A board member of the fracking support company founded by Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been nominated to head his agency’s renewable energy office.
Audrey Robertson was tapped by President Donald Trump earlier this month to serve as assistant DOE secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. She currently sits on the board of the directors at Liberty Energy, founded by Wright in 2011 — though she has announced her intention to resign if confirmed by the Senate.
Robertson, who was previously an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, does not have a clean energy background. But she was the co-founder of Franklin Mountain Energy, an oil and gas company operating in the Permian Basin.
Robertson would head the renewable energy division at a time when Trump is promoting fossil fuels and reversing efforts by the Biden administration to expand green power, especially wind. Last month, Trump said the United States “has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we’re going to use it.”
