The U.S. Senate on Feb. 3 voted to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of energy, Chris Wright, 59-38, days after confirming Doug Burgum as secretary of the interior.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Mike Lee (R-Utah) said Wright, CEO of Liberty Energy, would reverse the climate policies championed by the Biden administration’s Department of Energy.
“For the last four years, when Americans opened their energy bills, they didn’t see ‘climate plans’; they saw costs piling up and questions they couldn’t answer,” Lee said. “With Chris Wright as secretary of energy, I am confident that we can reverse the irresponsible policies of the Biden administration and prioritize affordable and reliable energy.”
Lee’s counterpart in the House, Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), also welcomed Wright’s confirmation.
“Maintaining affordable and reliable energy will be key to both our economic success and national security in the years ahead,” Guthrie said. “Secretary Wright understands the importance of utilizing our domestic energy resources to secure the grid, lower prices and create family-sustaining jobs.”
Burgum, former governor of North Dakota, was confirmed 78-19 on Jan. 30. Both he and Wright cleared the floor within two weeks of making it out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which approved them both Jan. 23. (See Trump Energy, Interior Cabinet Picks Easily Pass Committee Votes.)
“Gov. Burgum’s confirmation today is a win for our public lands and a win for American energy,” Lee said. “He has spent his career bringing people together to solve problems and earned the trust of tribes, businesses, conservationists and working families alike. He understands that we cannot regulate our way into prosperity.”
Advanced Energy United welcomed the two new secretaries with statements arguing that its members’ technologies — such as solar, wind, storage and advanced transmission — are part of an affordable, reliable grid.
“Our industry shares with Secretaries Burgum and Wright their ambition to lower energy costs, strengthen the electric grid and make America energy abundant,” CEO Heather O’Neill said. “We urge the incoming administration to embrace and enable the market forces and investments that are allowing states to leverage advanced energy solutions to meet their energy needs. Advanced energy technologies provided 96% of all new electricity added to America’s power grid in 2024 and remain the lowest-cost way to reliably meet growing electricity demand.”
Electric Power Supply Association CEO Todd Snitchler argued that Wright and Burgum should support competitive markets as the power industry seeks to meet higher demand from data centers.
“Properly functioning competitive wholesale electricity markets have a proven track record of delivering the reliable power needed to fuel this growth while adapting to new technologies and market conditions and shielding consumers and taxpayers from investment risks,” Snitchler said. “These benefits are made all the more salient as recent news about DeepSeek and other AI tools has underscored the likely quickly changing dynamics of the industry as it develops.”
American Clean Power CEO Jason Grumet congratulated Burgum on his new role and said the clean energy industry wanted to work with the new administration.
“We are eager to support the administration’s efforts to make American energy dominance a reality,” Grumet said. “This whole-of-government approach will be crucial to aligning agencies to advance an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy strategy which is essential to achieving these goals.”
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association CEO Jim Matheson said his members often have to deal with Interior, as they operate on federal lands.
“Electric cooperatives serve 56% of the nation’s landmass and operate on more public lands than any other type of utility,” Matheson said. “We look forward to partnering with Secretary Burgum and his team to alleviate the layers of bureaucratic red tape in our land and species management agencies that so often stand in the way of electric system operations, reliability and affordability. By doing so, cooperatives can more effectively operate and maintain their systems, harden the electric grid against wildfire and other threats and meet surging electricity demand.”
