Energy’s Perry having blast running agency he vowed to kill
WASHINGTON — Rick Perry twice ran for president and appeared as a contestant on “Dancing with the Stars.”
But since becoming President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Perry has kept a low profile and rarely has been seen publicly around Washington. Comedian Hasan Minhaj joked at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that Perry must be “sitting in a room full of plutonium waiting to become Spider-Man. That’s just my hunch.”
In truth, Perry has been busy — but far away from the capital.
He has toured Energy Department sites around the country, represented the Trump administration at meeting in Italy and pledged to investigate a tunnel collapse at a radioactive waste storage site in Washington state.
Perry has visited a shuttered nuclear waste dump at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain and cautiously began a yearslong process to revive it.
On Thursday, Perry embarked on a nine-day trip to Asia, where he planned to check on the progress made since a 2011 nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help decontaminate and decommission damaged nuclear reactors. Perry also was to represent the United States at a clean energy meeting in Beijing.
The former Texas governor says he’s having the time of his life running an agency he once pledged to eliminate. Perry has emerged as a strong defender of the department’s work, especially the 17 national labs that conduct cutting-edge research on everything from national security to renewable energy.
“I’m telling you officially the coolest job I’ve ever had is being secretary of energy … and it’s because of these labs,” the 67-year-old Perry told an audience last month at Idaho National Laboratory, one of several he has visited since taking office in March.
“If you work at a national lab … you are making a difference,” Perry said.
The energy chief soon will have a chance to back up those words when he and other officials head to Capitol Hill to defend a budget proposal that slashes funding for science, renewables and energy efficiency.
Perry probably will be asked to defend Trump’s decision to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate accord. Perry said Thursday that the U.S. remains committed to clean energy and is confident officials can “drive economic growth and protect the environment at the same time.”
The administration has called for cutting the Office of Science, which includes 10 national labs, by 17 percent. The proposed budget would reduce spending for renewable and nuclear energy, eliminate the popular Energy Star program to enhance efficiency and gut an agency that promotes research and development of advanced energy technologies.