WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Monday confirmed fossil fuel executive Chris Wright to serve as energy secretary, a key post to promote President Donald Trump’s efforts to achieve U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market.

Wright, CEO of Denver-based Liberty Energy, has been one of the industry’s loudest voices against efforts to fight climate change. He says more fossil fuel production can lift people out of poverty around the globe and has promised to help Trump “unleash energy security and prosperity.”

The Senate approved his nomination, 59-38.

The centerpiece of Trump’s energy policy is “drill, baby, drill,” and he has pledged to dismantle what he calls Democrats’ “green new scam” in favor of boosting production of fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases.

“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.”

That includes oil and natural gas, coal, nuclear power and hydropower, along with wind and solar power and geothermal energy, Wright said.

Trump’s energy wishes are likely to run into real-world limits, including the fact that U.S. oil production is already at record levels. The federal government cannot force companies to drill for more oil, and production increases could lower prices and reduce profits.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican, called Wright an innovator who “tells the truth about energy production.”

While Wright “acknowledges that climate change is real, he knows more American energy is the solution — not the problem,” Barrasso said, calling Wright’s “energy realism” welcome news.

Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said Wright “understands that energy policies should focus on making energy abundant and affordable for families” and businesses.

“Our nation deserves a champion for American energy and innovation, and we’ve got the Wright guy for the job,” Lee posted on X.

Colorado’s two Democratic senators both supported their home-state nominee.

“Chris Wright is a scientist who has dedicated his life to the study and use of energy. He believes in science and supports the research that will deliver the affordable, reliable and clean energy” that will lower costs and make the country more secure, Sen. John Hickenlooper said.

“While we don’t always agree, we will work together because none of us have four years to wait to act,” Hickenlooper said.

Sen. Michael Bennet called Wright a successful Colorado entrepreneur with deep expertise in energy innovation and technology. He pledged to work with Wright to “ensure Colorado continues to lead the country in energy production and innovation.”

While acknowledging that climate change is real, Wright said at his hearing that he believes “there isn’t dirty energy or clean energy.” Rather, he said, there are different sources of energy with different tradeoffs.

Wright, 60, has been chairman and CEO of Liberty Energy since 2011 and has no prior experience in government. He grew up in Colorado, earned an undergraduate degree at MIT and did graduate work in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and MIT. In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, which helped launch commercial shale gas production through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

He later served as chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before founding Liberty Resources in 2010.

As energy secretary, Wright will join Interior Secretary Doug Burgum as a key player on energy policy. Both will serve on a new National Energy Council that Burgum will chair. The panel will include all executive branch agencies involved in energy permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation and transportation, with a focus on “cutting red tape” and boosting domestic energy production, Trump said. The council’s mission represents a near-complete reversal from actions pursued by Democratic President Joe Biden, who made fighting climate change a top priority.

Wright said he would sever all ties across the energy industry if confirmed.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk is rapidly consolidating control over large swaths of the federal government with President Donald Trump ’s blessing, sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases and dismantling a leading source of humanitarian assistance.

The speed and scope of his work has been nothing short of stunning. In a little more than two weeks since Trump took office, the world’s richest man has created an alternative power structure inside the federal government for the purpose of cutting spending and pushing out employees. None of this is happening with congressional approval, inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.

Trump says Musk is doing his bidding

Musk has been named as a special government employee, which subjects him to less stringent rules on ethics and financial disclosures than other workers. Trump has given Musk office space in the White House complex where he oversees a team of people at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The team has been dispersed throughout federal agencies to gather information and deliver edicts. Some of them were spotted on Monday at the Department of Education, which Trump has vowed to abolish.

Republicans defend Musk as simply carrying out Trump’s slash-and-burn campaign promises. Trump made no secret of his desire to put Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the electric automaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX, in charge of retooling the federal government.

“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

The Republican president also played downs concerns about Musk’s conflict of interests as he flexes his power over the bureaucracy even though his businesses face regulatory scrutiny and have federal contracts.

“Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it, but he has some very good ideas,” Trump said.

Musk persists in spite of Democrats’ outrage

Democrats, for their part, accused Musk of leading a coup from within the government by amassing unaccountable and illegal power.

“We will do everything in our power in the Senate and the House to stop this outrage,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said. “And in the meantime, since we don’t have many Republican colleagues who want to help us, we are doing everything we can with our colleagues through the courts to make sure that we uphold the rule of law.”

The apex of Musk’s work so far came on Monday at the Washington headquarters for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, where yellow police tape blocked access to the lobby and hundreds of employees were locked out of computer systems. Musk said Trump had agreed to let him shutter the agency.

