Senate committee member says they will back Wright and Burgum after confirmation hearings

An unnamed senator on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said they will support Chris Wright, nominee for secretary of energy, and Doug Burgum, nominee for secretary of the interior, following hearings last week, citing commitments each made to committee members and pledges on land and tribal issues.

The senator said both nominees made specific commitments during their appearances: Wright pledged not to roll back spending that Congress has already appropriated for energy projects and to use his authorities as energy secretary to build new transmission lines and repower existing ones; Burgum pledged to meet with local stakeholders and tribal leaders before recommending changes to public land protections and to continue work on settling tribal water claims.

The senator framed those commitments as central reasons for support. "He pledged to uphold the rule of law," the senator said of Mr. Wright, while noting differences on climate policy. The senator said they strongly disagree with Mr. Wright's reported view that climate change "does not pose an existential threat to humanity," and pressed that the energy transition is key to addressing the problem. The senator quoted Mr. Wright as saying, "we need to be humble," when responding to a question from Senator King about climate change.

The senator pointed to other technical and market details raised in the hearings: that the United States has nearly 2.6 terawatts of generation and storage capacity waiting to connect to the U.S. grid, that battery storage development has doubled year over year, that installations continue to decline in cost (a cited 34% decline in battery project installation costs between 2023 and 2024 and a 92% decline in lithium-ion battery costs since 2010), and that those trends are already used in some states to balance the grid and deliver reliable power.

On Mr. Burgum, the senator said the nominee expressed a shared interest in protecting public lands and committed to meeting tribal leaders and local stakeholders before making recommendations. The senator also expressed concern about Burgum's comments that wind and solar are unreliable and not cost-competitive with thermal generation, and about Burgum's reported skepticism that battery technology is ready for commercial deployment.

The senator said those substantive disagreements did not change their decision to support both nominees, citing the importance of cooperative relationships between the departments and the needs of the senator's state: "With two DOE National Labs in New Mexico, 23 tribal nations, intensifying aridification, and abundant public lands, the work of these two departments is really the work of New Mexico." The senator concluded by saying they look forward to working with both nominees if confirmed.

The remarks summarize the senator’s assessment of commitments made in the hearings and their reason for supporting confirmation; no formal committee vote or committee-level action was recorded in the remarks provided.