Trump Picks Fossil Fuel Executive To Lead Department of Energy

Donald Trump has picked a fossil fuel executive named Chris Wright to lead the US Department of Energy. This is a cabinet pick that will sail through an easy confirmation process, since he is neither insane nor plagued with accusations of sexual misconduct. But that doesn’t mean that this pick should be celebrated. If anything, it is one of the most damaging appointments we’ve seen so far. Wright has been at the forefront of lobbying against climate regulations, and is pushing for a rapid expansion of fossil fuel production. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this pick.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Now, I know I've said I'm not gonna make any predictions about who will fail and who will succeed in terms of the people that Trump has nominated for cabinet positions. Uh, but I need to amend that statement because there is one individual that was announced this past weekend that I am 100% certain is going to be confirmed to Donald Trump's cabinet. Uh, probably without hesitation, probably have a lot of, uh, Democrats vote for him too. And that is a man by the name of Chris Wright. Chris Wright is a fossil fuel executive for a, uh, fracking company. Huge Republican donor, huge donor to Donald Trump. And he has been nominated this fossil fuel executive to lead the Department of Energy here in the United States. And this man, Chris Wright, will be the next leader of the Department of Energy. Like no doubt in my mind, he, uh, so far from what we've seen doesn't have any scandals, doesn't have any, you know, women coming forward, making allegations against him.

He doesn't seem to be some kind of weird crackpot conspiracy theorist, although he does have some wild beliefs about climate change. But the beliefs about climate change, public doesn't care about those. You know, the other ones maybe. But this guy is going to be the next secretary of Energy here for the United States. And that of course is very damaging 'cause Mr. Wright has made it clear that what he wants to do is expand drilling, fracking, fossil fuel, oil, whatever it is across the United States. He also has been one of the loudest voices from within the fossil fuel industry against any kind of climate regulations that would help the United States and the world by extension, combat climate change. So it's not necessarily that he's a denier, it's just that he doesn't give a. And that is even more dangerous. A denier might be able to be convinced otherwise, somebody that understands it and doesn't care, that's somebody that's gone.

And that is what this guy is. So here's the thing. One of the big things he wants to do, again, because he is from a fracking company, is the Biden administration for the last year has had a moratorium on selling any frack gas, any natural gas to foreign countries, basically. And it's a good moratorium if you love fossil fuels, right? Basically, Biden said, we're going to get our own gas outta the ground and, and we're only gonna sell it in the United States. It's ours. We're gonna keep it. You cannot sell it overseas. And one of the first thing this guy's gonna do, according to him, is exactly the opposite of what Donald Trump campaigned on, right? We're gonna be energy independent. No, this guy wants to come in and open up new foreign

Markets to sell our natural resources. So we're gonna destroy our own environment, destroy the natural beauty of this country, and then we don't even get the benefit off of it, right? It's not like, yeah, you polluted this entire community, put these chemicals in the ground, they're gonna kill the kids, but hey, at least we got cheaper energy, right? Nope, we don't even get that. We get the death, we get the destruction, we get the diseases. Foreign countries get the oil and the gas and corporate executives like Mr. Wright get the profits. That's what's going to happen. The only silver lining here is that the Department of Energy, kinda like the Department of Interior, those are departments here in the United States that, uh, can't just do things quickly. And that's a good thing. That's where this may work out to our advantage to a degree. It takes a long time to approve new drilling projects here in the United States.