[Senate Hearing 119-54]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-54
WRIGHT NOMINATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
to
CONSIDER THE NOMINATION OF CHRISTOPHER A. WRIGHT
TO BE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
__________
JANUARY 15, 2025
__________
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-065 WASHINGTON : 2025
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
MIKE LEE, Utah, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
STEVE DAINES, Montana MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
TOM COTTON, Arkansas MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID McCORMICK, Pennsylvania ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
JAMES C. JUSTICE, West Virginia CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi ALEX PADILLA, California
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Wendy Baig, Majority Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Majority Chief Counsel
Jasmine Hunt, Minority Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Lee, Hon. Mike, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Utah............ 1
Heinrich, Hon. Martin, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from New
Mexico......................................................... 2
Hickenlooper, Hon. John W., a U.S. Senator from Colorado......... 4
Hoeven, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from North Dakota.............. 5
WITNESS
Wright, Christopher A., nominated to be Secretary of Energy...... 7
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
American Chemistry Council:
Letter for the Record........................................ 285
American Council of Engineering Companies:
Letter for the Record........................................ 287
American Exploration and Mining Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 288
American Gas Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 289
Biteman, Bo et al.:
Letter for the Record........................................ 291
Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions:
Letter for the Record........................................ 293
Clarios:
Letter for the Record........................................ 294
Cramton, Jack:
Communication for the Record................................. 290
Domestic Energy Producers' Alliance:
Letter for the Record........................................ 295
Heinrich, Hon. Martin:
Opening Statement............................................ 2
Hickenlooper, Hon. John W.:
Opening Statement............................................ 4
Hispanics in Energy:
Letter for the Record........................................ 296
Hoeven, Hon. John:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Independent Women:
Letter for the Record........................................ 297
Industrial Energy Consumers of America:
Letter for the Record........................................ 298
Institute of Makers of Explosives:
Letter for the Record........................................ 301
Lee, Hon. Mike:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Liberty Energy Report entitled ``Bettering Human Lives''
published in 2024.......................................... 13
National Mining Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 302
National Rural Electric Cooperative Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 304
National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 305
Neiman, Chip et al.:
Letter for the Record........................................ 306
Portland Cement Association:
Letter for the Record........................................ 308
280 Earth et al.:
Letter for the Record........................................ 309
U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
Letter for the Record........................................ 313
Wright, Christopher A.:
Opening Statement............................................ 7
Written Testimony............................................ 9
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 235
WRIGHT NOMINATION
----------
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike Lee,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH
The Chairman. Good morning, and welcome to the very first
hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
during the 119th Congress. It really is a privilege to serve in
this capacity, as Chairman, during such a pivotal moment in our
nation's history, particularly as it relates to our nation's
energy policies.
Mr. Wright, thank you so much for joining us--joining us no
less on your birthday. Now, people, you don't turn 30 twice in
a lifetime, but we can count today as your second 30th
birthday, if you would prefer. I see that you are here with
family, and I really enjoyed meeting each of them, and we will
look forward to hearing you introduce them in a moment when we
hear from you.
Your nomination, in many ways, really couldn't be coming at
a more urgent time. Over the past four years, Americans have
suffered under a lot of policies that have made life more
difficult, more uncertain, and more expensive. Energy prices
have soared, driving up the cost of not only energy itself, but
everything around it--everything from housing to healthcare,
from gas to groceries. And as a result, families have struggled
to make ends meet. As it turns out, you need energy to do just
about everything, and when the cost of energy goes up, the cost
of everything else does too. The Biden Administration has
completely failed to recognize the fundamental role that energy
plays in our lives and the devastating consequences of
excessive and unwise government intervention. From the cost of
goods to the strength of our national defense, affordable and
reliable energy is the backbone of our economy, and even our
way of life.
Now, America is, of course, blessed with an abundant supply
of natural resources. We are blessed with oil and gas, with
coal, even with nuclear and the ingenuity behind that, with
geothermal, with hydropower, wind, and solar and it's our
responsibility to figure out how to harness these things
safely, affordably, and effectively. Unfortunately, the Biden
Administration has done the exact opposite of those things. On
his very first day in office, President Biden halted new oil
and natural gas leases on public lands and waters, effectively
cutting off access to resources that could have powered our
economy and benefited the lives of ordinary Americans. Over the
past four years, this same Administration has dismantled
domestic energy production, canceled leases, and weaponized
regulations to discourage investment in pipelines and critical
energy infrastructure.
Instead of unleashing American energy, this Administration
has instead decided to reduce our access to energy, and they
have reduced many of these tools within the Department of
Energy to a political tool for advancing extreme climate
policies, policies that prioritize ideology over innovation,
security, and affordability. These failures have caused
devastating harm. Skyrocketing energy prices don't just hit
consumers at the pump, they raise the cost of manufacturing,
transportation, and everything in between. The Strategic
Petroleum Reserve has been recklessly drained to historic lows.
These policies have eroded our energy independence as a
country, making us dangerously and unwisely reliant on foreign
suppliers, including some adversarial nations. This is why
today's hearing is, I think, so important. The Department of
Energy's responsibilities are vast--maintaining our nuclear
stockpile, fostering innovation through research and
development, and ensuring affordable, reliable energy for the
people.
If confirmed, Mr. Wright, you will lead an agency with the
potential to transform our energy future for the better. Your
track record as the founder and leader of Liberty Energy speaks
volumes about your qualifications, and about the expertise and
know-how that you bring to the job. You understand the energy
sector and the many challenges that it faces, including, and
especially those from the government. I am eager to hear your
plans for refocusing the Department of Energy on what ought to
be its core mission--ensuring energy security, driving
innovation, and lowering costs for American families. American
energy security is American national security. You cannot
separate them. They are inextricably intertwined. Producing
more energy here at home is a national imperative, and I look
forward to working with you and your colleagues, the people you
will work with at the Department of Energy, as well as my
colleagues here on this Committee, to ensure that the
Department of Energy returns to its founding and all-important
purpose.
Mr. Wright, the challenges you will face as Secretary of
Energy are significant, but so is the opportunity to restore
America's standing as an energy superpower. I am looking
forward to the beginning of a collaborative effort to start a
new course for our nation's energy policy. Thank you for your
willingness to serve, and I look forward to today's discussion.
And we will turn now, and hear now from our Ranking Member,
Senator Heinrich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman Lee. I want to
welcome the new members of this Committee, as well as returning
members. And happy birthday, Mr. Wright.
It is an honor to address you today as the newly appointed
Ranking Member of this Committee. I am honored to represent a
state whose economy and whose identity are really so deeply
connected to DOE's mission. Sandia and Los Alamos rank among
the state's largest employers, offering stable, mission-driven
jobs to nearly 30,000 people. In 2023, their combined economic
impact on my state reached nearly $9 billion, and these
investments have fueled research, development, and scientific
progress, driving global advancements in fields such as nuclear
science, cybersecurity, clean energy, and materials science.
Now, before continuing my remarks, I must express my
disappointment that the Chair has decided to move forward with
this hearing over my objection, given the fact that, Mr.
Wright, your ethics and financial materials arrived yesterday
after business hours. I appreciate your responsiveness to my
questions and your willingness to meet with me, but I don't
think it is too much to ask that members of this Committee get
24 hours to review those documents. Mr. Wright, it is
unfortunate that our first order of business involved breaking
Committee precedents. Nevertheless, because my concerns have
gone unheeded, we will proceed today.
Some secretaries in the past have been surprised to learn
that roughly half of DOE's budget supports the nation's nuclear
security enterprise through the National Nuclear Security
Administration and the cleanup of legacy nuclear waste from
weapons produced during the Cold War through the Office of
Environmental Management. And although only a fraction of its
budget goes to energy research, DOE is still the single largest
supporter of basic research in the physical sciences, not just
through the Office of Science, but also through the Title 17
Clean Energy Financing Program and the Advanced Research
Projects Agency.
The Secretary of Energy must recognize the importance of
DOE's research and development programs at the national labs,
and not just for energy production, but also for efficient
energy use, national security, cybersecurity, climate change,
and maintaining our position of leadership in the world. The
Secretary of Energy must also adapt to a rapidly evolving
energy landscape driven by three empirical trends. First,
electricity demand is growing for the first time in decades.
Advances in generative artificial intelligence technologies and
investments in manufacturing and data centers are driving up
electricity demand. In fact, nationwide, electric demand is
expected to grow by 15 percent in just the next five years.
Second, distributed renewable energy is getting cheaper. The
deployment of renewable energy continues to accelerate
exponentially, not in a linear fashion, and consistently
outpaces EIA predictions year over year. The pace of this
deployment is driving down energy costs, giving Americans more
energy freedom to choose how they want to heat and cool their
homes or fuel their cars and trucks. Third, clean energy is
driving economic growth. According to the International Energy
Agency, clean energy accounted for 10 percent of global GDP
growth in 2023.
If confirmed, Mr. Wright, you will inherit a department
that has received historic levels of investment to fund
programs and policies that are literally transforming the U.S.
economy. These programs and policies were authorized by
landmark legislation, including the Energy Act of 2020, the
CHIPS and Science Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those investments are
paying off. Two years after CHIPS and Science, companies have
announced more than $395 billion of investments in
semiconductors and electronics and the creation of over 115,000
jobs, primarily in manufacturing. Two years after passage of
the Inflation Reduction Act, businesses, including battery
manufacturers and auto companies, have announced $493 billion
of investments, a 71 percent increase from the two-year period
preceding that legislation. And three years after the passage
of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Administration
announced $568 billion in projects for over 66,000 projects
across our country. These landmark laws give the Secretary of
Energy new resources and authorities to implement programs and
policies that will unlock hundreds of gigawatts worth of solar,
wind, and grid battery projects that have been stuck in
interconnection queues all around the country. This hearing
will provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate to the
Committee that you will implement Congress's vision of energy
abundance and enforce and uphold the laws of the land.
I look forward to this discussion.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
And to be clear, we did follow the rules of the Committee,
and they did not arrive after business hours. They arrived at
5:40 p.m. The bipartisan front office of the Committee is, in
fact, open until 6 p.m., and so, those came during business
hours.
We are now going to hear from Senator Hickenlooper, who
will be introducing Secretary Wright--or Mr. Wright--soon to be
Secretary Wright.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Ranking
Member Heinrich.
I am here today to introduce Chris Wright before the Energy
and Natural Resources Committee, a fellow Coloradan, on his
birthday. As someone I have known for a number of years, I
first met Chris at a fundraising effort for scholarships for
needy kids. We share the fact that we both married way over our
heads. His wife, Liz, is behind him, and like my wife, Robin,
far outshines him in many regards. Chris won't be surprised to
hear me say that we disagree on a lot of things and we are
almost legendary--probably 12 or 13 years ago at a fancy Easter
dinner in the middle of the day--for getting rather heated over
some of the issues around energy, and I think what was
interesting--my wife was very worried about our hosts and us
being invited back, whereas I don't think Chris and I took any
offense at all. And I think that, you know, some people would
be surprised that I am introducing him here, and yet he is a
scientist who has invested his life around energy and he is
indeed an unrestrained enthusiast for fossil fuels in almost
every regard, but he studied nuclear. He started out at the
University of Colorado, just so I am perfectly clear, but
somehow, he ended up at MIT, a place one of my associates is
known to have haunted, and he studied nuclear there in detail--
got a master's.
His first years working were in solar. He has experience in
wind. He is a practitioner and a key innovator around
geothermal and the incredible potential that we have in
geothermal. He is a scientist who is open to discussion and he
is, again, a scientist who is a successful entrepreneur and has
that ability to assess what is possible and what isn't. Again,
I am well known--for the last 40 years, I have been worried and
working to address climate change and I worry about the
acceleration of feedback loops that could make what we saw in
Los Angeles over the past couple weeks a grim foreshadowing of
other events that could come. But I think that what we are
looking at now is the need for a comprehensive approach to
energy in every regard. Chris has spent a lot of time looking
at poverty, not just in this country, but around the world, and
how energy affects that and how it affects the health of people
in different countries. He is fully versed on the assessments
we have made, both on this Committee and as a Congress in the
past couple years to make investments around energy, and he
respects that.
And I think, as we go forward, I look forward to continuing
the robust discussions. And I am not going to hold back, and I
know that he won't hold back either. And I think that is part
of the key of a democracy, is being able to sit down and really
thrash out your beliefs and what the facts are and be able to
measure them. I think we both learned and evolved over the
years on a number of issues, and I have a high optimism we can
work together. I look forward to figuring out what are the best
ways and the fastest ways we can address the climate challenges
we face.
So Chris, thank you for being willing to do this public
service, and I look forward to the discussion.
The Chairman. We will hear next from Senator Hoeven.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Chairman Lee, and also Ranking
Member Heinrich.
Welcome, and welcome to you, Chris, and your family. It's
great to meet all of you. I think it's fantastic that you are
here, and of course, Liz, very important that you are here.
That was obvious right away when you came in and gave me that
huge hug. Moral support is unbelievable. And to have your mom
here is pretty cool, on your birthday--60th birthday. And as
far as your grandson, Miles, you know, seven months, but it's
never too soon to start getting used to Senate hearings. So I
think bringing him and kind of getting him used to what goes on
is great.
I am really pleased to follow up Senator Hickenlooper. I
have great respect for him, your home-state Senator. He is a
trained geologist. He knows energy and he has worked and helped
me on a lot of things, and I am very pleased to join you in
this introduction. And really, it's appropriate because you
live in Colorado, but an awful lot of your work has been done
in my State of North Dakota. And you have had a huge, huge
impact. When I started as Governor of North Dakota in 2001, we
produced less than 100,000 barrels of oil, and it was going
down. It was going down because we were drilling 14,000-foot
vertical wells and there were more cost-effective places to do
it.
So I started a policy called ``EmPower North Dakota,'' and
it wasn't just about producing oil and gas, it was about
producing energy, as Senator Hickenlooper said, from all
sources, and we do in North Dakota now. We are a powerhouse in
energy, and you know it well. But it came from creating the
right climate, the right legal tax and regulatory climate to
encourage energy development, and it came down to getting
entrepreneurs, great thinkers, people who were smart, well-
trained, and motivated. People who had gone to places like MIT
and Berkeley and had the latest, greatest understanding of
technologies and all kinds of things. People who would create
companies, like Pinnacle Technologies, that started the
hydraulic fracturing mapping industry so folks could figure out
where the energy was, and then folks that chaired companies,
like Stroud Energy, and then started their own companies, like
Liberty Energy, to actually do it, to unlock this energy
potential here and do it with the best environmental
stewardship, the smallest footprint, right? And as a result of
folks like that, North Dakota went from less than 100,000
barrels of oil and going down, to 1.5 million barrels a day--
1.5 million barrels of oil a day, not to mention all the
natural gas--with the best environmental stewardship in the
world.
