Perry confirmed as energy secretary
WASHINGTON — Former Texas governor Rick Perry won confirmation Thursday as President Trump’s energy secretary. Now comes the hard part.
The Senate voted 62-37 Thursday afternoon to confirm Perry as energy secretary, brushing aside his onetime vow to abolish the department. New Mexico’s Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall split on the vote, with Heinrich in opposition and Udall in support.
The genial Republican drew less fire from Democrats during his confirmation process than other Trump nominees, but Perry faces many of the same tough issues over regulations, the department’s activities to slow climate change, and potentially deep cuts in manpower and spending.
As governor, Perry presided over a boom in energy production, including wind power and shale drilling. Many of his supporters cited that record as evidence that he could help a similarly wide variety of energy interests.
But Perry’s foes criticized his tepid acknowledgment of climate change, his strong ties to his state’s oil and gas industry, and his lack of experience with the department’s main budgetary area: the maintenance of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. And they wonder whether he will be able to protect the department’s national laboratories and other scientific research against those who would slash the budget.
It is something of a surprise landing for Perry, who ran for president in 2012 and 2016 with dismal results. During a presidential debate in 2011, he famously forgot the name of the department he will now head, one of three he had pledged to eliminate.
“Perry would join the ranks of other unqualified candidates chosen by this president to lead critically important agencies with very specific and complex functions,” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said just before the vote.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, replied that Perry, as governor, “created an environment where all energy producers could not just succeed but really prosper.” He said he hoped Perry would rely on “these same principles.”
The Energy Department is a basket of different activities. Most of its budget goes to maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up an old weapons site in Hanford, Wash. It runs the national laboratories, sets appliance standards, hands out loans and grants for basic research and early-stage energy technologies, from carbon capture and storage to battery technology.
Renewable-energy supporters expressed hope.
So, too, did the nation’s appliance makers, whose products are regulated for energy efficiency by the Energy Department. Stephen Yurek, president of the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, said, “It is important that the secretary ensure that the regulatory process, now 40 years old and in need of significant reform, operates fairly and consistently for all stakeholders.”
But May Boeve, executive director of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement that “Trump just added one more unqualified fossil fuel shill and climate-denier to his cabinet.”
Friends of the Earth senior strategic adviser Damon Moglen said, “Over the course of his career, Rick Perry has taken millions of dollars from the oil, gas and nuclear industries while pushing their dirty energy agenda.
“Unlike the preeminent physicists who ran the department for the last eight years, Perry lacks the knowledge and experience to run the DOE,” he added, calling the idea that Perry would be able to clean up the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities an “absurdity.”