Fracking boss Chris Wright confirmed as US energy secretary by Senate
The CEO of Liberty Energy has been one of the fossil-fuel industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change
The vote on Monday was 59-38, with seven Democrats and one independent, who caucuses with Democrats, crossing the aisle.
Wright, 60, has said he will step down from Liberty Energy once confirmed. He wrote in a Liberty report last year that he believes human-caused climate change is real, but that its hazards are “distant and uncertain”. He has also said that top-down governmental policies to curb it are destined to fail.
“President Trump shares my passion for energy,” Wright said at his confirmation hearing last month, promising that if confirmed, he would “work tirelessly to implement [Trump’s] bold agenda as an unabashed steward for all sources of affordable, reliable and secure American energy”.