Trump Chooses Rick Perry for Energy Secretary
Perry served as Texas governor from 2000 to 2015.
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former Texas Governor Rick Perry as his Secretary of Energy.
Perry served as agriculture commissioner in Texas before he became governor in 2000. His term ended in 2015. He ran for president in 2012 and 2016.
Texas is filled with natural resources, but as The New York Times points out, there is more than that to the Department of Energy:
While Texas is rich in energy resources and Mr. Perry is an enthusiastic advocate of extracting them, it is not clear how that experience would translate into leading what is also a major national security agency. Despite its name, the Department of Energy plays the leading role in designing nuclear weapons and in ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal through a constellation of scientific laboratories.
About 60 percent of the Energy Department’s budget is devoted to managing the National Nuclear Security Administration, which defines its mission as enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science.
The administration manages the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile and runs American programs on nuclear nonproliferation and counterterrorism. The two men who served as President Obama’s energy secretaries were physicists, one with a Nobel Prize, the other a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ironically, Perry said he would have chosen to eliminate this department if he became president. During a debate, he forgot the name of it, making it an oops moment, and ending his 2012 ambition:
He faced ridicule in 2011 after forgetting, during a debate, that the Energy Department was one of three federal agencies he promised to eliminate were he elected president. Mr. Perry listed the Education and Commerce departments, before drawing a blank on Energy and saying, “Oops.”
A few minutes later Mr. Perry belatedly added, “By the way, that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago,” but the moment effectively ended his campaign.
He recently competed on Dancing With The Stars, too. Our very own Kemberlee had a great time watching him compete!
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Comments
Keep the part that safeguards our nukes.
Keep the part that builds nuclear reactors – the ultimate clean renewable energy source.
Dismantle the rest…fire 10,000 do-nothings.
Build Molten Salt Liquid Thorium reactors with their walk away safe technology to destroy nuclear waste. Put them on US government and DOD bases where the Atomic Energy Agency cannot meddle.
Thorium Energy in 4 Minutes
Thorium power would exceed all other forms of energy used by man today, that includes, nuclear, wind, solar, oil, gas, coal, bio, geothermal combined!
This is a video on YouTube.
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/12/13/cbs-perry-gets-energy-post/
Why?
Just leave it vacant, and zero out its budget.
This is a pure patronage appointment…more swamping the drain.
Give it a break!
Again, give EXACTLY what a “break”? Critical thought?
Won’t happen. I’ll leave that to you.
Rags did you notice that Trump won again yesterday after the Wisc. Vote recount?
I would think you would be jumping for joy with Perry. He was kinda one of those ineffective political types that you are so fond of.
I agree with you here that Perry might clog the swamp drain, but I have to say I like most of his picks so far.
Like it or not, Trump is changing things for the better. Can’t be any worst that it is now. There is drain cleaner for guys like Perry, too.
Check out this article on the questions being asked of the DOE staff.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/12/10/the-doe-vs-ugly-reality/
Even a company that is being dissolved has to go through an orderly shut down. If they left it up to the people who are there, nothing will be done or it will be done badly.
If that’s the goal, there are experts in the management of shut-downs…usually appointed receivers in the private sector. They have a clear mandate to do one thing.
Rick Perry is not one.
Perry doesn’t have to be the expert in receivership, but he will be the overall manager of the department and hire people to do specific jobs.
I don’t know everything that the DOE is responsible for, but based on the survey questions there are some functions which are based on statues which I would imagine needs to be disbanded by Congress. Mere shutting off of funds will not shut down the authorization of the department. Another administration could just turn the spigot back on. Make it harder for them by forcing the legal reestablishment of the department.
So, let’s go after the easy stuff which can be properly managed & shut down by people who have expertise in shutting down a company.
What remains may still be the job of a federal government, but it can still be streamlined.
You missed the point, Liz.
All we know about organizational behavior tells us that Perry will just nipple up, perhaps after a brief flurry of reforms, and become the chief protector of the agency.
Show me some examples where that’s wrong, and I’ll show you ten where it’s right.
Bless ya heart – you know some oilfield terms. “Nipple up” is just the process of assembling well-control equipment to the wellhead. No big deal. I’m sure that Perry will leave the job to the roughnecks.
But,Perry does has balls (not nipples)- don’t y’all remember when he vetoed funding for that drunken attorney. Yeh, the county DA did get the indictment, but the court overruled because Texas governors can line-item veto budgets.
I’m not aware of other things that Perry has done since I am a bit north of Texas, but I can assure you that there are plenty of managers who have to make tough decisions about departments, staffing, costs for the benefit of the organization.
As a budget manager, I had to help department managers make those decisions of cutting people. As an accounting manager, I had to make sure those severance checks were cut and that those people who lost jobs were helped as well as helping those who survived and had to pick up the slack. It is hard. It is really hard when you know those people and have to talk with them, knowing that you are cutting their severance checks but you can’t say anything. Did you ever do that?
I had to make those hard decisions myself, but I also knew why and who my boss was. You really think that someone would take a job in the Trump administration, be told what the action plan is and then just refuse to do what is needed? I think that person would be fired and someone else would be found to do the job.
You are the one who is missing the point.
And I have to wonder if you are that EEOC attorney who tried to tell me I had to disregard a DOJ grant requirement concerning hiring a female Native American drug counselor. Amazing, one branch of the government (DOJ)says I have to hire THAT type of person and another branch (EEOC)says I cannot limit the job ad to those requirements. And we all have to wonder why the government does not work for the American citizens?
You’ve been wrong about everything else about Trump; why wold this be different.
Perfect score.
Just wait, SDN, raggsy will be telling us he “told us so” very soon. I know this because he says this.
Lotta hate for the Rickster here.
Willis Eschenback over at WUWT has written a great analysis of that “memo” that the transition team sent the DoE. It sure sounds like Perry is going to clean house with a lawnmower. The DOE vs. Ugly Reality
Oh sorry, Liz, I missed that you already posted the link. Doh!
No problem – I’m posting the link to a bunch of places because it is a great insight to the transition. So keep spreading it! Willis has a new blog that has some interesting essays posted, including one on the SoS nominee.
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/
I wish we could see the questions being asked of other departments.
Sweet gig for Perry, after being a state governor. Basically answer the red phone and delegate. Good for him. I always felt an affinity for Perry.
I fear that Trump’s jusdgement has been exposed by hiring the Texas A&M Yell Leader who barely got through four years and never realized his dream to be a veterinarian.
He is either a very stupid man or he didn’t give a damn about learning anything in college. Here is his famous grades transcript.
TAMU can be a very different place to people who know shit-all about it.
And it can be a very different place for different kinds of students. Being a full-tilt rah-rah Aggie is a VERY demanding role, and the Corp Of Cadets knows this so well, they have a very organized support mechanism for their members. But it can still take a heavy toll on grades.
Just FYI, getting into vet school is HARDER (i.e., more demanding) than getting into medical school. A “C” in a class is a failing grade for pre-vet people, and getting in on your first application is rare. It’s just a matter of supply and demand. Look up how many vet schools there are in the US.
Perry is WAY smarter than your average GOP candidate, and has a vocabulary that is some multiple of the Great God Cheeto’s.
“He is either a very stupid man or he didn’t give a damn about learning anything in college. Here is his famous grades transcript.”
While he certainly didn’t have an “honors” career at TAM, the course of study undertaken, per the transcript, indicates a man of reasonable intelligence that may or may not have been trying very hard.
Only someone very stupid could find Perry to be “stupid” based upon that transcript.