“It’s not an apple with a worm in it, what we have is just a ball of worms,” Musk said of the world’s largest provider of humanitarian, development and security assistance. “You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”

Federal workers are in unchartered territory

Musk has also turned his attention to the General Services Administration, or GSA, which manages federal government buildings. An email sent last week from the Washington headquarters instructed regional managers to begin terminating leases on roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide.

The initiative is being led by Nicole Hollander, according to an agency employee who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters. Hollander describes herself on LinkedIn as an employee at X, Musk’s social media platform.

“This has gone beyond the pale. This is out of control. This is not a normal situation,” said Keya Chatterjee, executive director of Free DC, a local advocacy organization. She participated in a protest on Monday outside the Office of Personnel Management, which is one of the lesser-known federal agencies key to Musk’s agenda.

Musk’s work has unnerved federal employees who are being nudged toward the exits. On Sunday night, concerns swept through the workforce that they could be locked out of internal human resources system, denying them access to their own personnel files that showed pay history, length of service and qualifications. Supervisors in some agencies encouraged employees to download their records, called an SF-50, to personal computers so that they could prove their employment history in the event of disputes.

Musk’s penchant for dabbling

Musk has been tinkering with things his entire life, learning to code as a child in South Africa and becoming rich with the online payment company PayPal. He bought the social media platform Twitter a little more than two years ago, renamed it X and slashed its workforce while turning it into his personal political megaphone.

Now Musk is popping open the hood on the federal government like it’s one of his cars or rockets.

“The Silicon Valley playbook to disrupt the status quo — by disregarding and disobeying rules that you don’t like — is in full effect here,” said Rob Lalka, an expert on entrepreneurship and innovation in business at Tulane University.

One of the most significant steps was gaining access to the U.S. Treasury payment system, which is responsible for 1 billion payments per year totaling $5 trillion. It includes sensitive information involving bank accounts and Social Security payments.

“No one outside of the staff doing the work ever asked to have access to the payment files,” said Richard Gregg, who spent four decades working for Treasury and oversaw the payment system as fiscal assistant secretary.

It’s unclear what Musk wants to do with the payment system. He’s claimed that he could trim $1 trillion from the federal deficit “just by addressing waste, fraud and abuse.”

“That’s the biggest data hack ever in the world,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, told reporters in Madison. “I am outraged about it.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent must revoke Musk’s access to the payment system.

“We must halt this unlawful and dangerous power grab,” he said on Capitol Hill.

Trump rewards Musk’s fealty

Musk’s role is partially a reward for his work on behalf of Trump during the campaign. He spent roughly $250 million supporting Trump through America PAC, which included door-to-door canvassing and digital advertising.

Although the PAC has not announced its next plans, Musk has suggested that he could endorse primary challenges to Republican lawmakers who defy Trump’s agenda.

“The more I’ve gotten to know President Trump, the more I like him,” Musk said in a conversation streamed live on X. “Frankly, I love the guy. He’s great.”

Musk also described his work overhauling the federal government in existential terms, making it clear that he would push as hard and as far as he could.

“If it’s not possible now, it will never be possible. This is our shot,” he said. “This is the best hand of cards we’re ever going to have. If we don’t take advantage of this best hand of cards, it’s never going to happen.”

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Scott Bauer, Tom Beaumont, Rick Gentilo, Joshua Goodman, Lisa Mascaro, Zeke Miller, Sarah Parvini and Byron Tau contributed reporting.

Chris Megerian, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is opening new investigations into allegations of antisemitism at five U.S. universities including Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley, the Education Department announced Monday.

It’s part of President Donald Trump’s promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than the Biden administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks. It comes the same day the Justice Department announced a new task force to root out antisemitism on college campuses.

In an order signed last week, Trump called for aggressive action to fight anti-Jewish bias on campuses, including the deportation of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests.

Along with Columbia and Berkeley, the department is now investigating the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University and Portland State University. The cases were opened using the department’s power to launch its own civil rights reviews, unlike the majority of investigations, which stem from complaints.

Messages seeking comment were left with all five universities.

A statement from the Education Department criticized colleges for tolerating antisemitism after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel and a wave of pro-Palestinian protests that followed. It also criticized the Biden administration for negotiating “toothless” resolutions that failed to hold schools accountable.

“Today, the Department is putting universities, colleges, and K-12 schools on notice: this administration will not tolerate continued institutional indifference to the wellbeing of Jewish students on American campuses,” said Craig Trainor, the agency’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights.

The department didn’t provide details about the inquiries or how it decided which schools are being targeted. Presidents of Columbia and Northwestern were among those called to testify on Capitol Hill last year as Republicans sought accountability for allegations of antisemitism. The searing hearings contributed to the resignation of multiple university presidents, including Columbia’s Minouche Shafik.

