New DOE leader wants to unleash American energy dominance

Wright was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Monday and the next day vowed to “unleash American Energy in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders,” in his first secretarial order. On January 20, Trump issued a far-reaching executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy,” in which he directs agencies to conduct an immediate review of “all agency actions that potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources,” including nuclear.

“To compete globally, we must expand energy production and reduce energy costs for American families and businesses. America must lead the world in innovation and technology breakthroughs, which includes accelerating the work of the [Department of Energy’s] National Laboratories. We must also permit and build energy infrastructure and remove barriers to progress, including federal policies that make it too easy to stop projects and far too difficult to complete projects,” Wright said in his order.

Immediate actions: Wright outlined a number of priority actions for the DOE; here are the ones that most apply to nuclear energy:

• Support American energy innovation.
• Unleash commercial nuclear power in the U.S.
• Strengthen grid reliability and security.
• Streamline permitting and eliminate undue burdens on American energy.

Controversial stances: Before taking office, Wright most recently was founder and chief executive of Liberty Energy, a Denver, Colo.–based company that specializes in fracking. He also sat on the board of directors for Oklo, a Silicon Valley–based developer of small modular reactors.

Wright’s controversial stance on climate change came up during his Senate hearing, and he included in his opening remarks a statement about climate change “being real”—with a caveat.

“I’ve studied, spoken, written on it for 25 years,” Wright said. “But there’s climate change the physical science and our understanding and then there’s the words climate change used politically to pursue agendas that may or may not be at all related to what we actually know about climate change.”

He added, “There’s no such thing as clean energy and dirty energy.” Wright used the analogy of “there’s no free lunch” talking about energy and the trade-offs that have to be made depending on the energy source used.

Legislative action: In parallel to Wright taking office, U.S. Reps. from Tennessee Chuck Fleischmann, a Republican, and Marc Veasey, a Democrat, launched the new, bipartisan American Energy Dominance Caucus on Wednesday. The group will focus on raising awareness of all forms of American-made energy, promoting domestic energy production, and increasing energy security.

“Increasing the production of all forms of American-made energy, especially new nuclear energy, should never be a partisan issue,” Fleischmann said in the news release.

Veasey agreed, adding that energy security “requires cooperation from both sides of the aisle. As the world faces rising authoritarian regimes using energy as a weapon, it’s essential that we take control of our energy future.”