January 17, 2025 12:37 PM UTC

Colorado's Chris Wright Says "Drill Baby Burn"

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Washington Post’s Maxine Joselow reports on the confirmation hearing for Denver’s pre-eminent pontiff of the Church of Petroleum, fossil fuel executive and now Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next Secretary of Energy Chris Wright–who in the context of Trump’s historic parade of deplorable nominees for key Cabinet posts is considered relatively uncontroversial, despite his well-demonstrated contempt for the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change and near-religious devotion to fossil fuels in an era when the global economy needs to be moving away from them.

A contempt that Wright demonstrated again this week, refusing to acknowledge the scientific consensus that climate change is worsening and increasing the frequency of destructive wildfires like those presently raging in Los Angeles:

In the summer of 2023, as smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfed the East Coast, Wright wrote on LinkedIn that “the hype over wildfires is just hype to justify” harmful climate policies. He linked to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist and author who contends that experts have overstated the negative impacts of climate change.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) slammed Wright’s comment about “hype” in a tense exchange during the confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“The climate crisis and its deadly effects is very real to my neighbors and my constituents,” Padilla said. “It’s pretty disappointing to come across some social media posts of yours. … Do you still believe that wildfires are just hype?”

After a bit of back and forth:

After the Democrat pressed him further, he added, “I stand by my past comments.” [Pols emphasis]

Because Wright hails from Colorado, he was introduced at his confirmation hearing by Sen. John Hickenlooper, who as Colorado Public Radio’s Caitlyn Kim reports made clear that he has plenty of disagreements with Wright:

Following tradition, Sen. John Hickenlooper introduced his fellow Coloradan, saying the two disagree on a lot of things, but that Wright is a successful entrepreneur and is open to discussion.

“He’s indeed an unrestrained enthusiast for fossil fuels in almost every regard, but he studied nuclear,’ said Hickenlooper in his opening. “His first years working were in solar. He has experience in wind. He is a practitioner and a key innovator around geothermal.”

Although Wright paid lip service to the existence of human-caused climate change while questioned on the subject by Sen. Hickenlooper and other Democrats on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, it was Wright’s refusal to acknowledge the role of climate change in the devastating California wildfires dominating the headlines that drew the most attention. This is a connection that both scientists and the insurance industry are increasingly certain about, and here in Colorado we have already suffered from similar effects in the devastating Marshall Fire in December of 2021.

With Senate Republicans more inclined to place blame on “DEI policies” for the Los Angeles fires than climate change, we’re obviously not talking about a mistake for Wright that will imperil his nomination. Addressing human-caused climate change was not the priority of the majority of voters who re-elected Donald Trump, and Wright is an Energy Secretary nominee who reflects that prioritization. If Wright is (sorry) right, and climate change is not increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, history may remember Secretary Wright for keeping the price of gas under three bucks a gallon like it is today.

If the science is right and the periphery of American cities continue to burn, Chris Wright will be remembered less positively.