And the reality is, you are that entrepreneur that I am
talking about right now--you, and others. And that's what we
are talking about. So if we really want all-of-the-above, we
need guys like you, Chris, that really understand energy--all
aspects of energy, whether it's, as one of my favorite
presidents used to say, ``nuclur'' energy, or oil and gas or
anything else, you have that incredible knowledge and
understanding and capability to drive this technology to truly
make us energy dominant. And that's what we need to focus on,
you know, regardless of what kind of energy you may or may not
favor, to truly have an all-of-the-above, we need to continue
to drive that technology curve. And I cannot think of anyone
better able to do that based on your training, your education,
your interest, your accomplishments, and your experience. And I
am just pleased that you are willing--you, and your family--are
willing to stand up and serve.
Thank you so much for being here today, I appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Chairman. Thanks so much.
Mr. Wright, we are now going to swear you in. If you will
stand, and I will administer the oath.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you are about
to give to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Mr. Wright. I do.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I will now ask you three questions before you turn to your
opening statement, three questions that we ask to each nominee
before this Committee.
Will you be available to appear before the Committee and
other Congressional Committees to represent the Department
positions and respond to issues of concern to Congress?
Mr. Wright. I will.
The Chairman. Are you aware of any personal holdings,
investments, or interests that could constitute a conflict of
interest or create the appearance of such a conflict, should
you be confirmed and assume the office to which you have been
nominated by the President?
Mr. Wright. I am not.
The Chairman. Are you involved, or do you have any assets
held in a blind trust?
Mr. Wright. I do not.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Now, you may proceed with your opening statement. Thank
you.
STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER A. WRIGHT,
NOMINATED TO BE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Heinrich, and members of the Committee. Thank you also to
Senator Hickenlooper and Senator Hoeven for your kind remarks,
friendship, and for your continued service to our Centennial
State and great nation.
Before I begin my remarks, I would like to recognize the
members of my family who have joined me today: my wife, Liz; my
daughter, Schuyler, and her husband, Greg; my seven-month-old
grandson, Miles; my son, Arthur and his fiancee, Aluel. Also in
the crowd, not needing identification, is my mother, Gayla,
sister, Kim, many other extended family and friends as well.
The most fortunate event in my very fortunate life was meeting
my wife, Liz, when I was 18 years old. I came home that night
and told my sister that I had met the woman that I would marry.
It is truly an honor to appear before this Committee as
President-elect Trump's nominee for Secretary of Energy. I am
humbled by the great responsibility this position holds.
America has an historic opportunity to secure our energy
systems, deliver leadership in scientific and technological
innovation, steward our weapon stockpiles, and meet Cold War
legacy waste commitments.
I call myself a science geek, turned tech nerd, turned
lifelong energy entrepreneur. My fascination with energy
started at a young age in Denver, Colorado. I enrolled at MIT
specifically to work on fusion energy. I started graduate
school at UC Berkeley, where I worked on solar energy as well
as power electronics.
Energy is the essential agent of change that enables
everything that we do--everything. A low-energy society is
poor. A highly energized society can bring health, wealth, and
opportunity for all. The stated mission of the company that I
founded, Liberty Energy, is to better human lives through
energy. Liberty works directly in oil, natural gas, next-
generation geothermal, and has partnerships in next-generation
nuclear energy and new battery technology.
Energy has been a lifelong passion of mine, and----
[Protester shouting.]
Mr. Wright [continuing]. Energy has been a lifelong passion
of mine, and I have never been shy about that fact. Then again,
I have never been shy about much. President Trump shares my
passion for energy, and if confirmed, I will work tirelessly to
implement his bold agenda as an unabashed steward for all
sources of affordable, reliable, and secure American energy.
I see three immediate tasks where I will focus my attention
if I get the privilege of being confirmed.
The first is to unleash American energy at home and abroad
to restore our energy dominance. The security of our nation
begins with energy. Previous administrations have viewed energy
as a liability instead of the immense national asset that it
is. To compete globally, we must expand energy production,
including commercial nuclear and liquefied natural gas, and cut
the cost of energy for Americans.
Second, we must lead the world in innovation and technology
breakthroughs. Throughout my lifetime, technology and
innovation have immeasurably enhanced the human condition. We
must protect and accelerate the work of the Department's
national laboratory network to secure America's competitive
advantage and its security. I commit to working with Congress
on the important missions of the national laboratories.
Third, we must build things in America again and remove
barriers to progress. Federal policies today make it too easy
to stop projects and very hard to start and complete projects.
This makes energy more expensive and less reliable. President
Trump is committed to lowering energy costs, and to do so, we
must prioritize cutting red tape, enabling private sector
investments, and building the infrastructure we need to make
energy more affordable for families and businesses.
I have met with almost every member of the Committee, and I
appreciate the perspective, priorities, and insight that you
have shared. As a nerdy guy who reads and studies data, I will
need the guidance and partnership of this Committee. I feel
confident we can work together to make a difference. I look
forward to answering your questions, and if confirmed,
shepherding the President's bold energy agenda to unleash
energy security and prosperity.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be here
today. I look forward to answering the Committee's questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Wright.
We will now proceed to five-minute rounds, with Democrats
and Republicans alternating in order of seniority and order of
arrival, and we will begin those right now.
Mr. Wright, Liberty Energy's Bettering Human Lives report
is something I find an informative document. I have a copy of
it right here.
[The report referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. It is something that brings what I regard as
a pretty clear-headed perspective to the climate change
dialogue, which I think has been sorely missing in our
discussion of many of these issues. As with anything that we
do, and basically everything that we build, there are trade-
offs. In energy, there are trade-offs at the nexus of energy
security, energy poverty, economic prosperity, upward mobility,
and various environmental considerations. The U.S. Department
of Energy can play a pivotal role, but unfortunately, during
the Biden Administration, we have seen many levers within our
system of government, including and especially the Department
of Energy, being used as part of a ``whole-of-government''
approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and doing this
without considering the consequences of this kind of unbalanced
approach. The trade-offs that I mentioned aren't really taken
into consideration. It is one objective taken into account as
part of a whole-of-government approach that has really harmed a
lot of American families.
So how, in your view, can and should the Department of
Energy focus on energy abundance, and how will doing that help
to restore the balance that American energy policy has been
lacking over the last four years?
Mr. Wright. Thank you for the question, Senator, and for
the points you made. Yes, energy is hard, but it is critical
for our civilization and for the prosperity and security of our
country. The Department of Energy--I will start with just the
magnificent 17 national labs. You know, these launched during
World War II, and were a key part of actually America winning
that war and securing a post-war peace. Our labs have been
pioneers in energy innovation across the spectrum. Very
important for me is to keep the labs focused and energized to
work on science--basic fundamental science, but also science
that will someday, and maybe someday soon, have applications to
energy. Our labs have a proud track record there, and I want to
champion that. And the labs, and the Energy Department as a
whole, work across the energy spectrum with reasonable
involvement in virtually every meaningful energy source we have
today.
So my mission would be to inspire people in the Department
and in the labs and across the network to focus on what is most
important for Americans, which is growing the supply of
affordable, reliable, secure American energy.
The Chairman. Growing the supply. That is a novel and very
important concept to grasp, especially in a moment when
American energy demand is growing--growing because of our
growing population, and also growing because of the ways in
which we use energy, with data centers and artificial
intelligence making a dent and about to make a much bigger dent
in what it is that we need to energize our economy. It's a very
poor time indeed to be declining in terms of our energy
production relative to anticipated demand.
Well, it sounds like you grasp that fully and are ready to
take that challenge on.
Mr. Wright. Yes, sir. I agree with you, Senator, very much.
The Chairman. In an interim report that was released last
month, the Department of Energy's Inspector General raised
several pretty serious concerns regarding potential conflicts
of interest within the Department of Energy's Loan Programs
Office. Those concerns include the troubling dual roles of some
contractors who may be advising both the Loan Programs Office
and potential loan recipients at the same time. The IG
recommended that the issuance of new loans should perhaps be
suspended until these potential conflicts are fully addressed
and the safeguards necessary to correct them are implemented.
If you are confirmed, will you commit to following the
Inspector General's recommendation and suspend the issuance of
new loans until the Loan Programs Office compliance with
conflicts of interest regulations and contractual obligations
is guaranteed?
Mr. Wright. If I have the privilege to be confirmed, I will
immediately engage in that issue. Nothing is more important
than the integrity of the loan process, of following the rule
of law. Without integrity, without fair processes, you lose
confidence, you undermine businesses' ability to invest and
where capital is deployed to. I am aware of the report and will
dive into that issue immediately.
The Chairman. Great.
My five minutes are expired. We will hear now from Senator
Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
Mr. Wright, I am going to start with a real easy one. Will
you commit to visiting both Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs
in your first year, if you are confirmed as Secretary?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator. I will absolutely commit to
visit those two prestigious and hallowed institutions, and I
would love to coordinate with your staff, and if at all
possible, we could visit together.
Senator Heinrich. Great.
Mr. Wright. And I am a huge fan of those two institutions
and look forward to walking their halls.
Senator Heinrich. All right, I appreciate that very much.
I would like you to talk a little bit about your divestment
plans. You do--and you mentioned it--a lot of work in the
energy space, and we had a conversation about the need to
maintain not only the avoidance of conflicts of interest, but
also the avoidance of appearances of conflicts of interest. So
can you talk a little bit about your plans for divestment?
Mr. Wright. I agree with all of that, Senator. I have been
a lifelong entrepreneur in the energy space. And of course, I
have submitted my disclosures of all of my work and the
appropriate ethics counselors within the Federal Government
have----
[Protestor shouting.]
Mr. Wright [continuing]. Appropriate ethics people have
reviewed my investments, my personal holdings and other
interests, and I have agreed to take all the appropriate action
to avoid any real conflicts or perceived conflicts of interest.
I am fully aligned with you there, Senator.
Senator Heinrich. I appreciated your comments about the
fidelity to the rule of law, and so I want to ask you a
particular question, in part because the OMB nominee has stated
his support for using executive impoundment of funds passed by
Congress in order to achieve spending reductions. And so, I
have a little bit of a two-part question for you. As Secretary,
if the OMB Director was to try to direct your Department not to
fund a program or an activity that Congress had expressly
appropriated funding for, would you follow the law?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
Yeah, my mission--the only way I roll--would be to follow
the laws and statutes of the United States of America.
Senator Heinrich. With respect to permitting, in the last
Congress, this Committee actually advanced a comprehensive,
all-of-the-above permitting bill by a vote of 15 to 4. That law
was not signed into law because we have not reconciled it with
the House, but I want to ask you--because included in that
package were really important transmission reforms that would
actually help us to meet the growing demand that we are seeing
due to what is going on in artificial intelligence right now,
the increased electrification of our economy, and an incredible
bump in manufacturing that we have seen in the last couple of
years--so, in your view, how important is it that transmission
line permitting reform be included as part of any broader
permitting reform that we may be able to achieve?
Mr. Wright. Thanks for that question, Senator, and thanks
also for the wonderful dialogue we had in your office. I
appreciated that very much, and I know we have lots of
overlaps--lots of common interests, lots of common concerns.
And we have had roughly a hundred-year history in the United
States of making electricity more affordable on inflation-
adjusted terms and our grid more reliable, one of the
engineering marvels of modern times. And as we discussed, we
have seen that trend reverse, and in the last few years, we
have seen electricity prices go up and the reliability of the
grid go down, and both of us are very concerned about that,
particularly as we are seeing future demand growth. And I agree
with you entirely that being able to build new transmission
lines, to be able to repower existing transmission lines, and
grow their capacity and many other things, are very important
to meet this growing demand for energy and hopefully return to
a trend of a decline in the real cost of electricity and a
growth in reliability. I am aligned with you there.
Senator Heinrich. I am actually wearing my dad's IBEW 60-
year pin today because it reminds me of the importance of that
grid. DOE's Grid Deployment Office has supported a lot of
really valuable projects through the Transmission Facilitation
Program, including the Southline Transmission Project in my
home state. These projects will save customers money and they
increase grid reliability. Can you assure me, at a time when
things like Project 2025 have proposed just eliminating the
Grid Deployment Office, that DOE will continue to use its
authorities and its resources to support the kind of
transmission projects that increase reliability and save
customers money?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for your dad's service in
building our grid and maintaining it with a gorgeous track
record all those years. And yes, I am aligned with you, and we
will seek to find the best ways to improve our transmission
grid, including expansion and new lines.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Wright.
The Chairman. Senator Justice.
Senator Justice. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you, Mr. Wright--Chris--and thank you to all his family. I
mean, you being here is testimony to who you are, and that is
really good stuff.
Now, I wish you happy birthday and I would like to tell
everyone just a little bit about me. You know, I am the new kid
on the block, that's for dadgum sure. I am not a politician. I
am a business guy, and I am hung up on this--I am hung up on
honor and truth and respect and reason and logic. And you will
find that as you go forward with me.
Now, today, I tell you just this--I come from West
Virginia, and West Virginia truly knows energy. That's all
there is to it. And I would just tell you this, and I would
promise you that this will be the case: energy is everything--
everything. If we think less than that, we are thinking
absolutely wrong. At the end of the day, every country in the
world, the more energy they have, the healthier they are, the
longer they live. Energy is every single everything. It's the
key to inflation. It's the key to our defense. It's the dollars
that fund the Russian war with Ukraine. It is every single
thing, and absolutely, we have to solve this. We have to have a
real energy strategy and we have to solve this. I have had
many, many conversations with President Trump. He absolutely
believes exactly just this.
So Chris, in the days ahead, you will have a task beyond
belief, in my opinion. With all that being said, I know--I
know--you will carry on that task in a great, great way. Now,
listen, from West Virginia, you may think, you know, that all
we can think about is one thing, and one thing alone. I would
tell you just this--we need to embrace all the energy forms,
but with that being said, the moment in time when you
absolutely believe that we can do without fossil fuels in this
world today, you are living in a cave. You are absolutely
living in a cave, in my opinion. We don't need to blow our legs
off so China or India can dominate in so many different ways.
Absolutely, today, we need to solve the whole----
[Protester shouting.]
Senator Justice. I would just tell you just this--I think
that gentleman is misdirected in his thought, but with all that
being said, I would always be respectful to that gentleman. And
that's how we all ought to be.
So with all that being said, I would say just this to
Chris: Chris, are you in a position of thinking of embracing
all the energy forms, solving the whole riddle? And I will ask
that question just in that way. So please answer.
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for your question and your
impassioned remarks. We share a passion for energy. And the
reason I sit in front of you today is because President-elect
Trump shares a passion for energy and an instinctual
understanding that energy is not a sector of the economy, it's
the sector of the economy that enables everything else we do.
