President Donald Trump plans to nominate the Washington-savvy Dan Brouillette, a longtime lobbyist who has also worked at the Energy Department and on Capitol Hill, as deputy secretary of energy, a source familiar with the new administration’s thinking said Thursday.
Brouillette, now a senior vice president at the United Services Automobile Association, has spent the past decade with that San Antonio, Texas-based financial-services giant.
In his government years during the George W. Bush administration, Brouillette focused heavily on Congress. From 2001 to 2003, he was DOE’s assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs. He left DOE in 2003 to become staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over DOE. Brouillette’s time on the Hill lasted just a year, and he has been in industry ever since.
Brouillette was handpicked by Energy Secretary-designate Rick Perry, according to the source who discussed Brouillette’s impending nomination. If he is indeed nominated by Trump, Brouillette will also need to be confirmed by the Senate.
Perry himself has not been confirmed, though the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a confirmation vote for Tuesday.
Following his confirmation hearing on Jan. 19, Perry scheduled for a vote in committee this week; the vote was postponed because panel Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) “had some follow-up questions” for Perry, a Senate aide said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, longtime Perry confidant Dan Wilmot, also a seasoned Washington hand who worked in the George W. Bush administration, is said to be in line to become Perry’s deputy chief of staff at DOE.
When Perry was governor of Texas, Wilmot was his pointman in Washington. He precedes his once-and-possibly-future boss to Trump’s DOE, where he is reportedly roaming the agency’s halls already as part of the so-called beachhead team that arrived on Inauguration Day to smooth the way for Perry and other senior Trump administration officials.
Neither Brouillette nor Wilmot could be reached for comment this week.
