TRUMP’S TEXAS 2-STEP
The president has shown a tendency to turn to Texans to fill out his administration roster.
WASHINGTON — A governor turned game show contestant, the CEO of one of the world’s largest oil companies and a romance novelist/attorney/ rancher.
Since President Donald Trump won the presidency more than 2½ years ago, he has repeatedly turned to a catalog of powerful and often colorful Texans to fill out his administration.
That affinity showed itself again this week with word that the acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Air and Radiation Office will be Anne Idsal, scion of the powerful Armstrong family of Kenedy County, which counts a former ambassador to the United Kingdom among its ranks and owns the South Texas ranch where in 2006 then-Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot an Austin attorney in the face while quail hunting.
Idsal, a former staffer with Texas Sen. John Cornyn, rose through the ranks of Texas state government before being tapped as deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s air office last year. She has no shortage of past and present members of the administration to turn to for advice on Washington — whether it’s how to stay on the right side of Trump’s Twitter feed or where to find a decent slice of brisket.
She is in the company of national figures such as Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the son of cotton farmers who would go on to become Texas’ longest serving governor, and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a native of Wichita Falls and dedicated Boy Scout who would become CEO of Exxon Mobil.
But many more are less known outside Austin, drawn from the ever-perpetuating ranks of business-minded, antiWashington Texas Republicans among whom Trump has found plenty he likes.
There is Susan Combs, the former Texas Comptroller and owner of a sprawling cattle ranch in Big Bend. In her earlier life, she penned a steamy romance novel about an analyst with the National Security Agency who falls in love with her bodyguard. After a lengthy confirmation delay, she was appointed assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at the U.S. Department of Interior in June.
And for his assistant secretary of health, Trump chose Brett Giroir, a doctor and former CEO of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, who came under fire during his confirmation hearing over whether or not he would distribute funding to Planned Parenthood; Giroir said family planning services are important but he would follow any restrictions on funding imposed on him, according to Kaiser Health News.
And while her skeptical views on climate change would sour her fortunes in the Senate, Trump attempted to install Kathleen Hartnett White, of the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation, as head the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality.
Idsal is likely to be the target of similar scrutiny. Environmental groups cheered this week when the EPA announced the head of the air office, Bill Wehrum, was stepping down. Wehrum, an energy attorney, had been under scrutiny by House Democrats for his efforts to role back air pollution regulations and his contact with former clients.
But Idsal is unlikely to make them much happier. Her family is a prominent supporter of efforts to question scientific data showing humanity’s contribution to climate change. The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Anne & Tobin Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment, of which Hartnett White is the head, was named for her grandparents.
In an interview with the Texas Observer in 2017, Idsal said there is “still a lot of ongoing science” regarding climate change.
“The climate has been changing since the dawn of time,” she said then, “well before humans ever inhabited the earth.”