-out assault on clean energy and action for the climate,” Nichols said.

It will be more critical than ever for Gov. Jared Polis and other state leaders to establish policy to protect Colorado’s climate, air and public health, Nichols said, because the Trump administration is likely to roll back regulations on the oil and gas industry with Wright at the helm.

Wright has said energy development is the key to improving the lives of people in underdeveloped and poor countries, but Garrett Royer, acting director of the Colorado chapter of the Sierra Club, said climate change is expected to destabilize and worsen peoples’ quality of life.

“His industry has enriched itself as water and air pollution shortens life expectancies and endangers our planet’s very future,” Royer said.

If Wright walks the U.S. back from pursuing alternative energy sources and technologies, other countries will be able to take the economic lead, said Weiss of the Center for Western Priorities. Already, China is dominating the electric vehicle and solar markets, he said.

“It’s a really risky economic impact,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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