An October report from House Republicans accused Columbia of failing to punish pro-Palestinian students who took over a campus building, and it called Northwestern’s negotiations with student protesters a “stunning capitulation.”

House Republicans applauded the new investigations. Rep. Tim Walberg, chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, said he was “glad that we finally have an administration who is taking action to protect Jewish students.”

Trump’s order also calls for a full review of antisemitism complaints filed with the Education Department since Oct. 7, 2023, including pending and resolved cases from the Biden administration. It encourages the Justice Department to take action to enforce civil rights laws.

Last week’s order drew backlash from civil rights groups who said it violated First Amendment rights that protect political speech.

The new task force announced Monday includes the Justice and Education departments along with Health and Human Services.

“The Department takes seriously our responsibility to eradicate this hatred wherever it is found,” said Leo Terrell, assistant attorney general for civil rights. “The Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism is the first step in giving life to President Trump’s renewed commitment to ending anti-Semitism in our schools.”

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Collin Binkley, The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon judge on Monday ordered the city at the heart of a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling on homeless encampments to temporarily pause enforcement of its camping rules, in response to a lawsuit filed by advocates against the city.

Josephine County Circuit Court Judge Brandon Thueson’s temporary restraining order prohibits Grants Pass from enforcing its camping regulations for 14 days. During that time, the city cannot cite, arrest or fine people for camping anywhere in the city, nor force a person to leave a campsite, the order says.

“This is an important issue, and we are actively reviewing all aspects to ensure we make the best decision for our community,” Grants Pass Information Coordinator Mike Zacchino said in an email. The mayor and interim city attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The order came in the lawsuit filed against the city last week by Disability Rights Oregon. In its complaint, the advocacy group accused the city of discriminating against people with disabilities and violating a state law requiring cities’ camping regulations to be “objectively reasonable.”

Last June’s Supreme Court ruling ushered in a new era of homeless policy by allowing cities across the country to ban sleeping outside and fine people for doing so, even when there aren’t enough shelter beds. It overturned a ruling from a California-based appeals court that found camping bans when shelter space is lacking amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. Officials from across the political spectrum filed briefs in the case, urging the justices to overturn lower court rulings they said hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.

Grants Pass — a small city of about 40,000 people located along the Rogue River in the mountains of southern Oregon — has struggled for years to address a homelessness crisis, and its parks had become a flash point. Cherished by residents for their open spaces and playgrounds, many had become the site of encampments blighted by drug use and litter.

After the high court decision, Grants Pass banned camping on all city property, except where allowed by City Council. Councilors designated two areas where the town’s hundreds of homeless people would be allowed to stay, in a bid to move people out of the parks while still giving them places to sleep.

But upon taking office last month, the new mayor and new City Council members moved to close the larger of the two campsites — which housed roughly 120 tents, according to Disability Rights Oregon’s complaint — and made the remaining smaller one only open from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m., forcing people to pack up their belongings every morning and carry them throughout the day.

The two outdoor sites were frequently crowded with poor conditions and inaccessible to people with disabilities due to loose gravel, according to the complaint.

“It is unconscionable to me to allow people to live there like that,” City Council member Indra Nichols said before last month’s vote to close the larger site.

Grants Pass has become emblematic of the national homelessness crisis gripping cities large and small — and the debate over how to deal with it.

Last year, homelessness in the U.S. increased 18% in a dramatic rise driven mostly by a lack of affordable housing as well as devastating natural disasters and an increase in migrants in several parts of the country.

Claire Rush, The Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Samoa’s top health official on Monday denounced as “a complete lie” remarks that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made during his bid to become U.S. health secretary, rejecting his claim that some who died in the country’s 2019 measles epidemic didn’t have the disease.

“We don’t know what was killing them,” Kennedy said during tense U.S. Senate hearings last week on whether he should oversee the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, suggesting that the cause of the 83 deaths — mostly of children under age 5 — was unclear.

“It’s a total fabrication,” Samoa Director-General of Health Dr. Alec Ekeroma told The Associated Press of Kennedy’s comments.

U.S. senators grilled Kennedy last week over his 2019 Samoa trip, accusing him of downplaying his role in the epidemic.

What happened in Samoa?

The outbreak devastated the Pacific island nation in 2019, killing 83 people in a population of 200,000. Vaccination rates were historically low because of poor public health management and the 2018 deaths of two babies whose vaccines were incorrectly prepared, prompting fears that the MMR immunization was unsafe before the nature of the error was discovered.

The government suspended vaccinations for 10 months before the outbreak — the period when Kennedy visited. His trip was organized by a Samoan anti-vaccine influencer, according to a 2021 blog post by Kennedy.

