>
> https://wallstreetonparade.com/2025/01/trump-plans-to-install-a-fracking-ceo-to-head-the-energy-department-and-declare-a-national-emergency-on-energy-to-gain-vast-powers/
>
>
> By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 20, 2025 ~
>
>
> Chris Wright, Trump’s Nominee for Energy Secretary
>
> Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the
> U.S. Department of Energy, celebrated his 60th birthday on January 15 by
> providing ludicrous answers during his Senate confirmation hearing. The
> periodic screams and outbursts from activists in the hearing room
> punctuated the Orwellian proceedings.
>
> At one point a young woman leapt to her feet and screamed out: “I’m 18
> years old and I want a future!” Screams of “LA is burning” erupted
> periodically. Other activists held up bright yellow signs with bold black
> lettering that read: “Big oil profits, LA burns.” All disruptors were
> quickly escorted from the hearing room by Capitol Police.
>
> The young activists had good cause to be outraged. As their fellow
> citizens in Los Angeles return to the smoldering ruins of thousands of
> homes destroyed by 100 mile per hour winds and dry brush fueling raging
> wildfires – during a period that should be the rainy season in L.A. –
> millions of other Americans are experiencing record-breaking cold following
> the hottest year in recorded history in the U.S. in 2024.
>
> Trump’s answer to catastrophic climate change from fossil fuel emissions
> is to put his big donors from the fossil fuels industry in charge of the
> U.S. energy agenda. Even more alarming, according to a Bloomberg report
> this morning, Trump plans to declare a national emergency on energy,
> unlocking vast powers for himself such as “policy shifts that would enable
> new oil and gas development on federal lands, while directing a rollback of
> Biden-era climate regulations….”
>
> Wright would appear to be an ideal nominee for the Trump administration.
> He smiled his way through outrageous answers – under oath, no less – during
> his confirmation hearing.
>
> Before becoming Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Department of Energy,
> Wright was the founder and CEO of Liberty Energy Inc., one of the largest
> fracking services companies in the United States. Wright is also a climate
> change denier, posting a video on LinkedIn last year where he states:
> “There is no climate crisis. What about extreme weather you ask? We have
> seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes,
> droughts, or floods….”
>
> Despite Wright’s financial disclosure form showing that he owns 41
> separate investments in energy companies, including $65 million (as of last
> Friday’s closing price) in Liberty Energy Inc., when asked during his
> confirmation hearing if he was “aware of any personal holdings, investments
> or interests that could constitute a conflict of interest or create the
> appearance of such a conflict should you be confirmed and assume the office
> to which you’ve been nominated by the President,” Wright gave the
> mind-numbing answer: “I am not.”
>
> At the end of this article is a list of the energy-related assets that
> Wright would be required to divest if he is confirmed as Energy Secretary,
> according to his Ethics Agreement.
>
> However, nothing prevents Wright from returning to his post at Liberty
> Energy after he leaves public office. That gives him a built-in incentive
> to maneuver things in its favor during his time in office.
>
> Wright states on his financial disclosure form that he will continue to
> participate in Liberty Energy’s defined contribution plan, although the
> company will not make contributions on his behalf should he become Energy
> Secretary. Staying in this plan when he could roll it over to his own IRA
> sounds like Wright does plan to return to Liberty Energy.
>
> In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on April 10,
> 2024, in which Wright criticized an SEC rule to force publicly-traded
> companies to disclose climate change information, Wright described Liberty
> Energy as follows:
>
> “Liberty was founded in 2011 with a relentless focus on developing and
> delivering next-generation technology for the sustainable development of
> unconventional energy resources. Our business revolves around partnering
> with the leading oil and gas producers in the United States and Canada to
> unlock their vast underground shale oil and natural gas reserves through
> hydraulic fracturing [another name for fracking]. Liberty began as a
> pure-play provider of hydraulic fracturing operations. We have grown into
> an integrated supplier of all the supporting services that are required to
> execute the frac operations…Liberty employs over 5,000 people and fracs
> roughly 20 percent of the onshore wells drilled in the United States and
> Canada. We are proud to say that about 10 percent of total primary energy
> production in the United States comes from wells frac’d by Liberty.”
>
> Because Wright’s biggest customers at Liberty Energy are Big Oil
> companies, and there is the possibility he will return to Liberty Energy,
> Wright also has a built-in conflict of interest to favor those companies in
> his decision-making as Secretary of the Energy Department.
>
> Sierra Club Director of Beyond Fossil Fuels Policy, Mahyar Sorour,
> released the following statement on Wright’s nomination:
>
> “Chris Wright is the personification of ‘conflict of interest.’ He’s spent
> decades getting rich from polluting, dangerous fracking for methane gas and
> has denied the impacts to our health and the climate along the way. Wright
> made it clear that, if confirmed, he’d hinder clean energy investment and
> promote fossil fuels like LNG exports, further enriching himself and his
> fellow oil and gas CEOs while we continue to pay the price with more
> pollution and higher energy costs. As Americans from coast to coast are
> living with the catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis, the last
> thing we need is a climate-denying fossil fuel executive at the helm of our
> nation’s energy policy.”
>
>
>