When I met him, he was just on fire about energy. He got how it
impacts American quality of life, American economic strength,
our geopolitical power, and what the possibilities are for the
future, how we can make our children and grandchildren's lives
so much better than ours. So I agree with you 100 percent.
Energy is core. It is central. We want energy from all sources
we can that can add to our pile of affordable, reliable, secure
American energy.
Senator Justice. Well, Chris, that pleases me, and I would
just say just this--America has a big, big crisis right in
front of them. If we don't solve this riddle in a year and a
half from today, we will have a crisis like you can't imagine.
With all that being said, we are sitting on the answer for
America to be the footprint of the world, and we have to do it.
Mr. Chairman, I thank you so much for allowing me to speak,
and Chris, I am positive you are going to be confirmed, and God
bless each and every one of you for being here and your family,
thank you so much.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. Thanks, Senator Justice.
Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me, right off, say, I do hope that the comity of this
Committee continues into the next Congress, and I am
disappointed that unfortunately, right out of the gate, we are
creating controversy where none exists and shouldn't exist
here. But I am hopeful that the comity continues.
Mr. Wright, congratulations on your nomination.
Mr. Wright. Thank you.
Senator Cortez Masto. And thank you for your willingness to
serve in this environment and the way that it is today. I
appreciate that. Welcome to your family, and to your wonderful
mother being here as well. I appreciate that.
Let me ask you a couple questions that are important for
Nevada. We talked about this in our meeting, and I thank you
for meeting with me, but can Nevadans count on you to
acknowledge that the failed Yucca Mountain project is
unworkable?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for that question. And as we
discussed, I think if you are going to build large
infrastructure, and nuclear waste disposal would certainly fall
in that category that has concerns, you need to have on board
the local community as well. And I think Nevadans, and as you
have expressed clearly, have deep concerns about seeing that
facility go ahead, and I think that's your answer.
Senator Cortez Masto. So President Trump has said he
doesn't support waste at Yucca Mountain. So let me ask you
again, because you didn't really answer the question--can
Nevadans count on you to acknowledge that the failed Yucca
Mountain project is unworkable?
Mr. Wright. I am new to politics, as you can see, and you
will see all day long today. I think there has been a clear
record that Nevadans oppose the project. I will work with you
and with senators across the country to find solutions for
long-term disposal of nuclear waste. And I agree with you that
a central part of that is going to be local buy-in on the
project.
Senator Cortez Masto. What is your understanding of DOE's
role in defense and national security today?
Mr. Wright. Oh, it is essential that the NNSA, as a part of
DOE, is the critical designer, maintainer, and builder, through
contractors, of our nation's nuclear arsenal. This is the
ultimate guarantor of our sovereignty. I take that
responsibility very seriously. Together, with the coming
instabilities in our electrical grid, it is my single biggest
concern in this job. We have lost our ability to enrich uranium
in this country, to construct plutonium pits, and to do so many
critical things that are key to our nuclear arsenal. I am
highly motivated and highly concerned that we need to make
progress on the safety and security of the stockpile of our
nuclear weapons.
Senator Cortez Masto. The Department of Energy provides
essential programs and research across all corners of my state.
Its critical defense measures at the National Security Site
that you talked about--our workforce cybersecurity
collaboration that we have with our universities and colleges
in Nevada, the public-private partnerships to create new,
innovative technologies--is actually happening in Nevada thanks
to legislation that we have passed, bipartisan legislation, as
well as the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Law.
Let me ask you this: would you push back on any attempts by
the Trump Administration to cut any of these critical programs?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I appreciate your passion for them. It
is too early for me to give any specifics about this program or
that program, but is cybersecurity critical for our country?
Absolutely. Is----
Senator Cortez Masto. Well, let me be more specific,
because you talked about that when I asked you about the role
of DOE, you specifically talked about the National Security
Site in Nevada. Would you push back on the Trump Administration
if they attempted to cut any critical funding to the programs
for the National Security Site?
Mr. Wright. I will support, to the extent I can, all of our
efforts in national security, including those that are in
Nevada.
Senator Cortez Masto. Let me ask you this--you talked about
in your comments to some of my colleagues that you want to grow
the supply of energy. Define for me the sources of energy you
are talking about that you would like to grow.
Mr. Wright. All sources of affordable, reliable----
Senator Cortez Masto. What sources are they?
Mr. Wright. Pure energy.
Senator Cortez Masto. Sure, which sources?
Mr. Wright. It's different sources in different
circumstances. I mean, our economy today is underpinned by
energy, dominantly from oil and natural gas. Coal is a major
source of energy in our country. Nuclear power is a major
source of energy in our country. Hydropower is a major source
of energy in our country. Wind and solar are growing rapidly.
And geothermal, particularly in states like Nevada, is early
on, but has potential--significant running room to become a
meaningful source of energy in the future. And every source of
energy that either today or with technology innovation can be a
growth engine for affordable, reliable, secure energy--I am for
all of those.
Senator Cortez Masto. Good. You did not mention solar.
Solar is the number one energy for us in Nevada. It has created
jobs, it is growing our economy, and it has major impact. So I
am disappointed that I did not hear solar coming out as a part
of the energy, but I assume--I am not going to assume anything.
I am just going to say, the conversation we are going to have
and continue to have around energy is important, and it should
be balanced, and it's not just focused on fossil fuels. No
matter what some of my colleagues say, there should be a
balanced approach to it for our portfolio for energy, and that
is what I am looking for always.
Mr. Wright. I agree entirely, Senator. And if I didn't say
solar, it was an oversight. I worked in solar energy. You have
tremendous resources for that in Nevada, and we are seeing a
lot of growth in solar energy, and I expect that to continue.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso [presiding]. Senator Cassidy.
Senator Cassidy. Hey, Mr. Wright. I really enjoyed the
conversation we had in my office. I like your emphasis upon
abundance. You know, I had a chance to scan your Bettering
Human Lives from Liberty Energy, and I think you just nail it.
Just speaking about abundance, both in terms of our natural
resources, but the abundance it means in terms of an increasing
per-capita GDP, and we do it in a way that we lower emissions
as we increase GDP. And you look at a country like Germany, and
they have almost entered energy poverty, in which we have
lowered our emissions on a per-capita basis more than they, and
our economy has grown more than theirs. So I just want to--I
mean, we are sympatico on this. And I think, frankly, we should
all be.
Now, I am also very interested, because one thing that I
mentioned in our conversation--I have been very concerned about
an offshoring of carbon emissions to countries like China, but
as we offshore, we offshore the job, and that prosperity we are
trying to build for working Americans, we lose to a working
Chinese. Now, they don't enforce their environmental
regulations, so their SOX, NOX, and
whatever blows over on us, when we are trying to do it right,
and they use it for competitive advantage. All that to lead
into, and by the way, you alluded to that. You talk about how
Great Britain has actually offshored their carbon intensity and
then they reshore it through the products they buy. So it is an
artificial depression in their carbon intensity. I mean, I
think you bring a sophistication to this argument, this
discussion, which is just like--we just need.
Now, one thing I have been supporting is something called a
foreign pollution fee, in which we look at the emissions
profile of a U.S. industry--you name it--concrete, and then you
compare it to aluminum--let's say aluminum--and we compare it
to a competitor like China, which does not enforce emissions
and we put a fee roughly equal to their avoided cost of not
complying with internationally acceptable emissions profiles.
Any thoughts on that? Because it seems very consistent with the
problems you point out in the Bettering Human Lives from
Liberty Energy.
Mr. Wright. Thank you for that question, Senator. And thank
you for the great dialogue we had about all these issues--about
energy, about bettering lives, about trade practices, about
prosperity for Americans. I think yourself and I and President-
elect Trump are very aligned on all of those. And I think you
have a creative idea about how do we address some of these
asymmetries that have developed. If you look at the data of
economic growth in the United States versus manufacturing
growth in the United States in economic output, they roughly
track for a century. And right after the year 2000, when China
was admitted to the world trade organization, they diverge
dramatically.
Senator Cassidy. With ours going down for the manufacturing
and China's manufacturing going up, but also, their emission
profile exploding at the same time.
Mr. Wright. One hundred percent. And as you said, look, the
United Kingdom and Germany and other of our European allies led
with us and they have gone even further on, I think, this
destructive habit of just moving their energy-intensive
manufacturing out of their country and then----
Senator Cassidy. So I am taking that as a yes, you will
support my foreign pollution fee. But anyway, let me ask you,
because one critical role of DOE is to help calculate the
embedded emissions. Now, some fear that, thinking it's going to
be some regulatory crackdown. I see it as a way to
competitively outcompete others, because if theirs is here and
ours is there and we know that from this calculation, then that
helps our domestic manufacturers because there will be a higher
fee placed upon the product coming from overseas. Do you follow
how I am saying that?
Mr. Wright. Yes, I am following you, Senator.
Senator Cassidy. Now, so, DOE has a pilot project currently
calculating embedded emissions. Would you commit to continuing
to support that program?
Mr. Wright. Again, if I have the privilege to be confirmed,
I will look into all of these efforts. It sounds like a----
[Protestor shouting.]
Senator Barrasso. We will have order restored. There will
be no additional outbursts. The officers will remove this
individual from the room and we will continue with the hearing.
We ask that the testimony be delayed until the room is cleared.
Please proceed, Mr. Wright.
Senator Cassidy. May I suggest that the people who are
protesting look at your monograph on Bettering Human Lives
because it shows that U.S. emissions have come down in absolute
amounts, per-capita amounts, every way you want to measure it,
since 2000--since 1990. We are doing the job, led in part by,
you know, the things that you and I have talked about in our
meeting.
So going back to--you also will be negotiating
international energy partnerships through the Office of
International Affairs, and you spoke about global leadership as
well. It wasn't in your written remarks, but it was in your
spoken testimony. Do you want to elaborate on that, please?
Mr. Wright. Yes, as we discussed, energy is the enabler of
everything we do, but America, going from 20 years ago the
largest importer of oil in the world and the largest importer
of natural gas in the world, to today, the largest exporter of
natural gas in the world--enormous growth in our geopolitical
leverage. We were able to fill most of the gap when Russia
invaded Ukraine and Russian gas imports into Europe were
reduced. Most of the replacement gas came from the United
States. We couldn't have done that 20 years ago.
Senator Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And I will just say, we began the five-minutes to talk
about abundance for the American people, now we talk about our
abundance helping our allies. We are all about abundance. Thank
you, Mr. Wright.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Cassidy.
Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you,
Mr. Wright, for being here.
As we consider our energy future, we have so many
challenges to deal with--energy prices, energy poverty, and you
have written about--obviously climate change is such a big one.
As Secretary, do you think there is a possibility that the
Department of Energy could finally begin to build a plan, a
comprehensive plan, on how we deal with the energy future, but
also really look--take a hard look at climate change?
Mr. Wright. Senator, yes, indeed, I am very interested in
that idea, and it is certainly something I have been thinking
about. The Department of Energy created a look into energy and
what the future of energy might bring about 20 years ago. I
think it's time to do that again, and to look not just at
energy and the energy trajectory we are on, but the other
issues related to energy, and top among those, climate change.
Senator Hickenlooper. And I think, just on that note, and
you have in the past, some time ago, but described how slowly
climate change is evolving, and it's so far out in the future,
it probably shouldn't command as much attention. And yet, I
continue and I think a lot of people are concerned about the
acceleration and how soon can we recognize those feedback
loops. We are talking about the salinity of the oceans, the
massive ice melts, and calving of glaciers. Those things have
the potential to create a much more rapid rate of change. And I
think that is part of the ability to get a plan. As of 2024,
they are saying we are about 1.5 degrees Celsius in increased
temperature. If it goes much faster than that, do you think we
should have some contingency plans ready so that we can address
that scenario? Even now, we look at the--again, the fires in
Los Angeles, some of the hurricanes, these extreme weather
events, and we are obviously not prepared for them. We don't
have an insurance system that works. You know, each of those
suggests or commands that we should have backup systems in
place.
Mr. Wright. You know, absolutely, Senator. As you know, I
have studied and followed the data and the evolution of climate
change for at least 20 years now. It is a global issue. It is a
real issue. It's a challenging issue. And the solution to
climate change is to evolve our energy system. I have worked on
that most all of my career, again, in nuclear, in solar, in
geothermal, and in new battery storage technology now. And do I
wish we could make faster progress? Absolutely. Are there
things we can do--investments, together, through the Department
of Energy to accelerate development of new energy technologies
that are really the only pathway to address climate change?
Absolutely. And we should have nothing but American leadership
in this area. Energy and climate is a global problem, but
America should be the leader. And I think President Trump is
firmly aligned with that position as well.
Senator Hickenlooper. Great.
On a more parochial note, obviously, the Renewable Energy
Laboratory--a large portion of that work is done in Colorado.
Do you feel that those budgets are properly spent, or do you
think they should be reevaluated?
Mr. Wright. It's too early for me to comment on something
like that. I visited the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
years ago, as a fellow energy guy in Denver, a lot of great
work there, a lot of great humans there that are driving
innovation and that are working with businesses too. It's not
just basic research in the lab, it's very focused on applied
research and new technologies. So I am very keen to engage on a
more detailed level with what is going on there----
Senator Hickenlooper. Great.
Mr. Wright [continuing]. And how to drive that further and
faster.
Senator Hickenlooper. You know, this, I think this is going
to be the first time I have ever got to five questions within a
testimony. So I am not sure what that says. We spent a lot of
work looking at the grid, and as we do begin to build
infrastructure that can respond, if we need to make more
dramatic changes to our energy system, whether it's climate
change or whatever other constraints may come along, we have
really been stymied, both in terms of the permitting process
and finding ways that we can make sure that we protect local
communities, make sure that their voice is heard, make sure
that we respect the environmental importance of our landscapes,
but at the same time, realize we have to move more rapidly in
building things like electrical infrastructure.
Can you talk a little bit towards electrical
infrastructure?
Mr. Wright. Yes, Senator. I think you have hit--in the
energy world, the most pressing problem we have is our
electricity grid, and this problem is only going to get worse.
I am very concerned about that. We need to change the gear we
have been in the last several years and we need to get serious
about building infrastructure and investment, bringing the cost
of electricity prices back down, and keeping our grid stable. I
am deeply concerned about our current trajectory.
Senator Hickenlooper. No, I appreciate that. Thank you.
I yield back to the Chair.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hyde-Smith.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Mr. Wright, and this lovely family that you have behind you.
I certainly enjoyed our visit in my office when we had the
opportunity to discuss the importance of this Committee, the
importance of what you will be doing, and your leadership. You
know, everybody in here, sitting up here, we have economic
developers come to our state and we certainly want economic
development, we want good jobs for our citizens, and so much of
that is a part of what kind of energy we can provide for that
company. So thank you for discussing those things with me
because they are certainly important to my people in
Mississippi, as well as other states.
