Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, announced this week as the nominee to become energy secretary in the Donald Trump administration, would be responsible for a massive program to ensure the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, sparking debate about whether he is qualified for the role – and whether management skill and bureaucratic experience matter more than technical expertise.
“[T]wo things are simultaneously true: that for cabinet secretaries in general (not just DoE), management skills are probably more important than detailed subject-specific knowledge; but also that subject-matter knowledge and experience is a very significant asset. I would certainly prefer a nominee with both attributes,” James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Thursday by email.
“If I were prepping senators for a confirmation hearing, I would ask the nominee about his/her opinion on why NNSA has had such big problems, even by government standards, with cost overruns in numerous areas (including on warhead life extension),” Acton said. “I would also ask for a plan to make headway on solving these problems.”
Perry, who served 14 years as governor of Texas, famously suggested during his 2012 presidential bid that he would eliminate the Department of Energy if elected, only to blank on the agency’s name during a nationally televised debate. Perry also ran for president in 2016, calling Trump a “cancer on conservatism,” before exiting the race and ultimately endorsing the eventual victor.
Trump transition team spokesman Jason Miller was asked during a telephone news briefing Tuesday if the president-elect is comfortable with eliminating the Energy Department. He did not offer a conclusive response, saying, “There will be a number of different reforms and things that we look at as we move into the first of the year, primarily the focus being jobs right out of the gate.”
Perry would oversee an agency with a roughly $30 billion annual budget, much of which ($12.5 billion in fiscal 2016) is directed to nuclear weapons, nonproliferation, and other operations conducted by the NNSA, a semiautonomous branch of DOE. One of the agency’s sites, the Pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly plant, is located near Amarillo, Tex.
If approved by the Senate, Perry would follow two scientists as energy secretary. But DOE chiefs have come from diverse backgrounds, from Republican Party operative and senator Spencer Abraham during the George W. Bush administration to former Denver mayor and transportation secretary Federico Pena during the Clinton administration.
“Frankly, I disagreed with the decision to make academic scientists energy secretaries,” 2016 Perry campaign adviser Avik Roy told Politico. “When it comes to the energy economy … it makes a lot of sense to have somebody who has been in that public policy role and understands the tradeoffs of different policies.”
Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst for defense and strategic issues at The Heritage Foundation, said by email, “I tend to agree with my colleagues that the knowledge of the bureaucracy is somewhat more important than knowledge of intricacies of nuclear weapons policy.”
“An understanding of the importance that nuclear weapons have in our and allied security seems to be the foundational attribute for the Secretary, as well as the NNSA Administrator,” Dodge said. “I think both need to have a good working relationship and the NNSA Administrator should know more about nuclear weapons than a Secretary might.”
A retired Navy admiral who served in the Department of Homeland Security is under consideration to lead the NNSA, according to a source familiar with — but not involved in — the transition.
The rumored nominee is Rear Adm. Jay Cohen: the former undersecretary for science and technology at Homeland Security and a nuclear navy veteran. The Desert Storm vet was a senior member of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Examining Board and as the service’s top congressional liaison. He retired from the Navy in 2006 and spent three years at Homeland Security.
Like Cabinet-level posts, the Senate must confirm any presidential nominee for NNSA administrator.
The NNSA complex consists of three nuclear-weapon design laboratories, four component and material production facilities, one high-hazard experiments site, and agency field offices scattered across the United States. Their work – in addition to weapons component design – includes programs to extend the life of aging weapons components, construction projects to mitigate the dangers of aging infrastructure, uranium and tritium manufacturing, and basic science research.
Each site is managed and operated by contractors, sometimes in a team. These include AECOM, BWX Technologies, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, and Northrop Grumman. More than 1,500 federal employees and 35,000 contractor employees work across the complex.
Perry will be responsible for overseeing NNSA initiatives, many of which remain the subject of ongoing debate. One of the most visible is the fate of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project in South Carolina, which Congress is pushing to fund while the Obama administration tries to terminate it for an alternative plutonium disposal method. Others include considerations on the fate of the stockpile stewardship program, which certifies the reliability of the U.S. stockpile without nuclear testing.
Perry will also be in charge of the “3+2” warhead modernization strategy, which will ultimately consolidate the seven existing deployed warhead types into three. He will be faced with decisions on infrastructure upgrades across the NNSA complex and solutions to reverse the $3.7 billion backlog of deferred maintenance.
“Much of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the facilities necessary to make and maintain it have outlasted their expected lifetimes. Deferred maintenance can no longer be put off and obsolete facilities can no longer operate,” William Tobey, a NNSA deputy administrator during the George W. Bush administration, said in a commentary for PBS. “The Obama administration started this work, promising in 2010 to add $14 billion over 10 years to improve infrastructure. But a sustained commitment is needed.”
Perry will also shape DOE’s relationship with its national laboratories, which some have argued needs to shift toward greater autonomy on the site level. Many of these issues are long term and will inevitably extend through multiple presidential administrations.
His work will ultimately be influenced in large part by the leadership of the national labs. For instance, an industry source noted Thursday that annual assessments of the reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile are completed by the directors of the Los Alamos, Sandia, and Livermore national laboratories, in addition to a military effectiveness assessment conducted by the head of U.S. Strategic Command. These reports are submitted to the president without any alteration by the secretaries of energy and defense, a process the source said is “by design.”
The source also said Trump’s transition team “is engaging with the contractor community and asking intelligent questions.” From an industry perspective, the individual said, “Bottom line is we’re all watching closely but we all have contracts that very clearly specify what we’re to do, and we can’t lose focus on that.”
Directors of DOE’s national labs reportedly met with the Trump transition team this week.
Meanwhile, reactions to the nomination from lawmakers with stakes in the nuclear complex have been mixed, with some questioning Perry’s qualifications to support the work of the NNSA. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said in a Tuesday statement, “President-elect Trump has signaled his blatant hostility to the [DOE] and the workforce at our National Labs by nominating someone who has proposed eliminating this entire agency. I’m not confident that Rick Perry is fully cognizant of the role that DOE plays in keeping our nuclear deterrent safe, secure and reliable. He is utterly unqualified to lead this critical agency.”
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) highlighted in a statement his state’s “crown jewels” of the nuclear security complex, the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, as well as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which “still faces a difficult road to recovery” after closing to nuclear waste shipments following two early 2014 accidents. He said that to build confidence among the public and the Senate, “Governor Perry will need to demonstrate a strong understanding of these complex challenges and lay out a management vision to execute the difficult tasks before the department.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) expressed concern Thursday in a letter to Vice President-Elect Mike Pence about a series of questions Trump’s transition team recently sent to the DOE, asking about various programs. The questions, she said, “indicate a desire to reduce ‘bureaucratic burdens’ associated with exporting commercial nuclear technology. I do not believe DOE is imposing a burden on exporters by trying to prevent terrorists and rogue nations from acquiring nuclear and radiological material.”
Cantwell reaffirmed the “critical” work of the NNSA’s defense nuclear nonproliferation program in international safeguards engagements and global deployment of radiation detection equipment, as well as the work of the DOE’s national labs, and said the new administration “should provide the necessary resources to maintain critical capabilities and facilities of the National Labs.”
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), however, offered a more positive response. In a Wednesday statement, he said “America is fortunate” to have Perry picked to head DOE. “With Governor Perry, I am confident we can accomplish an ‘all of the above’ energy policy— one that includes finishing Yucca Mountain, supporting [the Savannah River Site], completing MOX, building the Keystone Pipeline which produces jobs at Michelin of Lexington, and advancing energy independence,” he said.