On Wednesday, Kennedy denied that his visit had fueled anti-vaccine sentiment. A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

“Anti-vaxxers from New Zealand came to be with him here,” Ekeroma said. “That’s how I know that his influence can be far-reaching.”

What did Kennedy say about the deaths?

“When the tissue samples were sent to New Zealand, most of those people did not have measles,” Kennedy told U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Ekeroma, a medical doctor who also holds a doctorate in health, said that the claim was a “huge denial” of the fact that doctors from several countries traveled to Samoa to treat measles patients.

The Samoan official wasn’t the health chief during the outbreak, but confirmed key details with his predecessor, he said. Only one autopsy was carried out and no postmortem tissue samples were sent abroad, which was not unusual because measles is a simple disease to diagnose, said Ekeroma.

Blood samples from living patients were sent to Australia and New Zealand, where the public health agency said Monday that testing had confirmed the same strain of measles circulating in New Zealand at the time.

Why did Kennedy travel to Samoa?

“I went there – nothing to do with vaccines,” Kennedy said Wednesday. “I went there to introduce a medical informatics system that would digitalize records in Samoa and make health delivery much more efficient.”

Ekeroma rejected that assertion, referring to social media posts by anti-vaccine advocates who posed for photos with Kennedy during his trip. One later wrote on the blog of Kennedy’s then nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense — which has decried MMR vaccines as unsafe — that during the outbreak he received advice from people assembled by Kennedy encouraging the alternative treatments he was supplying to Samoan families.

In the same blog post, Kennedy recalled meeting Samoa’s then prime minister, who he said was “curious to measure health outcomes following the ‘natural experiment’ created by the national respite from vaccines.”

In late 2019, Kennedy wrote to the leader, saying that the deaths could have been caused by a measles vaccine — statements he repeated in written responses to senators’ questions following the hearing. He urged the Samoan leader to approach a particular laboratory to investigate the source of the outbreak.

Did Kennedy’s visit have any sway?

“My words had nothing to do with vaccine uptake in Samoa or with the 2019 epidemic,” Kennedy said in his written responses.

But Kennedy emboldened anti-vaccine contacts in Samoa, Ekeroma said, and the epidemic was fueled by disinformation in social media posts in the island nation and abroad.

Moelagi Leilani Jackson, a Samoan nurse who worked on the vaccination campaign, told the AP in 2023 that anti-vaccine campaigners “got louder” after Kennedy’s visit.

“I feel like they felt they had the support of Kennedy,” she said.

However, Ekeroma said that Kennedy’s overtures weren’t heeded by the nation’s leaders. A vaccination campaign resumed in 2019 and measles vaccines are now compulsory for Samoan children.

Would Kennedy’s appointment impact the Pacific?

If Kennedy is affirmed as the top U.S. health official this week, it would be “a danger to us, a danger to everyone,” Ekeroma said. Kennedy would control U.S. funding for vaccination initiatives and could make affordable vaccines harder for small nations like Samoa to access, the official said.

“If he’s going to be appointed, then we will have to actually discuss around the Pacific as to how we’re going to try to neutralize his influence in the region,” he added.

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Amanda Seitz contributed to this report from Washington.

Charlotte Graham-mclay, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigration advocacy groups on Monday sued the Trump administration over its ban on asylum access at the southern border, saying the sweeping restrictions illegally put people who are fleeing war and persecution in harm’s way.

The decision outlined in one of President Donald Trump’s immigration-related executive orders is “as unlawful as it is unprecedented,” the groups — led by the American Civil Liberties Union — said in the complaint, filed in a Washington federal court.

“The government is doing just what Congress by statute decreed that the United States must not do. It is returning asylum seekers — not just single adults, but families too — to countries where they face persecution or torture, without allowing them to invoke the protections Congress has provided,” lawyers wrote.

The ACLU filed the complaint on behalf of Arizona-based Florence Project, El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Texas-based RAICES.

In an executive order, Trump declared that the situation at the southern border constitutes an invasion of America and that he was “suspending the physical entry” of migrants until he decides it’s over.

The executive order also suspended the ability of migrants to ask for asylum.

It was the latest blow to asylum access that began under the Biden administration, which severely curtailed the ability of people who entered the country between the official border crossings to qualify for asylum. But they also had a system by which 1,450 people a day could schedule an appointment at an official crossing with Mexico to seek protection in America.

Trump ended that program on his first day in office.

Advocates say the right to request asylum is enshrined in the country’s immigration law and that denying migrants that right puts people fleeing war or persecution in grave danger.

Critics have said relatively few people coming to America seeking asylum actually end up qualifying and that it takes years for overloaded immigration courts to come to a determination on such requests.

Rebecca Santana, The Associated Press