The Department of Energy, themselves, they classify nuclear
energy as the largest source of clean power in the United
States. And containment, as we well know, is critical to every
aspect of nuclear energy. High-efficiency, particulate air
filters, you know, what we refer to as the HEPA filters, are
the operational barrier between the containment and the release
of radioactive particles. So I am proud, in my home state at
Mississippi State University, where my daughter is in graduate
school there, but not in this area, they have been for a long
time researching new technologies in order to develop better
performances in the capabilities of these HEPA filters for new
reactors' containment ventilation, and this research really
plays an important role in advancing the next generation
filtration systems that we are all concerned with because we
are certainly concerned about the future of the policies that
we are passing now, for Miles, when he is an adult, of how the
things we are talking about today will affect him.
And what do you see as the deficiencies related to
containment ventilation issues for waste processing and new
generations of power reactors?
Mr. Wright. So thank you, Senator, for the question, and
thank you for our fabulous dialogue and for what you do for the
great State of Mississippi. You kept hitting on technology and
technology at Mississippi State. Technology really is the key
for growing our energy future for both growing more abundance
to better----
[Protestor shouting.]
Senator Barrasso. The Committee will stand in recess until
the Capitol Police can restore order in the Committee.
Senator Hyde-Smith. Thank you. I think we figured out it's
every other speaker here. So just heads-up, but I threw out a
lot of them.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hyde-Smith. So I'm sorry about that.
Mr. Wright. And you were talking specifically about
advancements in nuclear technology. How do we get--it's already
a significant source of energy in the United States, but it
hasn't grown in decades. How do we get it growing again? How
does that research in Mississippi on air filtration and in
research, so many other places, how do we get it going again?
My view on that is building large projects in this country. We
are seeing that with transmission lines and so many other
things--very hard to do. We need to fix that problem. You know,
a typical nuclear reactor is a gigawatt, it's a thousand
megawatts. The last ones we built took well over a decade and
multiples overcost budget.
Fortunately, with nuclear, we have a new generation of
reactors that are smaller, and they will be manufactured in a
facility. Anything that is manufactured in a facility--think a
semi-conductor or a bike or something--the costs of those are
coming down. Anything that is built on location, the costs of
those have been going up. So we have to figure out how to get
some of these cost barriers out of the way. We have to get
better technologies, like they are working on at Mississippi
State, to get Americans comfortable with the safety of nuclear,
with the security of nuclear. But I think the facts and the
technologies today are pretty compelling.
Nuclear, today, is a little less than 20 percent of U.S.
electricity. That is pretty significant, but we also have to
remember, electricity is just one sliver of energy. The biggest
use of energy is high-temperature process heat. And I would say
it's the most important use of energy, because it's how we make
steel and cement and metals and all those things that we make
everything else out of. We can't build an internet or a car or
a factory without those materials. Nuclear could provide
energy, could provide high-temperature heat to really impact
manufacturing as well. There is just so much room to run and to
grow for nuclear energy. And I think we are going to see broad
investments across our country in the research and enabling
technologies. And hopefully, before long, we are going to see
the energy source deployed widely as well.
Senator Hyde-Smith. It is so refreshing to hear you say
those things, and I so look forward to working with you and the
things that--all the questions have been so good today, but it
really gives us hope and optimism. Thank you for your
willingness to serve, and I am out of time.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman [presiding]. Senator Hirono, you are up next.
Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I get to my questions, I just want to note that we
did not receive information relating to this nominee until
really late yesterday, and it would have been good if we could
have followed the process that would have given us more time,
which meant that this hearing would not be happening today.
So for the nominee, as part of my responsibilities as a
member of this, as well as all my other Committees, I ask the
following two initial questions to ascertain the fitness of the
nominee for the job. So I ask you, since you became a legal
adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors
or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a
sexual nature?
Mr. Wright. I have not.
Senator Hirono. Have you ever faced discipline or entered
into a settlement relating to this kind of conduct?
Mr. Wright. I have not.
Senator Hirono. It is shocking to see the devastation that
is caused by the wildfires in Los Angeles, and of course, we
are seeing that. It is shocking. In 2023, a wildfire killed 102
people and destroyed the town of Lahaina on Maui, and Hawaiian
Electric, which is our major utility company, received a $95
million award from the DOE to help in rebuilding Maui's
electric grid and reduce the risk of future wildfires. The
State of Hawaii has also received other support and funding
from the DOE to proceed with this kind of modernization.
Do you acknowledge the need for improvements to our
electric grids that will reduce the risk of wildfires and
ensure reliable access to power?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for your question, and boy,
I remember watching with horror the fires on Lahaina and the
fires today in LA. It is absolutely a human tragedy. It is
devastating. But to answer your question, absolutely, yes. We
need to improve our electric grid both for increased supply,
for increased resilience to natural disasters, and----
Senator Hirono. So as we see these kinds of natural
disasters, I think, states are--municipalities will need help
from the DOE. So will you continue allocating funding for grid
improvements as authorized by Congress? Yes or no?
Mr. Wright. Well, I am not sure it's quite as simple as
that, but I think my short answer would be yes, of course, I
want to work with you and other states to increase grid
resilience.
Senator Hirono. I appreciate that.
DOE is required to ensure that all construction and repair
projects funded by the DOE under the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act pay prevailing wages. Will you pay prevailing
wages as required under the Infrastructure Law that I just
mentioned?
Mr. Wright. Senator, if I have the privilege to be
confirmed, I will follow the laws and statutes of the United
States.
Senator Hirono. And that would mean paying prevailing wages
on these kinds of projects.
The Washington Post reported that in April 2024, Donald
Trump told a group of about 24 oil executives at Mar-a-Lago
that they should raise $1 billion for his campaign, which would
be a deal, given his commitment to reversing environmental
regulations, expanding oil and gas leasing on federal land, and
approval of natural gas exports. Did you attend that meeting at
Mar-a-Lago?
Mr. Wright. I was at a dinner with President Trump in Mar-
a-Lago in April. Quite a bit different than what you just
described, but yes, I was at a dinner.
Senator Hirono. Well, it was reported that he talked about
$1 billion. So do you think that it was appropriate for the
President to even put forth the possibility of such a deal?
Mr. Wright. I was at the dinner, and the President put
forward no such deal.
Senator Hirono. That's not what was reported.
As Secretary of Energy, you will have oversight over a lot
of contracts, grants, and loan guarantees. Are you prepared to
engage in vigorous oversight of the DOE's funding, even if
President Trump pressures you to approve sweetheart deals to
one of his favorite businesses? Will you be objective should
you be confirmed?
Mr. Wright. I have followed rigorous and ethical business
practices my whole life, Senator, and will continue to do
exactly that at the Department of Energy, if I have the
privilege of being confirmed.
Senator Hirono. I only have a little bit of time, but I do
want to get to this. If you are confirmed, your obligation will
be to the American people, not to the shareholders or board
members for an oil and gas company. Would you allow all exports
of natural gas to China and anywhere else around the world,
regardless of whether the exports would increase heating and
power bills for the American people?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I would love to have more time to talk
about natural gas exports. The brief history of them is, as we
have grown our natural gas exports, our price of natural gas
has gone down because the natural gas production industry has
benefited from the scale.
Senator Hirono. I am asking whether you would take into
consideration what the impact for the cost of energy in America
would be if you allow export of oil and gas. So would you--you
would keep that uppermost in mind, right, what the impact of
these kinds of exports would be to the cost of energy to our
American people?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Hirono. Thank you.
Mr. Wright. I share your concern there.
The Chairman. Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chris, as you have talked about, deploying the latest,
greatest technologies is how we produce more energy more cost
effectively, more dependably, with the best environmental
stewardship, not only here at home, but when we implement those
technologies, the world follows. So that is actually the global
solution. How do we actually bring folks along on that where
they are skeptical, like in fossil fuels? If they are skeptical
of fossil fuels, how do we demonstrate to them that that
technology, where we lead and we have the best environmental
stewardship, actually benefits globally? How do we convince
them? What can you do?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for the question. Thank you
for your opening remarks as well. This is tough. I have spent
my whole adult life engaged in dialogues about energy. I went
to MIT to work on fusion energy. I worked on solar energy at UC
Berkeley. My whole thing is, we want more energy in the world
because it's what makes people's lives better. And you have to
understand that there isn't dirty energy and clean energy, all
energies are different and they all have different trade-offs.
Different people have different weights or valuations of trade-
offs. Different geographies or locations have climates more
favorable to this energy versus that energy. So it's a
complicated dialogue, which means it's not easy to get people
to share this broader perspective on it. I think we are seeing
a little bit of that in passioned, well-meaning, wonderful
people that have been sitting in the hearing room today.
But one of the things I have worked on is to try to just
assemble the numbers and the data, and when I was born, the
world got kind of a mid-80 percent of its total energy from
hydrocarbons. And I was born, as we know, pretty much very
close to 60 years ago and a few hours right now, but today,
total global primary energy is, sort of, low- to mid-80
percent. So global demand for energy has grown a lot. We
brought a lot of new energy technologies along, thankfully, or
we wouldn't have as much energy as we have today. But it has
proven very hard to displace hydrocarbons in the global energy
system.
And I will say one last thing, Senator, and turn it back to
you. The other perspective I think that is important to look at
is that one billion people live lives like us. We get to wear
fancy clothes made out of hydrocarbons. We get to use motorized
transport and travel to visit our family and we have warm
houses in the winter and we have cool houses in the summertime.
But that is one billion people in the world. There are seven
billion people in the world that don't live lives anything like
we do. And I have traveled to 55 countries, and one thing I
know, those seven billion people, they want this. They want
what we have. And of course, they should get what we have. And
through market forces and improvement, and leadership,
particularly leadership from the President-elect Trump, I think
we are going to see growing more abundant energy resource
coming out of our country, and hopefully, out of the world, so
that everyone else can live lives like we do.
Senator Hoeven. And I think it's really important that you
are a voice for that because you will have a platform to
convince people and to explain what you just explained here.
All different types of energies have strengths and weaknesses,
but when we deploy these technologies, we lead the way--more
energy, higher standard of living, and better environmental
stewardship. And that's really what you're all about rather
than folks trying to say, well, we can't have this and we have
to only have that. And so, that's a big role for you to play.
And following on that, you worked on hydraulic fracturing
and so forth--it was technically feasible, but it wasn't
economically feasible, right? Same thing with other things
like, as the President has talked about, clean coal technology.
We have addressed SOX, NOX, mercury, and
now CO2. Will you commit to working with us to
address the carbon capture--CO2 capture--not only to
address CO2 concerns, but also to use it as a
resource for additional oil recovery? Our state is leading in
that area. Do you know that?
I want you to touch on that and then respond to whether you
will come with me to the University of North Dakota, the Energy
and Environmental Research Center there, and see what we are
doing and work with us on things like Project Tundra to do
this.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Hoeven. All in ten seconds, I'm sorry.
Mr. Wright. My answer is a resounding yes.
Senator Hoeven. Great.
The Chairman. Senator Padilla.
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Look folks, we have all seen the devastation in Los Angeles
due to the ongoing wildfires that have burned more than 40,000
acres of land this last week and have destroyed more than
12,000 structures and have led to more than two dozen lives
being lost. The fires are now the most destructive natural
disasters in Los Angeles history, and despite the
misinformation that is circulating here in the Capitol, into
California, and everywhere in between, it's clear that these
fires only reached the size and the scale that they have
because of unseasonably dry vegetation and extremely high
winds, both of which are a direct result of climate change.
Mr. Wright, thank you for being here. But as you have seen
in the last week, the climate crisis and its deadly effects are
very real to my neighbors and my constituents. As we discussed
in our meeting yesterday, you were a long-time resident of
California. So you have seen the conditions evolve firsthand.
So I have to tell you, I was pretty disappointed to come across
some social media posts of yours, and I will quote. I
understand you have written that ``the hype over wildfires is
just hype to justify more impoverishment from bad government
policies.'' Given the devastation that we are currently
experiencing in Los Angeles, do you still believe that
wildfires are just hype?
Mr. Wright. Sir, it is with great sorrow and fear that I
watch what is happening in your city of LA----
Senator Padilla. Do you think it's just hype or not?
Mr. Wright. Climate change is a real and global phenomenon.
Senator Padilla. Is it hype or not?
Mr. Wright. I stand by my past comments.
Senator Padilla. So you believe it's hype.
Mr. Wright. Climate change is----
Senator Padilla. Tell that to the families of the more than
two dozen lost in these fires and counting, because urban
search-and-rescue teams are still going property by property
with cadaver dogs. That number is going to climb. I am
disappointed, Mr. Wright.
Let me make reference to another element of your social
media. You reposted a statement, so not your words, but you
felt it important enough to amplify a social media post, and I
will quote, ``Now, obviously, burning to death in a fire is
pretty grim, but that is not what's happening like the climate
zealots would like you to believe.'' So again, to the families
of more than a couple dozen of my constituents who have died in
these fires, and that number is growing, I think I mentioned--
do you believe the Californians who have died over the past
week are somehow just a figment of our imagination?
Mr. Wright. Of course not, Senator. It is heart-wrenching
to watch the destruction. Most importantly----
Senator Padilla. And I'm not sorry for cutting you off
here. I think the point has been made, and you are standing by
your posts, and I assume the reposts as well. And I will tell
you why I am further disappointed. We had, I think, a genuine
conversation yesterday in my office. You said you are--you have
a science background. You pride yourself in leaning on facts
and truth and evidence and data as you make decisions and
decide which actions to take. So let me ask you to transition
to something that is very substantive in this role, should you
be fortunate enough to be confirmed. One of the most important
functions of the Department of Energy is research. We have
discussed the 17 national labs, and you referenced it earlier
in your testimony, that are working hard to tackle critical
scientific challenges. California is home to three of these
labs, and we understand the need for these labs to advance our
research and our knowledge. The data and research published by
these labs at the Department, writ large, are foundational for
unlocking new technologies and maintaining our competitive
advantages globally.
Will you commit to publishing, and not censoring, non-
classified Department of Energy research?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator. The scientific process has
been a key driver of our progress, of our country, and of our
world.
Senator Padilla. And let me tell you why I feel the need to
even ask the question. It should be a no-brainer because it is
a very real possibility that you may be asked by incoming
President Trump, maybe through one of his intermediaries, to
not publish or to withhold or otherwise suppress DOE research
and studies. What would you do if asked?
Mr. Wright. I am very proud to be serving, I hope, if I
have the privilege to be confirmed, with incoming President
Trump. He shares my passion for energy and for bettering
American lives.
Senator Padilla. If asked, what would you do?
