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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - December 13, 2016
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This is the December 13, 2016, edition of a daily email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition team, potential cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
Possible Nominations
As December 13, 2016, Trump had officially announced 11 out of 15 cabinet nominations.
Rick Perry
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) is reported to be Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of energy. Perry has a long history in Texas politics, and energy production has been an important part of his political identity. He served as governor from 2000 to 2015. Before that, he was the lieutenant governor from 1998 to 2000 under Gov. George W. Bush (R). He was the Texas agriculture commissioner from 1990 to 1998 and held a seat in the Texas House of Representatives from 1984 to 1990. Perry sought the Republican nomination for president in 2012 and 2016. Throughout much of the 2016 Republican primary, Perry was critical of Trump, once calling his candidacy “a cancer on conservatism.” But in May 2016, after Trump clinched the nomination, Perry endorsed him.
As the governor of Texas, Perry was in charge of the top energy-producing state in the country, and during his tenure—the longest in the state’s history—oil and gas production in Texas increased 260 percent and 50 percent, respectively. If officially nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate, he will oversee a roughly $30 billion budget and help shape policy related to the production, consumption, research, and security of U.S. energy resources. This includes the country’s nuclear energy resources and weapons arsenal, which consumes more than half of the department’s budget. Perry has been critical of energy policy under the Obama administration, even going so far as to say he would eliminate the Energy Department in a 2012 Republican debate. Here’s where Perry stands on eight key energy issues.
- Nuclear Waste Disposal: Perry criticized the decision of the Obama administration to cut funding for the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, a facility in southwestern Nevada that was designated to store high level radioactive waste (HLW) from around the country. In 2014, Perry suggested that Texas should take care of storing its own nuclear waste and added, “The citizens of Texas — and every other state currently storing radioactive waste — have been betrayed by their federal government after contributing billions of dollars to fund a federal solution to HLW waste, because a federal solution still does not exist.” The issue of Yucca Mountain has been a political football in both Nevada and DC for the past 30 years due to concerns over the project’s cost and impact on the environment and state tourism. The debate over Yucca Mountain re-entered the limelight following news of Nevada Sen. Harry Reid’s (D) decision to retire. Reid has been one of the project’s most vocal opponents. During the 2016 election, Trump did not take a firm stance on the issue, saying in October, “I'm going to take a very strong look at it, and I will come very strongly one way or the other. I will have an opinion.”
- Coal: As governor, Perry encouraged new coal power plants in Texas. In 2005, he streamlined the process for approving coal power plant permits through an executive order. According to The Texas Tribune, Perry has advocated for “clean coal,” an effort focused on utilizing technology to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions from the use of coal. He established a clean coal technology council in 2002 and signed into law a bill that provided tax incentives for clean coal power plants in the state. Perry has echoed Trump’s assertion that the Obama administration has waged a “war on coal.” In 2014, he wrote an open letter to President Obama, saying, “More than 100 coal plants employing 15,000 Americans are closed or closing due to EPA regulations under your administration, and proposed new regulations will directly affect more than 37,000 employees across the nation, in addition to jeopardizing the reliability of our nation's electrical grid and increasing energy costs for families. This, despite your assurance of a renewed emphasis on American economic recovery.”
- Clean Energy: During Perry’s tenure as governor of Texas, the Longhorn State became a leading producer of wind energy. In 2005, Perry signed legislation into law aimed at increasing Texas’ renewable energy capacities, and he supported a project that connected wind-energy projects in West Texas to several of the state’s larger metropolitan areas. In June 2014, Perry noted, “The nation’s leading developer of wind energy is not one of those progressive states on the East Coast or the West Coast. The No. 1 wind energy producing state in the nation is along the Gulf Coast. … our state is friendly to the development of all forms of energy from wind and solar, to clean coal, to natural gas and to nuclear, for that matter.”
- Fracking: Perry has been a supporter of hydraulic fracking, the process of injecting fluid—mostly water and sand (or proppant), but with additional chemicals—into the ground at a high pressure to fracture shale rocks to release the hydrocarbons, including oil and natural gas, inside. In April 2014, Perry criticized the state of New York’s ban on fracking. Referring to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D), he said, “I don’t understand why a governor like Governor Cuomo, who is a smart and thoughtful individual, would allow a small group of radical environmentalists to stop job creation and to stop people’s ability to have a better life for themselves, especially when the science has proven to be safe.” As governor, Perry supported some regulation of fracking. In 2011, he signed a bill into law requiring companies to disclose all chemicals used in the hydraulic fracking process.
- Keystone XL Pipeline: Perry supports the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a proposed oil pipeline system running from northwest Canada to the Gulf Coast of Texas. The pipeline was blocked by the Obama administration due to concerns over the pipeline’s environmental impact. In 2012, Perry wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal in support of the pipeline. He said, “This extensive pipeline holds the potential of moving up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day—including oil produced in North Dakota and Montana—to refineries here in Texas. Translated into job numbers, that's up to 20,000 direct jobs and estimates of up to hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs created by this $7 billion project. Keystone would have provided a shot in the arm for our nation's uncertain economy, and it could have provided economic opportunity for tens of thousands of families, stretching from here in Texas all the way to the Canadian border.”
- Natural Gas Production: In a 2014 speech, Perry called for the federal government to create a plan for producing and exporting natural gas, which he called, “one of the single most important actions we can take to protect national security.” In the speech, Perry stressed the importance of U.S. energy independence, and, citing “aggression” from Russia, said that the U.S. should “build an energy shield to protect our allies.”
- Climate Change: Perry has stated that the science on climate change is “not settled” and that it is “all one contrived phony mess that is falling apart under its own weight.” In 2011, he stated, “The idea that we would put Americans’ economy at jeopardy based on scientific theory that’s not settled yet to me is just nonsense. Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said here is the fact. Galileo got outvoted for a spell.”
- Iran Nuclear Deal: The current secretary of energy, Ernest Moniz, was heavily involved with both the negotiations and promotion of the Iran Nuclear Deal. Perry could also become involved with the deal’s future, though his stance on the deal has been quite different from Moniz’s. In July 2015, Perry stated, “President Obama's decision to sign a nuclear deal with Iran is one of the most destructive foreign policy decisions in my lifetime. For decades to come, the world will have to deal with the repercussions of this agreement, which will actually make it easier for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. … This deal is not a binding international treaty, but rather a political agreement among diplomats. I urge Congress to take the next 60 days of review very seriously. I will do everything in my power to work with the Senate to oppose this deal, including reaching out to Democratic senators.”
Nominations and Appointments
Rex Tillerson
Trump officially announced his decision to nominate ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. We wrote about Tillerson on December 12 and Trump’s larger search for an individual to run the State Department on December 6.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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