Rick Perry up for Energy Secretary
USA
WASHINGTON, DC, December 14, 2016 – Former Texas governor Rick Perry has received the nomination for Energy Secretary, President-elect Donald Trump announced late on Tuesday.
Trump’s pick means yet another high-profile oil man will descend on Washington, following the nomination of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State earlier that day. Perry is board director at Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, the two entities behind the Dakota Access pipeline project.
A controversial figure, Perry once vowed to dismantle the very department he is now expected to lead. Additionally, during his 2011 run for president, he famously could not recall the name of the Energy Department when listing the federal agencies he wanted to shut down. According to Perry, the science on the human factor in climate change is a “contrived, phone mess.”
Considering the major role the National Nuclear Security Administration plays within the Energy Department, some in Washington have questioned Perry’s credentials. A former agriculture commissioner holding a BA in animal science, he succeeds nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz, who himself took over from physicist Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize laureate. During his bid for the 2016 nomination, Perry labelled Trump a “barking carnival act.”
In 2014, Perry spoke to TOGY about the benefits of Texas’ oil boom to the nation.
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