Mr. Wright. I will follow the scientific method. I will be
honest in integrity, and follow the laws and statutes of our
country--of course I will, Senator.
Senator Padilla. One other question in my very little time
remaining, and I will just sort of cut to the chase. In my
office, you shared with me your opinion that federal subsidies
do not make sense for mature industries, correct?
Mr. Wright. Less fruitful there, yes.
Senator Padilla. And you included oil and gas in the
examples of mature industries, correct?
Mr. Wright. Correct.
Senator Padilla. So please share with me, with my
colleagues on this Committee, expand on your belief that if oil
and gas are truly mature industries then subsidies don't make
sense here anymore, and we should retract those subsidies and
maybe redirect those into smarter, more contemporary
investments.
Mr. Wright. Yeah, as a career entrepreneur and a free
market advocate, my goal is to have a small role for government
in business, particularly in mature businesses, just as I
discussed. You have to have the rule of law. You have to have
the enforcement of contracts. But the best role for the Federal
Government is basic research and helping launch new
technologies that are just getting their footing.
Senator Padilla. So I take that as a supportive position of
rolling back subsidies for oil and gas.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
We are in the presence of greatness, as we have Senator
Risch, who is the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.
He has another Cabinet nominee, with Senator Rubio in front of
his Committee. Senator Barrasso has graciously agreed to allow
Senator Risch to take the first couple minutes of his time, and
so we will hear from Senator Risch, and then, immediately
thereafter, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Risch. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, and also Senator Barrasso, for your indulgence here.
I do have to get back.
Mr. Wright, first of all, thank you for taking the time to
meet with me, and I came here today because I want to give you
an opportunity to underscore your understanding of the
importance of nuclear energy. As you know, Idaho is the
birthplace of nuclear energy in the universe. We still have the
first light bulbs that were lit with nuclear energy there at
the Idaho National Lab. And as I explained to you, the Idaho
National Lab is an incredibly important cog in the wheel of
nuclear energy, and I appreciate your commitment to visit
there, and we will look forward to that.
As I explained to you, with the renaissance of nuclear
energy, not only in America, but even louder, really, in the
world writ large, we compete--we, the United States of America,
compete with Russia, China, and France in providing, being the
purveyor of nuclear power plants to other countries who are
interested, and there is so much interest right now. And as I
explained to you, the importance of us, when a contract is put
out from another country, the importance of us being the winner
in that, because it creates a 100-year relationship as we go
forward with nuclear energy. Could you take a minute to
articulate your understanding of the importance that we, the
United States of America, and particularly, the Idaho National
Lab--the importance they have in leading the world as we go
forward over the next decades and through this century on
converting over to nuclear energy?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator. And I very much enjoyed our
visit--a lot to be proud of in Idaho, particularly Idaho
National Lab, but the United States invented the technology of
nuclear, first for abrupt-action weapons, and then for
commercial nuclear power. Of course, we should lead in that.
President-elect Trump and I are entirely aligned on this. But
you are right, there are other players out there in this space.
And if the U.S. moves slowly, other players are going to fill
that vacuum. Much better if that technology, that alliance,
that partnership, is with the United States. I am firmly in
favor of that.
Nuclear is probably a smaller, today, energy source, only
four percent of global energy, that could grow huge. It has had
that potential for some time, and I would like to see it move
faster as soon as we can.
Senator Risch. Yes, I appreciate that. And I agree with
you, it not only can move faster, it will move faster. The
advent of the small modular reactor, the SMR, and the advent of
the micro, which is going to be behind it fairly quickly. We
are moving quick. China is competing with us, as far as who can
get these online quick enough, who can get them demonstrated
quick enough, who can get the first commercials up and running.
When that happens, there is going to be a stampede by countries
to sign up to get SMRs and micros, and I, after talking with
you, I am convinced that you agree that we need to be a
leader--the leader--in doing that.
So thank you for your understanding in that regard, and I
look forward to working with you on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thanks so much. And first, I want to
congratulate you, Senator Lee, on being Chairman of the
Committee, for your first hearing at the helm, and I am very
grateful for your thoughtful leadership on these important
hearings. We are getting underway, and tomorrow we have North
Dakota Governor Burgum, who is here to testify, who is a
nominee, and I assume we are going to hear another wonderful
introduction by the great Senator, the former Governor of North
Dakota, Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Absolutely.
Senator Barrasso. Great, thank you.
Mr. Wright, congratulations. We have had a chance to visit.
I have a number of questions, and I am going to submit most of
them in writing.
There were some questions from the senior Senator from
California about wildfires, and you were abruptly cut off from
trying to answer, and he apologized for cutting you off, but I
would want to give you time to now respond, if you would like
to, to some of the comments that he had made that you were not
able to respond to.
Mr. Wright. As someone who has spent my life focused on
poverty, and poverty abatement in our country and abroad,
seeing people suffering, seeing people in pain, seeing people
lose family members, lose their property, lose their sense of
self, lose their security, is absolutely heart-wrenching. It is
horrible to watch what is happening in LA today. And wow, these
are the kinds of things we want to protect people from. We want
to make our society more resilient, stronger. There are no
words to say in the middle of a personal drama, you know, that
reflect global policy in all that. These are human tragedies
that touch every one of us.
I lived in California for 19 years and have lots of friends
in the LA area. I will probably get emotional talking about it.
It is horrific to see what is happening there. We need to do
everything we can to get those fires out, to get that
infrastructure rebuilt, and to get people to return to the
lives they had before it was visited on by these horrific
fires.
Senator Barrasso. I agree, it is heartbreaking. And I know
we have our Wyoming National Guard there, equipment as well as
manpower, and trying to do that.
I did want--Senator Cortez Masto made a point about--
actually, it was your answer to Senator Cortez Masto that
mentioned that we have lost the capacity to enrich uranium. And
America is dependent on imports right now to fuel our nuclear
reactors. We have extremely limited commercial enrichment and
conversion capacity--not in America's best interest. In 2023,
Congress passed the Nuclear Fuel Security Act. We repurposed
$2.7 billion in funding to support this goal. If confirmed,
will you make it a priority to build and secure our nuclear
fuel supply chain?
Mr. Wright. Senator, absolutely. I know we shared that
concern in our dialogue in your office. It is a significant
hole in the U.S. arsenal right now in technology we developed,
but yet we import most of it from abroad and most that is
enriched in the U.S. is by companies that are not American
companies in the U.S. Yes, we need to build American nuclear
infrastructure on mining, on enrichment, on power production,
and on waste disposal, which is a tough challenge.
Senator Barrasso. Congress passed legislation to ban
imports of Russian uranium in the United States. This law is
intended to revive American uranium production and strengthen
our nuclear fuel supply. It has to be implemented correctly.
The Secretary of Energy has the discretion to provide waivers
to companies seeking to import uranium from Russia. Do you
agree that these waivers should be very limited and used only
in extreme circumstances?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I would agree with that assessment. It
is very sad how dependent we have become on imported enriched
uranium from Russia. That is sad state of affairs where we are
today. We need to get beyond that, but we need to get beyond
that without shutting down the nuclear power plants we have
running today. So it is an area that requires urgent action.
Senator Barrasso. Because it does seem that with the
shutdown on Russian uranium that we see more imports from
China. So the next issue is to confirm you will support efforts
to end uranium imports from China as we continue to try to
build the U.S. nuclear supply.
Mr. Wright. Yes, Senator, that is another country we should
not be dependent upon for critical supplies. And of course,
enriched uranium to turn on our lights and power our factories
are critical supplies.
Senator Barrasso. And then finally, with regard to advanced
nuclear reactor demonstration projects, the Department of
Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is meant to
help developers overcome some of the hurdles that we have in
terms of the expense early on with the development. The program
has received broad bipartisan support from this Committee and
across the Congress, so I look forward to getting the current
projects over the finish line. Will you ensure the Department
continues to be a faithful partner in this mission?
Mr. Wright. Yes, Senator, I think that is a key role of the
U.S. Government and particularly of the Department of Energy to
help bridge these technologies that have lots of running room,
but mostly for government regulatory burden and uncertainty,
have not been able to reach full commercial status yet.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
We are now going to turn to another new member of the
Committee, our new colleague, representing the state where I
was born, and it turns out, a fellow fan of mariachi music,
Senator Gallego.
[Laughter.]
Senator Gallego. Gracias, thank you, Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Wright, for your attendance here today, and
thank you as well for meeting with me yesterday for a
productive discussion about the energy future of Arizona. I
would like to follow up and expand on a couple areas that we
discussed and have not discussed here.
So number one, I really do appreciate your enthusiasm for
nuclear energy. And in my time in Congress, I have supported
annual appropriations for small modular reactors. We have heard
a couple times about them here--SMRs. And I do see great
potential in them as a safe, renewable energy source. However,
SMRs and nuclear energy, more broadly, face several challenges,
including the costs of scaling, commercialization, public
perception, and permitting. As Energy Secretary, what actions
will you take to improve the development and deployment of
SMRs?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator, for the question. Thank you
for our great dialogue recently, and congratulations also to
being a new Senator in this august body.
It's a big challenge, and I am new to government, so I
can't list off the five levers I can pull, but I will--I have
certainly been in dialogues and investigations about how do we
make it easier to research, to invest, to build things. I think
DOE has land and facilities that can be helpful in this regard.
My current company, Liberty Energy, owns part of a small
modular reactor company called Oklo, and their first small
modular reactor is going to be built in the Idaho National Lab,
a DOE facility. So is there an enabling role DOE can play to
help launch nuclear energy? I think, absolutely. I think it's
creative things like that. It's also research. It's also
communication about the energy and the technology. But this
should be a huge part of America's future energy source, but
that won't happen without action within the legislature of the
United States, with action from the Department of Energy, and
our incoming Administration.
Senator Gallego. And I assume that this is where we would
have some communication from your leg staff to us--what kind of
legislation could we also be passing here to help, you know,
really scale up SMRs and other types of nuclear energy to help
cut through the regulations too.
Mr. Wright. Absolutely. The ADVANCE Act that was passed not
long ago, I think, is early on, and I think it's a great first
step. So some steps have been taken, but certainly more can be
done.
Senator Gallego. Excellent.
Arizona is a state with ample renewable resources--sun--and
a rapidly growing industrial sector. Since the passage of the
IRA, Arizona has seen billions of dollars in new clean energy
investments, and created tens of thousands of really good-
paying jobs in some of our rural areas too. Some Republicans
have started talking about dismantling and narrowing the energy
provisions from the IRA, which, in the end, would not actually
save money, and doing so would actually cost Arizona middle-
class jobs, economic growth, and also clean energy production,
which I think, we all agree, we want as much energy production,
no matter where it comes from. Will you commit to protecting
clean energy production provisions of the IRA, and how will
your Department, how will the Department of Energy ensure that
previously authorized IRA funds are efficiently distributed?
Mr. Wright. Thank you for the question, Senator.
Look, I am not involved in lawmaking. That will be here in
the body of the Senate and the House. My goal would be to
implement the laws of the land, and maybe make some decisions
on allocation of capital or funds that are approved by
Congressional bodies. And I will seek to allocate those funds
in the most efficient way to grow our supply of affordable,
reliable, secure energy and to invest in technologies that
can't do that today, but have a clear pathway to do that in the
future. That, I think, is a critical function of the DOE, from
basic research to emerging technologies, to technologies that
have been born, but are not at commercial scale yet. I think
there is a critical role for the DOE in all of those things.
Senator Gallego. And now, moving on from generation now to
transmission, because it doesn't really make a difference if
you generate if you can't move it, right? So I do believe that
more transmission construction will also be vital to meeting
the energy demands in the coming years all over the country.
And I voted repeatedly to streamline the permitting for
transmission energy projects. What will your approach be to
improving the timeline for transmission project approvals?
Mr. Wright. Well, I have been a passionate advocate for
making, as I said in my opening statement, to make it easier to
build things in America. It will always be hard. It involves
communities and space and movement of materials, but we need to
be able to build things in America. You can't build the next
generation system if you can't build anything. I think
President Trump campaigned aggressively on building things
again in America, on growing American energy production, on
securing our electricity grid, and driving down the price. The
only way you can drive down the price of a critical commodity
is to grow the supply.
So there is going to be many different avenues to pursue
there, and as a political novice, I am going to be learning
along the way, learning from all the members of this Committee
the most effective ways to do that, but I am 100 percent
committed to growing our electricity grid, and our energy
production, and removing those barriers that are standing in
the way of doing things in Arizona and across our country.
Senator Gallego. Great. I look forward to working with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
We will turn now to our former Chairman, Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it's nice
to be able to call you that. I think one of the benefits that
you will see as being Chairman is you get to listen to the
testimony from beginning to end.
And I will tell you that your testimony this morning, Mr.
Wright, is so encouraging. I love the fact that you are a self-
described energy geek. I love the fact that our colleague,
Senator Hickenlooper, in his introduction, calls you a
scientist who has invested his life around energy. To have
somebody before the Committee who understands energy from the
scientific perspective, from the entrepreneurial perspective,
from the economics perspective, to the security perspective, is
truly extraordinarily unique. And so, the fact that you have
been nominated to this position, and you have agreed to go
through this process, thank you for that. You bring to the
table, I think, just the type of enthusiasm, and quite
honestly, the ability to communicate why energy is so key.
In our office, we talked about the fact that we have those
who view energy somehow as a liability. We view it as an asset.
We agree on that. But your focus about affordability and
abundance is so important to understand. So there has been a
lot of passion that you have heard in the back of the room
today. And you have had your back to it, but your ears, and I
think your heart, is attuned to it because there is so much
emotion that is attached to what we are seeing with the changes
in our climate today. And we can argue about the percentages or
how much is human-caused or whatever, but we are seeing that
undeniably, there is change. You are not denying that. You have
said before this Committee and in other places that climate
change is real. Is that correct?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. And I heard you say this morning, and
make sure I wrote this down correctly, that the solution to
climate change is how we evolve our energy system. Is that a
correct summation?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Murkowski. So it's about technology. We are
acknowledging it, we are dealing with it, we are living it, we
are feeling it. We are feeling it in Alaska right now. I wish
that I could tell you it was as cold in Alaska right now as it
is in Washington, DC this morning, but we are seeing changes
that are detrimental to our system. Our thermostat is out of
whack. And we want to have the Arctic temperatures up North,
but one of the ways that we know we are going to get there is
through our technologies that will help us adapt, mitigate, and
to really help prevent.
So I want to direct a couple of my comments this morning
more to the parochial side. We are talking about Arctic. We
don't necessarily have the national labs, although we do a
great partnership with NREL, with our Cold Climate Housing
Research Center. We are very, very proud about that. But where
do you think the Arctic Energy Office, the Office of Indian
Energy, and NREL's Alaska Campus fit into your thinking when
you are thinking about not only the technologies but how you
can use a place like Alaska as a proving ground for so many of
these technologies where our energy costs are higher than just
about any other place in the United States of America, and
arguably, in other parts of the world?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thanks for the question and thanks for
the fabulous dialogue we had in your office.
