Rick Perry Is Trump’s Top Pick To Head Energy Department

Flashback:

With many of the key cabinet positions in Trump’s administration having been filled, one major post remained open: that of Energy Secretary. However according to Bloomberg, the mystery is almost over as Donald Trump has narrowed his search for energy secretary to four people.

Which is amusingly ironic, because five years ago, Perry wanted to eliminate the Energy Department: in an infamous 2011 Republican primary debate, Perry forgot that the Energy Department was one of the three federal government agencies he wanted to do away with. The other two were the Commerce and Education Departments. According to some pundits, the gaffe may have cost him a shot at the party’s 2012 nomination.

Perry, Texas’ longest-serving governor, was indicted in 2014 for abuse of power and coercion after threatening to veto funds for a Travis County office that investigates corruption unless the district attorney, who had pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated, resigned. Another potential conflict of interest: Perry serves on the board of Energy Transfer Partners LP, the company whose pipeline project has drawn opposition in North Dakota and has become a rallying cry from environmentalists. While the Obama administration has stalled the project, Trump has said federal approvals for energy infrastructure need to come quicker.

As BBG notes citing two sources, two Democratic senators from energy-producing states – Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia – are also in the mix, along with Ray Washburne, a Dallas investor and former chairman of the Republican National Committee. If Trump picks any of the four he will break with recent tradition of putting scientists at the top of the Energy Department. Among other things, the agency is responsible for policies on the safe handling of nuclear material.

Some details on how the final four was selected: Trump met with former presidential candidate Perry and Washburne while attending the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore on Saturday. It was at least the second time he’d spoken to the two men for potential roles in the new administration. Trump met with Heitkamp at Trump Tower in New York on Dec. 2, and is scheduled to meet with Manchin in New York. Jay Martin Cohen, a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy, is said to be Trump’s choice for Under Secretary for Nuclear Security.

Two leading scientists have run the energy department during the Obama administration: Ernest Moniz, the incumbent, is a nuclear physicist who previously headed an energy initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His predecessor was self-professed nerd Steven Chu, a Novel laureate who directed the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology.

The lack of yet another career scientist at the head of the DOE likely means that the US push against “climate change” will become decidedly more muted over the next few years.

Trump has promised to unleash domestic oil, gas and coal production, largely by rescinding “job-killing” rules and environmental regulations, without detailing specific plans for the Energy Department and its nuclear-heavy policy portfolio.

A questionnaire circulated by Trump transition advisers within the Energy Department signals future scrutiny of the national labs and programs that the Obama administration has used to advance clean energy.

Trump’s advisers are exploring ways to restart a long-stalled plan to stash radioactive waste from the nation’s nuclear power plants at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. They also are evaluating whether Energy Department policy can be used to help keep aging nuclear plants online longer. Political considerations also may be a factor. Heitkamp faces a tough fight for re-election in two years as a Democrat in a Republican-leaning state that is at the epicenter of the Bakken shale energy-producing region. If a Republican is elected to succeed her in a special election, Heitkamp’s appointment would rob the narrowly divided Senate of a Democrat.

Perry position is not 100% guaranteed just yet: there are other candidates who just may get the nod after all. Heitkamp, 61, sits on the Senate Agriculture Committee and has been discussed for the post of agriculture secretary as well. A person familiar with the transition process said Trump and his advisers had been impressed with the first-term senator during her interview at Trump Tower this month.

If Manchin, 69, were picked, his Senate seat would be decided by Democratic governor Earl Ray Tomblin. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, West Virginia is one of 36 states where the governor makes an appointment to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy, and the appointee serves until the next regularly scheduled statewide general election.

Manchin’s coal interests aren’t necessarily a natural fit for the Energy Department, which plays a limited role in the use of coal. The biggest intersection in recent years has come through programs meant to accelerate the technology that promises to “clean up” coal, by paring the traditional air pollution that comes from burning it as well as capturing the carbon dioxide emissions tied to its use for power.

The Energy Department’s portfolio is nuclear-rich; it oversees the national nuclear weapons complex and also is tasked with advocating nonproliferation and promoting nuclear security worldwide. Moniz played a high-profile role negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran.

Finally, those curious about Rick Perry’s policies, we bring your an interview from June, where Perry questioned the science behind global warning. Here are the details:

During his 2012 presidential campaign, Perry regularly questioned climate science, saying that it hadn’t been settled. “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects,” Perry claimed during one New Hampshire campaign stop. He called the EPA a “cemetery for jobs.” In his pre-campaign book, Fed Up!, Perry referred to efforts to tackle global warming as “hysteria” and described the science a “contrived phony mess.” He even wrote that “we have been experiencing a cooling trend.” Perry’s 2012 campaign collapsed when, during a debate, he forgot which three cabinet-level departments he wanted to eliminate. He called for axing Commerce and Education, but he famously couldn’t remember that Energy was also on the list of federal agencies he’d proposed eliminating. “Oops,” he finally said when he was unable name the department.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference this in February 0215, Perry touted his record fighting smog. But he sidestepped climate change and called for the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built. “The point is, you can have job creation, and you can make your environment better,” he said. “That ought to be our goal in this country, and it all starts with energy policy. Open up the XL pipeline, create jobs.”

Finally, it would seem that the EPA would be especially disappointed with Secretary Perry: Perry’s efforts weren’t limited to state policy. Attacking environmental regulations was one of his favorite ways to prove his commitment to fighting the feds. “Perry has engaged in an outright war against EPA for years,” National Journal declared in 2011. He regularly fought the EPA over the Clean Air Act compliance. In 2010, Perry and then-attorney general Greg Abbott (now the governor) sued the EPA in an early attempt to block the agency’s plans to regulate greenhouse gasses. “Texas is aggressively seeking its future in alternative energy through incentives and innovation, not mandates and overreaching regulation,” Perry said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t agree with Perry, siding against Texas in 2012. The Supreme Court refused to hear the state’s appeal, but even so, the case ended up costing Texas $342,000.