42 Former Fossil Fuel Operatives Among Appointees/Nominees For Federal Energy And Environmental Positions
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Public Citizen and the Revolving Door Project, two nonprofit organizations that monitor corporate influence in government, analyzed the backgrounds of 111 nominees and appointees to executive branch positions in agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) that chart environment and energy policy. They found 43 people with ties to the fossil fuel industry and 12 people tied to right-wing think tanks, many of which receive funding from oilmen, including Texan Tim Dunn.
The report found that of 37 nominees to the Department of Energy (DOE), EPA and DOI who required Senate confirmation, 25 had ties to polluting industries, including oil and gas and mining. The report covers the fossil fuel ties of Cabinet members like Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as well as lesser-known nominees like Audrey Robertson, a former fracking executive nominated to lead the DOE’s efficiency and renewable energy office.
“The officials running Trump’s second administration, as well as Trump himself, have been far swifter and more aggressive in enacting favors for allies in the fossil fuel and mining industries,” wrote report authors Alan Zibel of Public Citizen and Toni Aguilar Rosenthal of the Revolving Door Project. “They have also set in motion an avalanche of attacks on Trump’s perceived enemies and the industries he disfavors, including renewable energy.”
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The administration has also filled other key positions at the DOE with close allies from Wright’s company. Robertson, a founder of Franklin Mountain Energy who also sat on the board of Liberty Energy (Ed. - the former company of current Energy Secretary Wright), was nominated to be assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. She is still awaiting confirmation by the full Senate. Environmental groups criticized the nomination of a fracking executive with no apparent experience in alternative energy to run the DOE’s renewable energy office.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/06102025/trump-administration-fossil-fuel-ties/