Washington, D.C. — Today, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s nominee for Energy Secretary, Chris Wright. Like many of Trump’s other nominees, Wright raises serious concerns about the future of responsible investing, the clean energy economy, and America’s financial security.
In response, Unlocking America’s Future Spokesperson Kyle Herrig said the following:
“Chris Wright is an oil CEO, climate denier, and outspoken evangelist for the fossil fuel industry. He’s not only been one of the key supporters behind the anti-responsible investing movement, but has even gone as far as drinking fracking fluid to defend the fossil fuel industry. Today’s hearing demonstrated once again that Chris Wright will be on the side of Big Oil, not the American economy.”
Additional Background:
- Wright has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the SEC’s climate risk disclosure rule, which aims to provide investors transparency into companies’ greenhouse gas emissions and their climate-related risks. In March 2024, Wright’s company Liberty Energy filed a lawsuit against the SEC in an attempt to stop the rule from taking effect.
- He currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Pacific Research Institute, an anti-climate science advocacy organization that has been a vehicle for Big Oil’s attacks against responsible investing in recent years and pushes misleading campaigns about the dangers of the climate crisis.
- At a public event in November, Wright called critics of Big Oil “nuts” and falsely claimed “there’s no dirty energy, there’s no clean energy, there’s no good stuff, there’s no bad stuff.”
