Chris Wright, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for energy secretary, tried to reassure Democrats at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday that he believed climate change was a “global challenge that we need to solve” and that he would support the development of all forms of energy, including wind and solar power.
The founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, a fracking firm, Mr. Wright has been a longtime evangelist for fossil fuels like oil and gas. He has frequently shrugged off the risks of global warming, saying in 2023, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either.” He has also criticized renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, calling them “unreliable and costly.”
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, however, Mr. Wright struck a more diplomatic tone. In his opening statement, he said his top priority was to “unleash” domestic energy production, including liquefied natural gas and nuclear power. Yet under questioning from Senate Democrats, he suggested that he agreed with many of their priorities as well.
At one point, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Democrat of Nevada, told Mr. Wright that “the conversation around energy should be balanced and not just focused on fossil fuels.”
“I agree entirely,” Mr. Wright replied, going on to talk about the importance of less-polluting sources of energy like nuclear, geothermal, hydropower, wind and solar power.
The greenhouse gases from burning oil, gas and coal are the main driver of global warming, which made last year the hottest in recorded history.
In one tense exchange, Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, brought up this month’s catastrophic wildfires in Los Angeles. He noted that Mr. Wright had once written in a social media post, “The hype over wildfires is just hype to justify more impoverishment from bad government policies.”
“Do you still believe that wildfires are just hype?” Mr. Padilla asked angrily.
Mr. Wright said that “climate change is a real and global phenomenon” but did not disavow his past writing. Later, however, he clarified that the Energy Department had an important role to play in tackling global warming.
“Do I wish we could make faster progress? Absolutely,” he said. “Are there things we can do, investments together, through the Department of Energy, to accelerate development of new energy technologies that are really the only pathway to address climate change? Absolutely.”
Yet Mr. Wright also promised to enthusiastically support Mr. Trumps’s energy plans, saying, “I will work tirelessly to pursue his bold agenda.”
Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly called global warming a “hoax,” wants to dismantle existing U.S. policies to reduce emissions and has promised to “drill, baby, drill.”
If confirmed, Mr. Wright would run the Energy Department, which plays a central role in developing new energy technologies. The agency oversees a network of 17 national laboratories that conduct cutting-edge research as well as a $400 billion lending program that under President Biden backed dozens of projects, including battery factories in Ohio and Tennessee and a novel rooftop solar expansion in Puerto Rico.
Mr. Wright would also imanage approvals of liquefied gas export terminals, which the Biden administration has tried to slow, angering industry groups.
Managing an agency so sprawling can be challenging. About 80 percent of the Energy Department’s $52 billion annual budget goes toward maintaining the nation’s nuclear arsenal, cleaning up environmental messes from the Cold War and conducting research in areas like high-energy physics.
At his hearing, Mr. Wright declined to go into details about how he would run the department, seeming to signal to Republican and Democrats alike that he was on their side.
Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest at the agency’s Loan Programs Office, the $400 billion lending program that has been an engine of Mr. Biden’s clean energy agenda. The senator asked Mr. Wright to freeze new loan activity on Day 1. Mr. Wright declined to promise that and merely said he would “immediately engage” with the concerns.
Democrats asked Mr. Wright about proposals by conservative groups to dismantle the agency office that works to expand high-voltage power lines across the country. Those lines can greatly benefit wind and solar power, though experts say they are also critical for avoiding blackouts and keeping electricity prices low.
Mr. Wright sidestepped the question but said that building new transmission lines was “very important.”
When asked by Democrats if he would try to rescind spending for clean-energy programs funded by laws passed under the Biden administration — as many of Mr. Trump’s allies have urged — Mr. Wright said that he would follow the law, but he did not elaborate.
On podcasts and in speeches, Mr. Wright frequently makes a moral case for fossil fuels, arguing that the world’s poorest people need oil and gas to realize the benefits of modern life. Researchers have accused him of downplaying the risks of a warming planet: He said on a podcast last year that climate change would have “a slow-moving, modest impact two or three generations from now.”
Mr. Wright graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and did graduate work on solar energy at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which created software to measure the motion of fluid beneath the Earth’s surface. The software, which Mr. Wright has called “super nerdy,” helped bring about a commercial shale-gas revolution.
Mr. Wright started Liberty Energy in 2011, and the company has worked with others on geothermal energy and small, modular nuclear reactors.
Mr. Wright holds 2.6 million shares in the company, which are worth more than $55 million based on the current stock price. He has said he intends to step down from Liberty Energy and divest his holdings if confirmed.
While the hearing at several points was interrupted by protesters, who accused Mr. Wright of ignoring climate change while Los Angeles burned, the exchanges were mostly devoid of drama. Republicans, who have a 53-47 majority in the Senate and are confident they can confirm Mr. Wright, praised the nominee’s experience in the energy sector. But even many Democrats seemed to find him acceptable.
At the start, Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, introduced Mr. Wright, saying the two men had been friendly for years despite often disagreeing on issues like global warming.
“Some people would be surprised that I’m introducing him here,” said Mr. Hickenlooper. “He is indeed an unrestrained enthusiast for fossil fuels in almost every regard.” But, he added, Mr. Wright was “also a scientist who is open to discussion.”
Lisa Friedman contributed to this report from Washington.
