Perry takes the reins at Energy Department
The Senate confirms former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the Energy Department, an agency he once pledged as a presidential candidate to eliminate.
WASHINGTON — Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry made his official return to government Thursday when the U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination as secretary of energy.
With a controversial new president in Donald Trump and a heated debate around how to address climate change underway, Perry will be tested quickly as he takes over an agency that manages billions of dollars in federal research funding.
Trump has promised to slash government spending, and the former governor will likely be under pressure to overhaul a department that spent $29.6 billion in 2016. At the same time Republicans are eager to roll back efforts under former President Barack Obama to expand research into areas such as renewable power and energy efficiency.
“This department, like so many others, has fallen victim to excessive bureaucracy and bloated government spending accounts that detract from its original mission,” Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, who attended Texas A&M University with Perry, said in a statement. “Fortunately, we now have a man who possesses a very strong energy background and has a track record of proven executive leadership.”
At a swearing-in ceremony with Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday evening, Perry recounted how Trump had told him, “I want you to do for American energy what you did for Texas.”
“That’s exactly what we intend
to do,” Perry said. “American energy can lead a revolution economically in this country like we’ve never seen before.”
Perry has long been a favorite son of Texas’ oil and gas industry, presiding over a hydraulic fracturing boom that revived what had been an industry in decline. While in the governor’s office, he described climate science as a “contrived, phony mess.”
But in his recent political comeback — seemingly on hiatus as he made appearances on the television program “Dancing With the Stars” — Perry has taken a more centrist tone. During his confirmation hearing in January, Perry walked back his controversial past statements on climate change — and another suggesting the Department of Energy itself be disbanded — promising an “all of the above” strategy that would promote research into everything from fossil fuels to solar panels to geothermal energy.
That centrist approach won him bipartisan support lacking among many of Trump’s Cabinet nominees. As opposition from Democrats slowed confirmation votes, Perry’s own confirmation was delayed until six weeks after the inauguration.
Ten Democrats, including Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, joined Republicans in voting to confirm Perry’s nomination. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, also voted for Perry.
Even environmental groups, no fans of the former governor, seemed to avoid the hard-line attacks directed at EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and took Perry’s confirmation as a chance to press him to continue his support for renewable energy while in the governor’s office. Perry’s embrace of wind power helped Texas to become by far the largest generator of wind energy in the nation.
“Perry, who saw firsthand the rise of wind generation in Texas, needs to be an aggressive champion of pioneering advancements,” Abigail Dillen, an attorney at the advocacy group EarthJustice, said in a statement. “At a time when we need to be making a wholesale shift from coal, oil and gas to renewable energy, we look to the Department of Energy for the crucial clean energy research and innovation that is absolutely essential to our energy transformation.”
At the same time, pressure is mounting from Democrats and Republicans alike to speed up development on advanced nuclear reactors that can be built more cheaply and do not produce the radioactive waste that the government has long struggled to find a repository for. And then there is the question of finding an economic way to capture carbon emitted by power plants and industri- al facilities that burn fossil fuels.
Perry is the second member of Trump’s Cabinet from Texas, following former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, raising expectations that this administration will place a priority on helping the oil and gas industry, which drives the Houston economy.
To what point Perry will hold true to his “all of the above” strategy remains to be seen. Some Democrats remain skeptical. Since his confirmation, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, questioned Perry’s commitment to renewable power and energy efficiency.
“We’ve had the last two presidents make energy efficiency a key priority — President Bush by advocating for plug-in vehicles and President Obama who made a major investment in smart grids, efficiency and clean energy jobs,” she said. “Gov. Perry has not committed to those same principles that are going to move us towards those 21stcentury jobs.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing for many GOP lawmakers. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, is leading a group of Republicans attacking the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which aims to speed up the transition of new energy technology onto the marketplace.
Smith argues such a program interferes with the energy markets, allowing the government to give its preferred sources of energy a leg up over those it does not favor. Rather, Smith argues, the department needs to focus on putting money into new technologies that the private sector is unwilling to commit research funding to.
“We will work with Secretary Perry to prioritize basic research that will lead to innovative technologies and develop affordable energy for Americans,” Smith said in a statement Thursday.
“At a time when we need to be making a wholesale shift from coal, oil and gas to renewable energ y, we look to the Department of Energ y for the crucial clean energ y research and innovation that is absolutely essential to our energ y transformation.” Abigail Dillen, attorney at advocacy group Earth Justice