President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will nominate former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Energy Department.
Perry, who served 14 years as governor of Texas, famously suggested eliminating DOE during his 2012 presidential bid, 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.
“As the former governor of the nation’s largest energy producing state, I know American energy is critical to our economy and our security,” Perry said in a statement Wednesday. “I look forward to engaging in a conversation about the development, stewardship and regulation of our energy resources, safeguarding our nuclear arsenal, and promoting an American energy policy that creates jobs and puts America first.”
Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller was asked Tuesday during the team’s daily news briefing if the president-elect is comfortable with eliminating the Energy Department.
“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,” Miller said in response. “There have been a number of things that the president-elect has put down markers on, both for day one activities and also for the first 100 days that we’ve seen the president-elect already dive into. He’s going to find ways to save taxpayers money right out of the gate from the get-go with whoever’s calling out bad contracts or bad deals and finding ways to better negotiate on behalf of American taxpayers, so stay tuned for overall government reform plans and also the president elect’s announcement on this position.”
Perry in 2014 voiced support for finding an in-state location to store Texas’ spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste. Private company Waste Control Specialists (WCS) is now pursuing a Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to operate a consolidated interim storage facility in West Texas for spent fuel. The 40,000-metric-ton-capacity interim storage facility could fall under DOE’s consent-based siting process, the Obama administration’s replacement for the canceled Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada.
According to the L.A. Times, late WCS owner and Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons was one of the top contributors to Perry’s 2012 presidential bid, and the former governor’s ties to WCS date back much further. Perry in 2003 signed a controversial law that allowed WCS to convert a state-run, low-level nuclear waste facility into a private venture. The $500 million facility was ultimately approved by Perry-appointed state regulators, according to the Times, despite objections from Texas environmental agency staff.
Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who chairs the House Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, and Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) have both expressed a preference that the federal government pursue both Yucca Mountain licensing and DOE’s consent-based siting effort.
The Trump transition team in Wednesday’s announcement cited Perry’s successes in leading one of the country’s largest states and one of the largest economies in the world, calling him “one of the most successful governors in modern history.” The team cited the state’s sustained period of economic growth and prosperity by developing the state’s energy resources and infrastructure, allowing access to low-cost energy.
“My administration is going to make sure we take advantage of our huge natural resource deposits to make America energy independent and create vast new wealth for our nation, and Rick Perry is going to do an amazing job as the leader of that process,” Trump said in a statement.
Trump Transition Team Wants Specifics on Yucca Mountain
The Trump transition team is asking the Department of Energy for specifics on the potential for restarting the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site licensing process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to transition documents obtained by several media outlets.
In a questionnaire to the department, the transition team asked if there are any statutory restrictions to restarting the Nevada project, and if DOE has a plan to resume Yucca Mountain licensing proceedings.
Sources close to the transition team have said Trump’s still-developing administration is exploring a restart for Yucca Mountain, which the Obama administration canceled in 2010. A source familiar with the transition team said Monday that veteran Capitol Hill staffer Bill Greene has been added to the DOE transition. He served as Yucca Mountain director of communications for DOE from May 2005 to February 2007, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The current administration favors an approach that focuses on interim nuclear waste storage leading up to development of a long-term permanent repository. The department remains opposed to Yucca Mountain, describing the site as “unworkable” in briefing documents to Trump’s transition team. DOE has repeatedly used that term to describe the project, given that the agency does not hold the proper land and water rights to proceed.
The questionnaire also asks how DOE can help prevent premature closure of nuclear power plants, and how the department can support the continued operation of existing reactors as part of the nation’s infrastructure.
The Trump transition team has since separated itself from the questionnaire, saying it’s not an official document. “The questionnaire was not authorized or part of our standard protocol. The person who sent it has been properly counseled,” a Trump transition team member told CNN this week.