Senator Murkowski. It was good.
Mr. Wright. It was so broad-ranging, and as I think we
discussed there, I view Alaska as a microcosm for the world.
You know, it's hard to call Alaska micro, but here you are, a
state with just enormous energy resources, set right next door
to remote communities with very little energy access, and the
energy access they do have is expensive. You know, this is the
combination of resources, lack of infrastructure--different
settings need different energy sources. I have worked for years
in this area, and in fact, sitting behind me is the gal who
runs our Bettering Human Lives Foundation, trying to bring
energy access to remote villages in Africa. So when I hear of
your Arctic Energy Office and the communities you are trying to
serve, this is the global problem. How do we get different
energy solutions for different communities at different stages
of economic development, at different lifestyles, different
cultures?
And my vision, if I get the honor to be confirmed, maybe is
to expand on that Arctic Energy Office to--this is an energy
office for remote communities, for different communities. There
are different technologies and different answers there than for
industrial energy for manufacturing steel--not going to do that
in a small Alaskan village.
Senator Murkowski. It's appreciating the diversity of where
we all are, as well as the diversity of resources.
I want to ask one quick question, even though I am at the
edge of my time here because nobody has really spoken to
critical minerals this morning. And I view this as this next
looming security vulnerability. If we want to move out with
these energy technologies, regardless of where they are, we are
going to need these minerals, and we recognize that, and I
think we recognize that we are stronger when we are developing
more of that here at home. I shared with you in our meeting in
December how frustrated I was with the Department of Energy
over its repeated subsidization of a graphite processing plant
that was getting its supply of graphite from Mozambique. We
have a natural graphite deposit up in Alaska, outside of Nome.
The same day that we met, the company behind that project that
was importing graphite from Mozambique was forced to declare
force majeure. Why? Because of the violent unrest in
Mozambique.
And so, now we have millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that
are at risk. And so, it's something that I hope you will look
at very critically in terms of what we are doing to ensure that
we are responsibly accessing our resources here, particularly
in the critical minerals vein, but making sure that we are not
embarking on exercises that are going to result in a loss of
taxpayer dollars without any net benefit to the people here in
this country.
I am over my time, but I am really excited about the
potential that you will bring to the energy discussion in this
country.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. Thanks, Senator Murkowski.
We will go next to Senator Cantwell.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And before I
begin my questioning, I just want to comment on, you know, I
have been on this Committee since working with Chairman
Murkowski. I mean Frank Murkowski, which means I have served
with a lot of chairmen and a lot of different committees. This
Committee has debated and argued over a lot of issues, but
paperwork has never been one of them. So I just hope that
everybody will take a deep breath and understand that
transparency in the process here is all that people want. And I
know that people are anxious in the new Administration to get
their people. We want them to have that opportunity, but the
transparency that it takes to just get the paperwork and have
time for people to digest it is important. And I think
everything will go smoother if we can get that done.
Mr. Wright, congratulations on your nomination, and my
colleagues have said thanks for your willingness to serve. I
have to start with Hanford cleanup. I think you could go back
to my record on every energy secretary, and that is where we
would always start. I mean, we played a very important role for
our nation during World War II. We are very proud of that, but
the cleanup after the Manhattan Project also has to be
historic, and committed to over a long period of time. I have
definitely voted for Republicans to be Energy Secretary, but
they have also committed to cleaning up Hanford. And I want to
ask you about your same commitment. We, as stated in the
Department of Energy, entered into a Tri-Party Agreement that
has been updated recently into a final agreement. Will you
commit to upholding the commitment that DOE has made to the
time frame and cleanup of Hanford waste?
And usually what happens is, energy secretaries are--
actually that's not true--OMB people come in and say, oh, we
can save money, we can do cleanup on the cheap or we can get it
done faster. Most of the time those ideas go in the trash can,
but it puts you in a horrible situation because you have to
fight for those dollars. So will you commit to upholding the
Tri-Party Agreement between DOE and the State of Washington and
others in supporting Hanford cleanup and advocating for a
budget that represents that commitment?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I can't overstate how critical I think
it is to finish the job, finish the cleanup at Hanford. The
majority of our country's plutonium was produced there, not
just for World War II, but also for the post-war period and our
arsenal today. So Hanford gave a lot to this country, and we,
behind, left a mess, and that needs to be cleaned up. It's
being cleaned up, thanks in part to your efforts and many in
your state to push for that, but I am firmly committed to
continuing our obligations and our moral obligation to clean up
the mess that was left in your state.
Senator Cantwell. Under that legal framework?
Mr. Wright. I will----
Senator Cantwell. You can take it for the record, but you
need to look at that and just say, yes, I believe in that legal
framework.
Mr. Wright. Yes.
Senator Cantwell. You know, it's the process. That's where
people get into trouble because somebody else starts to
redefine the agreement that has been made or says let's just
make it simpler. They try to redefine what is the waste and
then they try to reclassify very hazardous waste into something
else, and then just say we are just going to leave it in the
tanks or grounds, which are leaking, and we don't want those
leaky tanks and those sources of very severe issues.
Okay, secondly, do you believe in upholding investments in
our capabilities in our national labs, particularly when it
comes to the issue of AI and quantum? I think you and I had a
chance to have this conversation. We think both of these things
have major implications, but we have to have our labs
continuing to play a leadership role with the right amount of
funding to continue a very important competitive and national
security agenda for our nation.
Mr. Wright. I agree very much with your comment, and your
question, Senator. And PNNL has done fabulous work in this
area. Cybersecurity is a growing threat. It's not obvious to
all Americans because we don't see it, but the infiltration
into our systems across our government and our industry from
foreign actors is huge, and driving that research forward is
critical for the security of our country--the economic and
geopolitical security of our country.
Senator Cantwell. Great.
I know you know a lot about fusion. Do you think it's time
that we look at fusion, and let's just say, the Tri-Cities is
doing everything, okay? So they are very much a hub for a lot
of different energy innovation because of both the long history
of the Hanford cleanup and the national lab footprint and a lot
of just natural resource issues, but do you think when it comes
to fusion that we ought to be more aggressive in thinking
about, in case this does become a reality, supply chain and
grid integration? Do you think it would behoove us as a nation
to be faster at our deployment of such technology, if we knew
what those supply chain issues were now and identifying them
and identifying what a faster process for getting something
like that integrated into the grid would look like?
Mr. Wright. Yes. Yes, Senator, this is exciting new
technology, which, again, just huge room to run, and it has
moved very rapidly. The last decade has seen more progress than
in my lifetime. And I would love to see that come to commercial
power in the next decade.
Senator Cantwell. Great.
And then, just lastly, DOE has invested more than $14
billion in U.S. power grid, and many states have had grid
resiliency programs. I hope you will continue to support those
projects.
Mr. Wright. Grid resiliency, yes, as I have talked
throughout this hearing, is critical. It is the most urgent
energy issue we have today.
Senator Cantwell. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wright. Thank you.
The Chairman. In just a moment, we are going to turn to
another one of our new members, who comes from an energy-rich
state, a state with some oil refineries as well--Senator
McCormick. Before I do that, I just want to clarify one thing.
You submitted your paperwork in a timely manner, and your
paperwork, now having received the final certification last
night before close of business, should it trigger any
questions, you will make yourself available to members, should
they have any, is that right?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Wright. Any questions about my disclosures or
paperwork, please just reach directly out to me.
The Chairman. Senator McCormick.
Senator McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wright, good to see you. It was great to have a meeting
with you, and I am excited about working with you. And we
believe in Pennsylvania that the road to energy dominance goes
through Pennsylvania, and it is critical to our future in
Pennsylvania. So I am going to ask you a couple of questions.
Forgive me, they are parochial, but I want to stay focused on
the things that matter to Pennsylvania as I am going to
hopefully do a quick lightning round here with you.
First, the East Coast is at a significant disadvantage on
LNG export capacity compared to the Gulf Coast, which is a big
problem for getting Pennsylvania energy production to other
parts of the country and allies around the world. Can we work
together on getting export terminals online starting in
southeastern Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia?
Mr. Wright. Senator, the more energy infrastructure we have
in this country, the better for America, the better for
Americans, the better for Pennsylvania. I agree very much with
your desire there. I have expressed that view many times. We
have the Marcus Hook Terminal for natural gas liquids, but not
for the main event--for methane and for natural gas. It would
be hugely beneficial to Pennsylvania and to our country to have
an LNG export terminal on the Pennsylvania coast near Philly.
Senator McCormick. Great. Thank you.
And we can't power the AI revolution without cheap and
reliable power for data centers and tech clusters. In
Pennsylvania, we have seen recently an innovative approach with
a Microsoft arrangement with Three Mile Island. You and I spoke
when we were together about the potential for Pennsylvania to
become, really, a leader with energy and AI going hand-in-hand.
And so, as we discussed in our meeting, I am putting together a
Pennsylvania energy--an innovation summit later this year to
bring together the energy sector, leading AI companies, huge
sources of capital, and global investors to deliver on
President Trump's vision to unleash American energy and
technological leadership. And so, I am looking forward to
working with you and Secretary Burgum on that. Can I count on
your support?
Mr. Wright. We had a great dialogue about that, Senator,
and absolutely, you can count on my support. It's a great way
to frame this issue. We want to build a new American industry
in artificial intelligence, and we want to lead the world in
that industry, and boy, for our economic and national security,
we'd better. You can't build any new industry without the
energy to support it. So you have this vision that is a great
coming together of a new manufacturing industry to manufacture
intelligence and use the energy resources you have in
Pennsylvania and attract the private investment capital to make
it happen. I am all in on that.
Senator McCormick. Thank you.
Finally, we have a major opportunity in Pennsylvania to
leverage our natural gas resources and carbon capture and
storage technologies to produce blue hydrogen. Will the Trump
Administration, with your leadership, ensure that federal
support for hydrogen development does not disadvantage blue
hydrogen projects?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I know of what you speak, but I would
say it's too early for me to speak about trade-offs between
different technologies and all that stuff, any commitments
there. I will say again that the President, who I hope to be
honored to serve, is very passionate about energy, about
growing energy, about growing American production of energy,
with the end not just for energy in itself, but to enable
better lives for Americans, stronger power, economic and
political security for our country. In every part of that
mission, I think you will see this Administration's support.
Senator McCormick. Great.
And finally, the Office of Fossil Energy has a storied
history of driving innovations in the industry, including
contributions to the shale revolution. One of the major labs is
in Pittsburgh. How can we, you know, as you take leadership, if
confirmed at the helm here, revitalize this office to focus on
the next generation of fossil fuel innovations?
Mr. Wright. Yes, you know, again, fossil fuels, again, who
have powered the world throughout all of my lifetime and will
continue to do so, have somehow fallen out of fashion and out
of favor. So even though it's a critical technology for us,
there has been less interest to invest in it, less interest to
talk about it. I don't share those aversions. I am all about
new technology to improve energy sources across the board, of
course, including hydrocarbon energy sources as well.
Senator McCormick. One of the things the Senator from
Alaska said, which I am excited about too, is you are an
innovator, you are a scientist. One of the consistent trends we
have seen over the past decade is the reduction in carbon
emissions as a consequence of technological innovation. So by
developing these innovations, we have more national security,
we have greater economic growth in places like Pennsylvania,
and we have a cleaner environment. What energy innovations are
you most excited about given the trends that you are seeing?
Mr. Wright. Well, there are so many. As you are talking
there about natural gas in Pennsylvania, it has been the
biggest driver of reducing America's greenhouse gas emissions.
On a per-capita basis, they were lower last year than any year
since I was born. Like, think about that--this is not a recent
trend. This is any year since I was born, and everyone knows my
age now, so, I am not going to say it, but everyone knows it
since it's my birthday. But thank you, Senator.
Senator McCormick. Oh, you are going to end on happy
birthday. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator King.
Senator King. You picked a hell of a way to spend your
birthday.
[Laughter.]
Senator King. Mr. Wright, I think your position on climate
change is more subtle than is publicly recognized. As I
understand it, you don't deny that there is climate change
happening in the world, and that things like sea level rise and
warming are occurring, and that they are related to the
combustion of fossil fuels, which has drastically increased the
amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Is that correct?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator. I enjoyed our dialogue
about that and look forward to future dialogues about that. But
yes, I have been outspoken about this for probably at least 20
years. Mostly from the combustion of hydrocarbons to enable our
modern world, we have increased atmospheric CO2
concentration by 50 percent.
Senator King. And that has affected----
Mr. Wright. Absorbs infrared radiation, makes it harder for
the earth to shed heat.
Senator King. But as I understand, your position is, as I
say, more subtle. You see a tension between diminishing our
reliance on fossil fuels and powering those six million people
who don't have adequate energy sources today. That is the kind
of balance that you are talking about, is that correct?
Mr. Wright. Well stated, Senator. That is my view. Energy
is critical to human lives. Climate change is a global
challenge that we need to solve, and the trade-offs between
those two are the decisions politicians make, and they are the
decisions that will impact the future of our world and the
quality of life.
Senator King. Those trade-offs are critically important. I
think there are two observations. One is, you have said there
is no energy transition. You are a walking energy transition.
What you did in your work in shale was an energy revolution in
this country that transitioned us, in many ways, toward natural
gas. So there is possible transition. It can happen either
slowly, probably faster--fusion, SMRs, battery storage, all of
those technologies. And I note that your company wasn't
exclusively oil and gas, but it also has investments in battery
technology, in nuclear SMRs. So you do believe that we do need
to diminish, where we can, the emission intensity of our
manufacture of energy?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator. You are bringing me back
to the great dialogue we had about energy, about climate
change, about trade-offs, and I appreciate very much your
comments today. I am for improving all energy technologies that
can better human lives and reduce emissions. They go together.
Senator King. I would add one note, however, and I
understand the tension, and I think that is reasonable. I
remember saying years ago, we can't tell the Indian nation that
they can't have air conditioning because we don't want them to
be using energy. The thing that has to be considered though is,
what if you are wrong. What if we are wrong and something
really drastic happens. My concern that isn't discussed very
much is a climate effect on the Atlantic currents. If something
happened to the Gulf Stream, Britian and Scandinavia, would be
uninhabitable. So I think we need to bear in mind that it's not
as easy as saying we are going to help the Third World and we
are going to keep burning fossil fuels, there is a significant
risk that we have to have in our calculation. Would you agree?
Mr. Wright. Senator, I agree with that comment as well. You
know, in my writings on climate change, what I record a lot and
talk about is what we do know, which is the past, up to today.
