The vote on Monday was 59-38, with seven Democrats and one independent, who caucuses with Democrats, crossing the aisle.
Wright, 60, has said he will step down from Liberty Energy once confirmed. He wrote in a Liberty report last year that he believes human-caused climate change is real, but that its hazards are “distant and uncertain”. He has also said that top-down governmental policies to curb it are destined to fail.
A shale gas drilling site in Pennsylvania. Wright helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the United States. Photo: AP
“President Trump shares my passion for energy,” Wright said at his confirmation hearing last month, promising that if confirmed, he would “work tirelessly to implement [Trump’s] bold agenda as an unabashed steward for all sources of affordable, reliable and secure American energy”.