With the announcement of CEO Chris Wright as President-Elect Trump’s nominee to direct the Department of Energy (DOE) and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as nominee to direct the Department of Interior (DOI), the United States has a tremendous opportunity to chart its own diverse, energy-independent future.

Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright speaks at the 2023 ACC Summit, Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum on the 2024 campaign trail, Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP/Getty Images

These two men are set to lead Trump’s new National Energy Council, which the President-Elect has said will, “consist of all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy.” In other words, a whole-of-government approach to build American energy independence and energy dominance. This is exactly what experts have identified is needed to regain American energy supremacy and restore the momentum of previous decades that has been ceded to China and other entities, and which I also have written about here.

Of course, several national media outlets have expressed alarm at these two nominees, writing that they are “climate deniers” who want only to increase fossil fuel production in the United States, at the expense of cleaner and more novel technologies. But fortunately for the United States, this is patently not the case.

Chris Wright’s involvement in the “fracking revolution,” a controversial technology that enables the recovery of vast stores of natural gas and oil from rock through the injection of a high-pressure mixture of water and chemicals, has been widely panned by the media. However, his expertise as the chief executive of energy company Liberty Energy well positions him for Trump’s declared all-of-the-above energy approach. Through his position, Wright has gained experience developing nuclear, geothermal, and solar energy in addition to oil and gas. He also sits on the board of Oklo Inc., a company which designs advanced fast-neutron nuclear reactors.

Wright was a guest speaker at a 2023 national summit held by the American Conservation Coalition, a right-of-center organization committed to solving environmental challenges, including climate change, through market-based principles. In his speech Wright declared, “I’ve been a lifelong environmentalist. Climate change is a real problem, and I’ve been speaking on it for 20 years…We can’t make progress solving a climate challenge if we’re keeping people in poverty and not letting them rise up, because no society in the long run will pursue that policy.” Wright understands the critical importance that energy independence plays in advancing the prosperity of a nation’s citizens.

Permitting reform can help the US implement new green technologies such as carbon capture and storage. Shown: The Petra Nova Carbon Capture project, Michael & Christa Richert/Freeimages.com.

Doug Burgum has been a national leader in energy production and permitting reform during his tenure as Governor of North Dakota. This permitting reform has helped unleash energy innovation in his state and enabled the quicker implementation of new technologies for carbon capture and storage. Burgum understands that for a truly clean future the United States cannot rely on the supply chains of other, dirtier nations. On the 2024 presidential campaign trail Burgum stated: “You can’t offload our environmental life, our future, to China, the world’s largest CO2 emitter, and say that somehow us getting batteries from them is going to clean up the environment. That is a complete fantasy.”

Together, these two leaders represent a very promising step forward for America’s energy independence. Each have vowed to unleash American innovation through permitting reform and competition. Gone will be the Biden Administration’s burdensome, innovation-stifling regulations and unrealistic one-size-fits-all approaches such as electric car mandates or the incentivization of only certain renewables such as wind and solar. Such policies have after only a short time led states and nations alike down dirtier and less-prosperous paths—such as cold-weather states, where winter weather has infamously left EV drivers stranded, or Germany, which has been forced to increase its coal burning during an energy crisis brought about by the Russia-Ukraine war.

No, with these two men, under the leadership of Donald Trump, America will be charting a more diverse, innovative, and prudent path—one which understands that an all-of-the-above, whole-of-government energy approach will be the best in the long run for both the United States and the world.

By Evan Patrohay