KENNEWICK — Fossil fuel executive Chris Wright has become the nation’s energy secretary, despite questions about his commitment to Hanford environmental cleanup raised by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
The Senate vote late Monday was 59-38 to confirm his nomination, with both Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., opposed.
The vote was largely along partisan lines, with eight Democrats voting with Republicans to confirm him, including both senators from his home state of Colorado.
Cantwell also voted against advancing his nomination out of Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 15 for consideration by the full Senate.
“His commitment to the Tri-Party Agreement and upholding it was unsatisfactory,” Cantwell said then.
Wright sent the senator more information after the committee hearing, saying that generally legal agreements should be honored. But that was not enough to earn her support for confirmation.
The Tri-Party Agreement is a legally binding document with environmental cleanup standards and deadlines for the Hanford nuclear reservation negotiated between the Department of Energy and its regulators, Washington state and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The 580-square-mile Hanford site adjacent to Richland in Eastern Washington produced nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.
The wartime work left the site with 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste, buried waste, contaminated groundwater near the Columbia River and contaminated, obsolete buildings and reactors.
Chris Wright responds
When Cantwell questioned Wright about his commitment to the Tri-Party Agreement during the committee hearing, he hesitated.
Cantwell said he needed to look at the issue and put on the record that he believes in the legal framework.
Washington residents don’t want radioactive waste definitions redefined to allow waste left in leaky underground tanks, she told him.
She pointed out after the hearing that she had voted for the last Trump energy secretary nominee, Dan Brouillette, who served from 2019 to 2021.
“The first thing he said when he came here is ‘Hanford and cybersecurity are going to be his number one priorities,’ and I believed him, and he carried through on that commitment,” Cantwell said after the committee hearing.
Wright followed up with Cantwell after the hearing to answer her question on his commitment to upholding the Tri-Party Agreement and a federal court consent decree, saying that “as a general matter, it is my belief that legal agreements should be honored.”
“If confirmed, I will familiarize myself with the Hanford settlement agreement and would be happy to discuss the agreement and the critical importance of cleanup up the Hanford site,” he said in his response.
The Energy Communities Alliance, a nonprofit organization of local governments near DOE activities, told members after Wright’s confirmation that it expects a review of all of DOE’s programs..
“We also believe that, having the secretary and his confirmed political appointees in place, DOE leadership can identify those that are critical to the functioning of DOE …,” the alliance said.
It will encourage Wright to work with local governments to ensure there is no interruption of services that support the environmental cleanup of nuclear sites and other work, including at national laboratories, it said.
Energy secretary on PNNL
Wright praised national laboratories, including Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, in the Senate committee hearing, saying the United States must lead the world in innovation and technology breakthroughs.
Together Hanford and PNNL have annual budgets of more than $4.5 billion, contributing significantly to the Tri-Cities area economy.
Cantwell told him in the Senate committee hearing that artificial intelligence and quantum research need a leadership role from the national labs and adequate funding to continue the nation’s national security agenda.
“PNNL has done fabulous work in this area,” Wright said.
Cybersecurity is a growing threat, with foreign actors attempting to infiltrate government and industry systems, he said.
Wright a ‘science geek’
Chris Wright is the founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, a large fracking services company, and also serves on the board of Oklo Inc., which is developing next-generation fission power plants.
He described himself at the Senate committee hearing as a “science geek, turned tech nerd turned lifelong energy entrepreneur.”
“I am all in on energy from my start in nuclear, solar, and geothermal to my current efforts in oil and gas and next generation geothermal,” he says on the page. “I don’t care where energy comes from, as long as it is secure, reliable, affordable and betters human lives.”
He is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineering graduate and also did graduate studies and work at MIT and University of California Berkeley in electrical engineering.
Climate protesters interrupted the Senate committee hearing several times after Wright previously said in a video posted to LinkedIn that there is no “climate crisis.”
But at the hearing his comments were more moderate. He said that climate change is a real issue.
He said the nation has a historic opportunity to secure its energy systems, deliver leadership in science and technology innovation, steward its weapons stockpile and meet Cold War legacy waste commitments.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., the chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that Wright was a strong choice. The committee plays a key role in approving the Hanford and PNNL annual budgets.
“… I had many meetings and conversations with Secretary Wright about how we can work together … to unleash American-made energy, develop and deploy new nuclear technologies and energy nationwide, and continue modernizing our nuclear deterrent to counter aggression from our adversaries such as China and Russia,” he said.
