WASHINGTON — Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump’s (R) pick for secretary of energy, said he would make it a priority to enrich uranium domestically Wednesday at his confirmation hearing.
“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,” Wright told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “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.”
Wright’s response followed questioning from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who represents personnel at the Nevada National Security Site, who asked Wright to explain his understanding of the Department of Energy’s role in defense and national security.
“The NNSA as a part of DOE is the critical designer, maintainer and builder through contractors of our nation’s nuclear arsenal,” Wright told Cortez Masto. “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.”
Later in the hearing, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) asked Wright to expand on his comments on uranium enrichment, and whether he would make it a priority in the US.
“It is a significant hole in the U.S. arsenal right now,” Wright said. “It’s technology we developed, but yet we import most of it from abroad. Most of it that’s enriched in the U.S. is by companies that are not American companies. Yes, we need to build American nuclear infrastructure. On mining, on enrichment, on power production and on waste disposal.”
Barrasso then asked Wright’s thoughts on the ban on Russian uranium, which President Joe Biden (D) signed in May but would go into full effect until 2028. Wright agreed with Barrasso that waivers on the ban, such as those that went to domestic uranium enrichment Centrus, should be “very limited.”
Wright is the CEO and founder of Liberty energy, a Denver-based oilfield services company. He also sits on the board of Oklo, a company based in California that seeks to develop small modular reactors to deploy at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to vote on Wright’s nomination in the coming days, after which he would need at least 51 votes on the Senate floor to be confirmed.
No votes were scheduled as of deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), the leading Democrat on the committee, spoke positively about Wright’s performance after the hearing.
Heinrich said he appreciated “the fact that he’s [Wright] been responding to all of our members, like these’s met with everybody who wanted to meet with him, he’s had answers that were not as dogmatic as some folks may have expected.”
“I think he has a genuine intellectual curiosity,” Heinrich told the Exchange Monitor after the hearing adjourned about Wright’s approach to the national labs. “He doesn’t have a long resume in that area, but he’s pretty technical and was enthusiastic in our exchanges about getting to know the labs and how he can do a good job of managing that part of the portfolio, which, even if you take environmental management out, is 48% of their budget.”
