Trump: Perry will bring Texas success story to Washington
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s transition team announced early Wednesday morning that the presidentelect intends to nominate former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy.
The announcement came after days of speculation and reports that Perry had the job locked up.
“It is a tremendous honor to be selected to serve as secretary of energy by President-elect Trump,” Perry said. “I am deeply humbled by his trust in me.”
Trump touted Perry’s executive experience bonafides, and Texas’ reputation as an important energy-producing state to back up his decision.
“As the governor of Texas, Rick Perry created a business climate that produced millions of new jobs and lower energy prices in his state, and he will bring that same approach to our entire country as secretary of energy,” the president-elect said in a statement.
Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history, and a two-time candidate for president, comes to the Department of Energy after previously vowing to eliminate the department altogether.
During his first presidential campaign in 2011, Perry had a major “oops” moment in his first Republican primary debate when he couldn’t remember the name of the final Cabinet-level department he planned on cutting.
Later in the evening, Perry recalled the third. “It was the Department of Energy that I was reaching for before,” Perry said.
Perry sits on the board of the Texas-based company, Energy Transfer Partners, a subsidiary of which is responsible for the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.
Trump is a proponent of completing the pipeline, despite protesters fears’ the route could compromise the water resources and cultural sites of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
Trump alluded to his and Perry’s shared views on extracting natural resources.
“My administration is going to make sure we take advantage of our huge natural resource deposits to make America energy independent and create vast new wealth for our nation,” Trump said, “and Rick Perry is going to do an amazing job as the leader of that process.”
Perry, like his new boss, is also skeptical that human behavior affects climate change. Instead, Perry worries emissions regulations could handicap the economy.
When defending the Keystone XL oil pipeline in 2014, Perry said “I don’t believe that we have the settled science by any sense of the imagination to stop that kind of economic opportunity,” adding, “I’m not a scientist.”