Predictions are hard, particularly about the future. And so,
yes, I think we need to be humble about that. We don't know
what is coming in the future. But advancement of energy
technologies that grow the amount of energy we have, drive down
the cost, improve the quality, and lower emissions, those are
all wins in all scenarios.
Senator King. And I am hoping that ten years from now we
will look back on this discussion as rather quaint because
technology will have solved the problem. We are all working in
that direction.
A couple of very quick questions. The Department of Energy
has a role in approving LNG export terminals. It's supposed to
determine the public interest, and I think Senator Hirono asked
this, but I want to confirm that your office, your department,
will consider the effect on domestic natural gas prices of
expanded LNG export capacity.
Mr. Wright. Absolutely true, Senator. Nothing is more
important than the supply, the affordability, and the access to
energy to Americans in America. So absolutely, that is a
critical factor in that determination.
Senator King. And one other question I want to--a couple of
others I want to underline. Improving the energy structure of
this country includes improved transmission, is that correct?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely. That is one of our major
bottlenecks today.
Senator King. And one of the things I hope you will
continue research on is what are called GETs--grid-enhancing
technologies--which are non--you don't have to build a whole
new tower, you can reconductor their technologies to improve
the throughput of our grid. That, I think, is a direction we
should move in. I commend the research on that to your
department.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, and I agree with that comment as
well, Senator. Actually, it was a dinner discussion last night.
Senator King. Well, I appreciate your testimony here today
and look forward to working with you. This is a critical area.
You bring a unique perspective and breadth of knowledge, and I
appreciate your willingness to take on this challenge. Thank
you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. Senator Daines.
Senator Daines. Chris, good to have you here. I get the
best view here to see your family, see Liz, and you had a
grandbaby there for a while, but as new grandfather, like you,
of six, I understand sometimes you have to step out--those busy
moms and dads--but I did get a picture of that with your
grandbaby there. I sent it to you as well. So you will have
that as a memory from today.
But it's great to have you here. I mean, your track record
is amazing, as an innovator, a scientist, mechanical engineer,
electrical engineer. I am a chemical engineer, so we can geek
out here for a moment, but I just appreciate your
thoughtfulness, looking at trade-offs in this complex area as
it relates to energy and being thoughtful and intentional going
forward here with getting the right policies for our country.
So thank you for stepping into the public service world. It's a
sacrifice for you and your sweet family, and I want to thank
you both for doing that.
As I step back and look at the numbers from a 30,000-foot
view, I think we are going to need 50 percent more energy in
the next 25 years than we currently consume today globally.
This has got to be a discussion on how do we increase--how do
we get more energy, not less, as we think about these trade-
offs. I think you will play a really critical role here, when
confirmed as our Secretary of Energy. Over the last four years,
I have seen, I think, taking some steps backward,
unfortunately. We saw pauses on LNG exports, prohibiting new
coal leasing in eastern Montana, putting a pause overall on oil
and gas development, even trying to ban new gas appliances. I
think that's out of touch with where the reality is, and that's
why I appreciate, I think, your pragmatism as you look at where
truth is, where physics are, and what the demand is going
forward.
One of the first things you can do as Secretary, I think,
is to refocus the Department on pro-baseload energy policies.
Baseload power resources, like coal, natural gas, hydropower,
nuclear, I think, will ensure that we have access to reliable
and affordable energy year-round, whether it rains or snows or
the sun is shining or not. The world needs more energy, not
less, and with the proliferation of data centers, thinking
about, well, how do Google and Microsoft and others think about
it right now, they are buying baseload power. They need to
think about baseload power as a way here to fund what they need
to do here as it relates to the revolution going on in AI,
blockchain technologies, and quantum computing. I think the 50
percent forecasted is probably low, where this is probably
actually going to land here. And you can help us get ahead of
that curve.
So here is my question, Mr. Secretary to be--will you
promote policies both at DOE and throughout the government that
will expand energy development and ensure that reliable and
affordable baseload sources of power are protected?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator. If I get the honor and the
privilege to be confirmed and to serve, the top goal of mine--
you just summarized the top goal--our electricity grid. As I
have said earlier in the testimony today, it has become more
expensive and less reliable, reversing a 100-year trend where
that was becoming cheaper in inflation-adjusted cost and more
reliable, and we have gone the other direction. We cannot go
that direction. That's not good for America. It's not good for
our industries. And that is a top priority of mine to work on.
Senator Daines. I think we violently agree that reducing
emissions is better through innovation, not regulation. What
are some ways you think about how innovation could help drive a
reduction in emissions?
Mr. Wright. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the track record
right now, almost all of the emission reductions in our country
and across the globe, almost all of them have come from
innovations. You know, in the United States, the biggest one by
far has been the arrival of low-cost natural gas through the
shale revolution. That was innovation. It was not imposed. We
got low-cost gas, lower-emission gas, not just lower greenhouse
gas emissions, but lower pollutants, lower particulate matter,
lower SOX, lower NOX. That helps air
quality. Countries that have reduced--a lot of country emission
reductions that have been from regulation and from top-down
mandates have actually not been the emissions reductions they
appear to be, they have more been an emissions removal. You
know, if you shut down industry in your country, or in your
state, the emissions from that industry don't go away, they
just go somewhere else. And if they go out of the United
States, with the cleanest and most advanced manufacturing
technology, those emissions just go up. So really the only
pathway to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and lift up people's
quality of life is through energy innovation. And America has
been a hotbed of that, and we need to return a vigor and a
focus on innovation on energy right here in this country.
Senator Daines. All right. I am out of time. One final,
quick sentence and statement is that, you know, Montana is
becoming a quantum powerhouse. Places like Bozeman, my
hometown, are leading some of this high-tech innovation. We
have the Quantum Leadership Act that we are working on to spur
more jobs and research in this area.
My question is, when confirmed, will you work with me to
bolster quantum and other next-gen technologies?
Mr. Wright. Not only I will, more importantly, this
Administration will. This Administration and President-elect
Trump are passionate about leading the next generation
industries and leading them here in America. Absolutely.
Senator Daines. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Wright. Love your passion.
Senator Daines. Thank you.
The Chairman. Okay, we will turn next to another new member
of our Committee, the great Senator from the great State of
Arkansas, Senator Cotton.
Senator Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wright,
congratulations on your nomination. I apologize for my
tardiness. I have been presiding over John Ratcliffe's hearing
at the Intelligence Committee.
A geological survey recently found anywhere from 5 to 19
million tons of lithium reserves in the Smackover Formation, in
particular, in South Arkansas. Can you commit to working with
my office to feasibly develop this rare and strategically vital
supply of minerals?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thanks for your question. Thanks for
your service to our country. And absolutely, this is a
different lithium production technology, to get it out of
brines. There seems to be an enormous resource of it in
Arkansas, and to the south of you. And I think that is an area
of critical interest to our country and should be looked at,
evaluated, and if it's commercially viable, developed.
Senator Cotton. Thank you very much for that commitment.
One of the responsibilities of the Department of Energy
that is sometimes overlooked is the national laboratories. We
do everything from nuclear development to quantum computing and
other high tech, cutting edge. Unfortunately, these
laboratories are a target of foreign espionage. In Fiscal Year
2023, more than 8,000 citizens from China and Russia were
granted access to DOE national labs out of a total of 40,000
foreign users. It is my opinion, and the opinion of many other
Senators, in particular on the Intelligence Committee, that the
Department of Energy cannot continue to allow adversarial
nations to exploit military and dual-use technologies for their
own gain. What steps can you take to ensure that the
Department's national labs and other sensitive facilities are
not compromised by our adversaries?
Mr. Wright. Thank you for the question, Senator. Thank you
for your concern and focus on this issue. I have spoken at
length today about what a treasure our national labs are, how
they have transformed our country to where it exists today, and
how they are really a vector to transform our country going
forward as well. But if we have American innovation funded by
American taxpayers performed by American citizens walk out the
door and go to our foes for free and without knowing it,
clearly that undermines our national security, that undermines
our economic security. I am aware of the problem in concept. If
I have the privilege to be confirmed and serve in this role, I
will quickly learn a lot more about the problem, including
working with the team there and across the Administration to
find solutions to this critical problem you have identified. I
agree with you about the gravity of the threat and the need to
address it.
Senator Cotton. Thank you. I appreciate it. I will just say
that, in our experience, many of the personnel at the labs are
brilliant scientists who go on to become managers, but
oftentimes, they have a purely scientific mindset and they have
it in their minds that they collaborate openly with fellow
scientists from around the world, which may be fine if we are
dealing with French scientists or Japanese scientists, but I
would say it's not the case with Chinese and Russian
scientists. I would also point out that the equivalent kinds of
sites in China and Russia are not nearly so open to American
scientists, and that would violate President Trump's treasured
principle of reciprocity with foreign nations.
Finally, another key responsibility of the Department of
Energy that is sometimes overlooked is the National Nuclear
Security Administration. It actually constitutes almost 50
percent of the Department's budget. Can you give us assurances
that you will advocate that the NNSA receives adequate
resources to complete this top-priority mission for our
national security?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator. I have significant
concerns in that area. You know, our uranium enrichment
capabilities in the United States have been denuded over the
last few decades, even our ability to produce plutonium pits
has collapsed to nearly nothing. There are some efforts in
place to reverse that, but I want to make sure they move as
fast and expeditiously as possible. That is the ultimate
guarantor of the sovereignty of our nation, is our nuclear
arsenal. That is not something we can cut corners on and not
worry about.
Senator Cotton. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate,
again, your testimony and your answers on these critical
questions that are not always highlighted when you think about
the Department of Energy, but they cross into our work on the
Armed Services Committee and on the Intelligence Committee,
where I believe we will see you in the future as well, in
addition to vital energy development questions like the
Smackover Formation.
So thank you very much for your testimony. Congratulations
again. I look forward to working with you.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator, particularly for working
two hearings at the same time.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Cotton.
Round one is now complete. And I hereby notify all members,
if you want to participate in a round two, come back right away
because round two tends to go pretty fast. We will start that
now, again with five-minute rounds.
For the beginning of my second round, I just want to ask
you a little bit about the Department of Energy's appliance
standards programs. Some of these regulations are of concern,
or at least ought to be noticed by the American people, as they
impact all Americans in one way or another. They reach almost
all equipment that uses energy to any significant degree in
Americans' homes, so, dishwashers, clothes dryers, clothes
washers, light bulbs, and a whole lot more. There are consumer
protections, of course, built into the statute--protections
that were designed to ensure that things wouldn't get too
expensive and that, you know, quality didn't fall off the table
in connection with them.
But in contrast to the previous Trump Administration, the
Biden Administration has run somewhat roughshod over some of
those consumer protections built into the law. This effort was,
of course, in service of the Biden Administration's whole-of-
government focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,
sometimes to the exclusion of authorized statutory mandates.
What will you do to ensure that maximum protections for
American families and consumers will be recognized and
respected, if you are confirmed as Energy Secretary, when
implementing the appliance standards program?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator. Thank you for that question
and for raising that concern. I can assure you that concern is
on the mind of millions of Americans across the country. I hear
it very often. You know, we want to drive--and the Department
of Energy and the government want to drive innovation and more
efficient technologies, meaning delivering the same end with
less input. That's advancement. That's technology. But to take
clothes dryers, for example, you know, it takes heat and it
takes air flow, and both of those take energy. And I look at
some new appliances today and well, they use half the energy
per minute, but if it takes an hour to dry your clothes instead
of 30 minutes to dry your clothes, it's the same energy
consumption and you lost a half an hour.
So does regulation go well beyond what is sensible and
logical? It does a lot. It does a lot. And what I want to do is
look at what is happening there, what is driving that analysis,
and are we playing a role of a reasonable regulator or are we
trying to check boxes or make achievements where the trade-offs
are simply not worth it? I think you should always be a little
humble and a little cautious when you are proposing to reduce
the choices of American consumers.
The Chairman. That is a fair point, especially when you are
dealing with administratively promulgated rules that themselves
have the effect of generally applicable federal law. They are
enforceable as such. If they are not complied with, they can
result in massive fines. They can result in somebody's business
getting shut down. They can even, in some cases, with some
administratively promulgated regulations, result in prison time
if you fail to abide by them. And so, that is all the more
important, any time you are taking away consumer choice, that
is of concern. Any time you are making new law outside the
people's elected lawmaking branch, that is also a concern.
We have a number of things in front of us. One of the
things that I have enjoyed reading is this document, which I
understand you, yourself, wrote. It's entitled ``Bettering
Human Lives.'' And you see energy as playing a significant role
in that. In this, you take on a whole bunch of different
issues, including the fact that as a result of the fact that
we, as Americans, have access to reliable, affordable, clean
electric power. We are able to avoid a lot of problems that in
many other countries they face. For example, you cite some
alarming statistics from the government of Kenya. The Kenyan
Ministry of Health talking about respiratory infections. Tell
me how those relate to the availability of affordable, reliable
electric power?
Mr. Wright. Yeah, I view this as maybe, Senator, the most
urgent energy challenge on the planet today, which is just
simply the access of basic, clean cooking fuels, also used for
heating, but all of our ancestors stayed warm and cooked food
burning wood. And regrettably, more than two billion people on
the planet today still burn wood indoors--sometimes charcoal or
dung--but mostly wood, indoors, to cook their meals and keep
their house at a safe temperature. That indoor air pollution
kills over two million people every year. This is outrageous
and it is entirely solvable. And in fact, one of the things I
am most proud of from the shale revolution is that while we
have well more than doubled oil production and nearly doubled
natural gas production, we have quadrupled U.S. propane
production. We have gone from the eighth largest exporter to by
far and away the largest exporter, and we are making propane,
that critical fuel that replaces wood to make people's lives
longer, healthier, and more opportunity-rich.
A lot to be proud of in this country, but there are so many
other energy challenges out there that are little-known, and
therefore, not addressed. But we can do better.
The Chairman. Indeed, thank you.
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
So I tend to approach energy with four goals, and one of
the primary ones is affordability. Reliability is always non-
negotiable. That is critical. And to the extent our policies
can make them both abundant and clean, those are things that
are incredibly important to my constituents. We have heard a
lot about cost today, and I know you and I talked a lot about
affordability when you visited me in my office. And so, I
pulled up the latest cost data for wholesale generation costs
in cents per kilowatt-hour from Lazard. Would you consider
Lazard data to be fairly reliable?
Mr. Wright. Well, Lazard is----
Senator Heinrich. They were the easiest to pull up, but----
Mr. Wright. They are the most famous for publishing
statistics on levelized costs of energy.
Senator Heinrich. Got you. No subsidies involved,
levelized.
Mr. Wright. Levelized misses the boat on electricity
generation because it treats it like--would you take an Uber
that was 10 percent cheaper in cost if you didn't know when the
Uber was going to show up and where it was going to drop you
off?
