CEO of Liberty Energy with $46.8 Million in Holdings

• Chris Wright is the founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Liberty Energy, a major oilfield services company with fracking and mining assets whose business he would have significant opportunities to influence as Secretary of Energy. As of November 2024, Wright held approximately $46.8 million worth of Liberty shares. 

• Liberty Energy has seven subsidiaries, several of which have business interests before the Department of Energy.

• Liberty Oilfield Services, a subsidiary of Liberty Energy, operates facilities that the Environmental  Protection Agency has cited for repeat Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) violations and noncompliance with Clean Water Act (CWA) reporting standards. 

• These include a facility in Denver that has been cited for three SDWA violations, a facility in Buckhannon, WV that was in significant noncompliance of the CWA for all twelve quarters of operation from July 2021 to December 2024, a facility in Shreveport, LA that was in significant noncompliance of the CWA from January-March 2023, and a facility in Willison, ND that was in significant noncompliance of the CWA from October 2022 to December 2023. 

• In 2024, Liberty Energy was forced to pay $265,000 to three workers in a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit after it was found to have ignored complaints that the workers were subjected to racial and national origin discrimination and a hostile work environment. 

Involvement in Big Oil Lobbying Groups

• Since 2020, Wright has sat on the Board of Directors of the Western Energy Alliance, a major oil and gas lobbying group whose membership includes Liberty Energy. 

• Since Wright joined the Western Energy Alliance’s Board of Directors, the group has spent $675,000 on lobbying related to oil and gas permitting issues, including $120,000 in 2024, $140,000 in 2023, $135,000 in 2022, $120,000 in 2021, and $160,000 in 2020. 

• In 2023, the Western Energy Alliance submitted a comment on the Department of Energy’s updated gas stove rule, which raised fuel efficiency requirements for gas stoves. 

• In 2024, the Western Energy Alliance called on Congress to repeal the Department of Energy’s export license authority, which was used to halt liquid natural gas exports to certain countries. 

• Kathleen Sgamma, President of the Western Energy Alliance, wrote much of Project 2025’s chapter on the Department of the Interior, which called for expanding oil and gas lease sales, lowering federal drilling royalties companies must pay, and expediting oil and gas permitting, among other policy stances that would benefit the fossil fuel industry. Project 2025 would eliminate “key offices at the DOE including the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Office of State and Community Energy Programs, the Office of Grid Deployment, and the Loan Programs Office.”

• Wright sits on the Board of Directors of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a Koch-backed group that has called for “selling off millions of acres” of public land to pay down the federal deficit. 

Conflict of Interest: Oklo, Inc. 

• Wright sits on the Board of Directors of Oklo, Inc., a nuclear energy startup whose business falls under the Department of Energy’s regulatory purview. 

• The Department of Energy awarded Oklo a total of $2.7 million in 2022 and 2023, including $140,000 in June 2022, $660,000 starting in July 2022, and $1.9 million starting in February 2023. 

• Okla has depended on approvals granted by the Department of Energy in the past, including a site use permit for a commercial nuclear power plant in 2019 and design approval for a project that aims to turn used material into usable nuclear fuel.  

• In 2022, the Independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected an application from Oklo to build a new reactor after it found “significant information gaps” related to safety in the application. 

Conflict of Interest: EMX Royalty Corp. 

• Wright sits on the Board of Directors of EMX Royalty Corp., a global mining investment company whose business falls under the Department of Energy’s regulatory purview. 

• Notably, the Department of Energy offers mining incentives by designating “critical minerals” that, by mining, companies can become eligible for clean energy tax provisions and other benefits. As Secretary of Energy, Wright would be tasked with determining which minerals have these benefits attached to them, impacting EMX Royalty Corp.’s investment values. 

Denier of Climate Science

• Wright has said that “there is no climate crisis” and called ‘carbon pollution’ “the most shameful marketing term I’ve ever heard.”

• In prepared remarks delivered to the House Financial Services Committee in 2024, Write said that “It is popular today to suggest that somehow in the next 10 or 30 years we are going to ‘Transition’ fully away from fossil fuels. This cannot and will not happen.”

• In these remarks, Wright also said that “global temperature rise is—by itself—not the concern. In fact, millions of lives have been saved by reducing cold-related deaths.” 

• In 2023 and 2024, Liberty Energy repeatedly sued the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in attempts to halt its climate risk disclosure rule, which requires publicly traded companies to disclose to investors business liabilities stemming from greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks, and how they are preparing to transition to a low-carbon economy. 

Resignation from Board Positions Not Enough

• Wright has stated that he plans to resign from his board positions should he be confirmed as Energy Secretary. This provides no assurance that he will represent the interests of the American people over the big businesses he has prioritized throughout his career. Nor has Wright indicated if he will divest from Liberty Energy, which he founded and whose business he would still be financially incentivized to bolster while performing the duties of DoE chief.