{"id":23630,"date":"2025-02-04T23:40:45","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T06:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-hickenlooper-back-colorado-energy-executive-to-lead-department-of-energy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:40:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:40:04","slug":"bennet-hickenlooper-back-colorado-energy-executive-to-lead-department-of-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/bennet-hickenlooper-back-colorado-energy-executive-to-lead-department-of-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennet, Hickenlooper back Colorado energy executive to lead Department of Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Chris
Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Energy, testifies during a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing for his pending confirmation, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 The U.S. Senate this week confirmed Chris Wright \u2013 former CEO and chairman of the Denver-based Liberty Energy Group \u2013 to be secretary of the Department of Energy.<\/p>\n

Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper joined six other Democrats in backing the Colorado fossil fuel executive, who received a 59-38 approval in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Wright describes himself as \u201call in on energy\u201d and has worked on nuclear, solar and geothermal energy projects before founding Liberty Energy, a hydraulic fracking company, in 2011. He has acknowledged climate change as an issue but condemned Democrats\u2019 efforts to mitigate climate change by limiting natural gas and oil production. Instead, he argues that the government should focus on investing in all forms of energy to reduce prices.<\/p>\n

\"Sens.
Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Just over a week after his hearing with the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, both Colorado senators released statements supporting Wright. Both said they disagreed with Wright on some things, but that they hoped to work together.<\/p>\n

\u201cChris Wright is a scientist who has dedicated his life to the study and use of energy,\u201d Hickenlooper said. \u201cHe believes in science and supports the research that will deliver the affordable, reliable, and clean energy that will not only lower costs but make our country more secure. While we don\u2019t always agree, we will work together because none of us have four years to wait to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet commended Wright as an \u201centrepreneur with deep expertise in energy innovation and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is passionate about strengthening America\u2019s energy independence and lowering costs for Colorado families,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cWhile we don\u2019t agree on everything, we look forward to working with him to ensure Colorado continues to lead the country in energy production and innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As secretary, Wright will join Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in implementing President Donald Trump\u2019s energy agenda.<\/p>\n

That agenda, which involves rolling back many Biden administration climate-focused regulations and embracing fossil fuels, is already underway. In his day-one executive orders, Trump froze leftover spending from the Democrats\u2019 Inflation Reduction Act, a law that prioritized clean energy development. He also restarted review of applications for natural gas exports and halted offshore wind power development.<\/p>\n

At his Jan. 15 confirmation hearing with the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Wright didn\u2019t shy away from acknowledging that burning fossil fuels contributes to climate change, but said he would work with any energy sources to \u201cunleash energy security and prosperity\u201d and implement Trump\u2019s energy agenda.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper, who sits on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and lists climate change as one of his top priorities, questioned Wright about the potential for the DOE to create a \u201ccomprehensive plan on how we deal with the energy future but also take a hard look at climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright responded that he was \u201cvery interested in that idea\u201d and said it was time for the Department \u201cto look not just at energy and the energy trajectory we\u2019re on, but the other issues related to energy and top among them, climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper followed up, pressing Wright about how climate change is accelerating and asking how the DOE could help plan for natural disasters that result from climate change.<\/p>\n

Wright replied that he had followed climate change science for over 20 years and said that climate change is a \u201cglobal issue, it is a real issue, it is a challenging issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the solution to climate change is to evolve our energy system,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 Do I wish we could make faster progress? Absolutely. Are there things we can do, investments, together through the DOE to accelerate the development of new energy technologies that are really the only pathway to address climate change? Absolutely. And we should have nothing but American leadership in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright said Trump is aligned with that position, as well.<\/p>\n

Yet, Trump has previously called climate change a hoax and has not made addressing it a priority in his second term. One of his day-one executive orders pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreements, a process that takes a year to complete.<\/p>\n

The DOE is responsible for overseeing the nation\u2019s nuclear stockpile, the department\u2019s 17 National Laboratories, the continued cleanup from the nation\u2019s nuclear projects and the Department\u2019s Power Marketing administrations, which sell energy from federally owned and operated hydroelectric dams. It also approves natural gas exports.<\/p>\n

Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

acknowledges climate change exists but prioritizes new technologies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1427,28,1651,25,1566],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-energy-general","tag-headlines","tag-sen-john-hickenlooper","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78204,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23630\/revisions\/78204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23630"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}