Senator Heinrich. So one of the reasons why I raised this
is because in New Mexico I think we have been able to do both
of those things at the same time. So we have pursued both
affordability--actually, I should say, all three things:
affordability, reliability, but also clean. And I know in 2023
there was a statement that you made that said, wind and solar
energy will ``likely never leave single digits.'' I guess that
is a percent of total energy. And I know you understand the
difference between the grid and transportation and heat energy
that we use in our total energy balance, but when it comes to
the grid in New Mexico, in just my utility, which we talked a
little bit about in my office, they now produce 58 percent of
their generation from carbon-free renewables and nuclear,
nuclear being the smallest of that at about seven percent,
solar being 35 percent, and wind being 15 percent of their
kilowatt-hours.
So that means that when you combine that with storage
resources, which are primarily getting charged by clean excess
renewables, that their penetration rates are now well into the
60s, even the low 70s. When Chris Wright says these resources
will likely never leave single digits, it's one thing; but if
the Secretary of Energy says that, I think people will get a
different impression. So how do you square those two very
different datasets?
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator. And I appreciate the
question, I appreciate our shared interest in affordable,
reliable, secure energy, and I think New Mexico has done some
great things there. Globally, which is what I talk about mostly
in that report, in 2023, the last year for which we have full
data, wind, solar, and batteries were 2.6 percent of global
primary energy. In the U.S. they are a little more than three
percent, but not wildly higher than the global. Electricity
only delivers 20 percent of global primary energy. So getting,
you know, 50 percent in electricity, which would be an
incredibly high penetration, that would be double digits. But
where most of the energy is consumed in the world today, and
where it's growing the fastest, is in South Asia, Southeast
Asia, North Africa, and through the--mostly South Asia and
Southeast Asia. These are countries with very poor wind
resources and actually not very good solar resources. India has
got some dry places and some deserts and good resources, but
Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, if you go to the places where
energy growth is rising the fastest, they don't have great
energy. They don't have great wind and solar resources.
Senator Heinrich. That was the context of your statement in
2023.
Mr. Wright. Global energy.
Senator Heinrich. Because I want to make sure that we
understand what we as a country are accomplishing, and if you
just look back at the last year's worth of data, the first 11
months of 2024, and you look at new generation, the vast
majority of that--and I don't have the figure in front of me,
but it came out in the last couple of weeks--the vast, vast
majority of that is all clean energy. And so, if we can take
some of these lessons from what we have been able to accomplish
as a world leader in energy and use them to help people in the
world have access to the abundance that you talked about, I
just think it's important to understand the rate of change in
some of these systems is not linear. And so, we are seeing, for
example, last year in the U.S., the vast majority of that
generation on the electric grid being clean.
Mr. Wright. I agree, Senator. Thank you, and I appreciate
your passion for numbers, and energy as well. Thank you for the
good comments.
Senator Heinrich. We need more data guys.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I
appreciate the opportunity for a second round here.
I mentioned critical minerals. I would like to ask you
more--a little bit more about geothermal because as we think
about these areas of opportunity, there is a lot of focus on
wind and solar, and I don't mean to be pointing to my friend
from Colorado there, but geothermal is kind of like, it's the
mature technology because it has been around for a while, but
the technologies that are being used nowadays are not
necessarily what we have seen in the past. You have had an
interest in this--a business interest--and I am a little bit
excited to know what you think the potential is for you in this
new role at DOE to help accelerate more in the geothermal
development space and reduce some of the project uncertainty.
So I am looking for better assurance for some of those
bright people who have these crazy wild ideas that we can do
things on Adak and Unalaska and out on Mount Spurr to try to
reduce these barriers to entry in an energy area that has been
around for a long time. It shouldn't be so hard. What can we
do? And are you excited about it from a DOE perspective?
Mr. Wright. Very much so, very much so. Look, I am
uprooting my life and moving to Washington, DC, if I get the
honor and privilege of being confirmed, because I love energy,
all kinds of energy for all Americans. And I love that you
highlight geothermal, just a tremendous potential energy
source. I worked on this 30-some years ago and wrote some
papers about it, and a new idea called hot dry rock, where
geothermal today is where there are hot rocks, approachable,
they have fractures in them so fluid can flow and they are full
of water. Well, that is a small set of the microcosm, but
anywhere we drill, right here, we drill three miles
underground, it is exceedingly hot. That energy is sitting
there. So the idea of hot dry rock is to inject water into a
well, flow through that rock and therefore take some of the
heat out of that rock and make that water very hot and then
flow it up and produce electricity from it, produce heating for
homes or houses. It's just an enormous abundant energy resource
below everyone's feet.
Senator Murkowski. Can I interrupt you and just ask you to
save that energy and passion for when you are confirmed as
Secretary of Energy and elevate this within the Department. I
know everybody wants to get to the top of the list, but if I
can express disappointment with what I have seen within the
Department of Energy over the years, we have seen great things
in great areas, and geothermal just kind of sits back there as
kind of the forgotten child. And we are not going to allow that
to happen. So I appreciate that passion.
Let me ask you about Alaska's natural gas. You have talked
a lot about how we have really seen this revolution when it
comes to being able to access our natural gas through the
fracking. You know Alaska. You have been up there. You know our
issues. Congress has approved a loan guarantee for an Alaska
gas line, and I would just ask for your support, if confirmed,
that you are going to work with the delegation to help stand up
the loan guarantee through regulations, whatever may be
necessary, to ensure that DOE can actually accept the
application when the project proponents are ready. It should be
an easy answer.
Mr. Wright. Yes, Senator, tremendous resources in Alaska of
oil, natural gas, minerals, mining, logging, geothermal, you
have got it all. You have got it all. And to grow natural gas
production in Alaska, and build infrastructure to export that
to the world, given how close it is to the biggest, fastest
growing markets in the world in Asia, I think, is a tremendous
idea.
Senator Murkowski. Well----
Mr. Wright. Great for our country, great for Alaska, and I
am confident that President-elect Trump will be a champion of
these ideas of growing American energy production and influence
in the world.
Senator Murkowski. Well, we have got it, as you mention. We
have it and we are ready and willing, we just need good
partners at the federal level to help us advance this.
And last point on that, we have seen some really critical
energy investments in Alaska as a result of the Infrastructure
Investment and Jobs Act. A lot of folks on this Committee
helped with that, but the DOE programs that are funded by IIJA
have provided a lot of benefit to Alaska projects so far. Most
of them are already underway. They range for everything from
the rural renewable energy investments, carbon storage,
transmission upgrades is huge, demonstration of long-duration
storage. So I just want your assurance that we are going to
still be able to continue these projects as a priority within
DOE. What we have started, we don't want to have a drop-off
here. We want to have a smooth transition for these existing
DOE projects to be able to continue to allow us to build out
that infrastructure, that transmission capacity that is going
to allow for a betterment of Alaskans and really our
opportunity to help Americans.
Mr. Wright. I am thrilled to see the breadth of energy
innovation in Alaska, and would love to see that continue, and
expect that it will continue.
Senator Murkowski. Are you going to come up and visit?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely.
Senator Murkowski. I figured it didn't take much of an
invitation. I appreciate the fact that you have ties to the
area already, and I appreciate that, but thank you for your
willingness to give the Committee this much time. I know that
you have a lot more energy, but I think that your grandson is
probably bored with us, so it might be time to end, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. I think his grandson seems riveted, actually.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Before we go to Senator Hickenlooper, I will
note that--love the geothermal discussion. Senator Heinrich and
I have a bill together on geothermal. We have access to heat
like that, and might as well harness it, just as we would with
Puff the Magic Dragon. If we could find and harness him, we
would make power out of him somehow.
Senator Hickenlooper, and then we will go to Senator
Hoeven.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And again, glad to be back. I don't think I have to extend
an invitation to come to Colorado.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wright. I accept.
Senator Hickenlooper. And I do appreciate, and there was
some--I understand how quickly things were working and how hard
you worked to get your financial information and your ethical
disclosures, the FBI background check that we didn't get it
until--I didn't. I never saw it. I had a dinner last night and
then I had meetings starting this morning. But I do look at
geothermal, which I share your enthusiasm, and I want to ask a
question about how rapidly you think you can scale, but it's
something so promising, obviously, you thought through your
conflict of interest in something like that where you have
helped, you dramatically--you have been part of the catalyst to
allow the geothermal that we can imagine at its scale--at least
I can--I am imagining it at scale. You fought through that. I
don't have any of the numbers in front of me yet.
Mr. Wright. Yes, thank you for that question, Senator. But
my involvement with a particular company, I think a leader in
next-generation geothermal, Fervo Energy, I will sever all
ties, all financial involvement with Fervo----
Senator Hickenlooper. Right.
Mr. Wright [continuing]. In everything I do in energy. I am
still passionate about it. I am going to be a champion for it,
but even in my world in the small modular reactor, our company,
and I am a director of one of those small modular reactor
companies, but I am cheering for all of them. And yes, I will
sever all of my ties from across the whole energy space, but I
won't sever my passion for seeing those technologies advance to
better American lives.
Senator Hickenlooper. I appreciate that, and I appreciate
that you are open to discussing it with other Senators, if they
have--once they have seen those documents, that they have
questions, I appreciate that.
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, yes, given the compressed time
frame, if anyone has any questions about anything in my
disclosure form, as you know, sometimes to your detriment, I am
an open book and so are you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Hickenlooper. Fair enough.
In terms of geothermal, and you know the details better
than I--how rapidly can we get that to scale, because the
transformational capability of that, as you have described
before, it can do some of the making of things. It can be high
temperature that actually does displace hydrocarbons in a
successful way.
Mr. Wright. So Fervo, right now, is building a 400-megawatt
plant in Senator Lee's state, and one of the reasons they can
do it in that scale is there already is nearby electrical
infrastructure, but Senator, we will circle back to everyone's
top issue today--one of the limiters in the growth of
geothermal are there are so many resources out there, but there
are not easy ways to connect to power lines to sell that power
to users.
Senator Hickenlooper. Right.
Mr. Wright. There are a number, so we are going to see
gigawatts come on in the next few years, but could it be tens
of gigawatts? With infrastructure, it could.
Senator Hickenlooper. Well, we are aligned on that. And I
have a couple bills that we have worked on, the BIG WIRES Act.
You will get immersed in all that soon enough.
Let me talk a little bit about nuclear waste, because we
haven't really talked about that, but you know, I was someone,
when I was a kid--protested against nuclear energy, couldn't
get my arms around how we deal with the waste. I think looking
now at some of the risks of climate change and the potential
and the possibility that acceleration of climate change is
worse than they think makes the nuclear issues around the
waste--we still have to deal with it and deal with it safely.
Do you have any ideas on how to do that and help, especially
some of the younger people in this country who are very
concerned about that, that nuclear as a solution--but it's
clean. It has high temperature capability. It can do so many
things if we can figure out how to deal with the waste.
Mr. Wright. Yes, and I think that concern of kids and us
when we were young and everyone else of nuclear, and of climate
change--they are all very justified concerns. These are real
things. Radioactive materials are dangerous. But fortunately, I
think with engineering and sensible regulation and safeguards,
I think the nuclear waste problem is one of the most manageable
problems because the volume of waste is relatively small. We
have been selling commercial nuclear power for over 70 years,
and all of that waste today is in swimming pools on location
cooling off at the start, and then it's in big dry casks, right
on location, in urban or suburban areas, and it has been there
for 70 years. And the radioactivity near those power plants is
lower than Grand Central Station in New York City--the subway
station.
So I think even without a permanent repository, we have
been able to do that in a safe way. It is better in the long
run to have a more remote, probably deep storage, but there are
many ways to do it. I think the politics of it are the
trickiest part, but they matter. You need to have people on
board. We don't want people with fear and anxiety about what's
going on. So it's a political and social challenge, but
technically can we deal with nuclear waste safely? I believe
firmly we can and we have.
Senator Hickenlooper. Well, thank you, and I am out of
time, but I do--I think that discussion, and we are going to
have to figure out how to have that national discussion to make
sure people are aware of how engineering and how technology and
innovation can help us make sure that is truly safe.
Thank you.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. I hope we are not actually seeing them in
swimming pools where people are swimming.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Senator Hoeven.
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chris, I am also on Defense Appropriations, and I just want
to follow up for a minute on a question that was asked by
Senator Tom Cotton, and that is the work of the NNSA and the
national labs in regard to our military. In my state, we have
the only dual nuclear mission base--Air Force base--in the
country. And the work at the NNSA and the national labs is
vital as we upgrade our nuclear triad. Will you commit to work
with me on that very important function for DOE on behalf of
our country, and you know, our military?
Mr. Wright. Absolutely, Senator.
Senator Hoeven. Okay.
Mr. Wright. This is foundational to our security, to our
way of life.
Senator Hoeven. Right on.
I want to thank you for your very open and articulate
responses across the board this morning, just an outstanding
job. And I mean open, knowledgeable, and articulate, and I
think all of us on the Committee could see that very clearly.
And the only other thing I would put forth, is there
anything else that you would want to put on the record? I just
want to give you that opportunity, you know, before we adjourn,
and the Chairman may well do that as well, but if there is
anything else, I want to give you that opportunity, anything
you wanted to respond to or anything else that you wanted on
the record.
Mr. Wright. Well, thank you, Senator, for that. I will end
with just a couple comments that have been in my mind. One is
to come back to Senator Heinrich and say New Mexico has
fantastic solar and wind resources and you have responsibly
developed them. So look, I don't want you to feel there is more
tension or disagreement there than it sounds like.
The other thing I will end with, and I think we share that,
everyone in this room, is the importance of energy and the
affordability of it. Ten percent of Americans got a
disconnection notice for their utilities in the last 12 months.
You know, more than 20 percent of Americans report struggles
paying their bills, whether it's paying their energy bills, you
know, whether it's filling their car with gas or heating their
home or paying their electricity bill. So this is important.
It's not just important for national security and industry and
all that, it's important for the quality of life of every
American.
So I thank every one on this Committee for being dedicated
to energy and natural resources. I am honored--would be
honored--to work with you all on this just critically important
thing, and energy is the infrastructure of life. It's what
makes everything possible. Thank you all for the great
dialogue, questions today, and thank you for your service to
our country.
The Chairman. Thank you so much, Mr. Wright. I really
appreciate you being here. My colleagues and I, we can be a
lively bunch, and you have handled our questions, responded
well to them, and I appreciate your family coming. I want to
thank the members of the Committee and the Committee staff and
especially the Capitol Police who have been here today to keep
us safe and keep things orderly. Thank you for your work.
The record for today will stand open and ready to receive
questions for the record until 6:00 p.m. today.
And we stand adjourned. Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]