Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Who Knew? Not Rick Perry

When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing — that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

  NYT
Christ, it was bad enough when I thought he would be in charge of the US energy grid, including nuclear power plants.  I didn't realize he'll be in charge of the weapons, too.
Two-thirds of the agency’s annual $30 billion budget is devoted to maintaining, refurbishing and keeping safe the nation’s nuclear stockpile; thwarting nuclear proliferation; cleaning up and rebuilding an aging constellation of nuclear production facilities; and overseeing national laboratories that are considered the crown jewels of government science.

[...]

The Energy Department was on the list of agencies [Perry] said he wanted to eliminate when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 — though he famously forgot its name during a debate. Despite what he called his “oops” moment, he stood by his call to dismantle the department, saying, “They’ve never created one bit of energy, the best I can tell.”

[...]

Mr. Perry [...] will begin the confirmation process Thursday with a hearing before the Senate Energy Committee.
I hope he can remember whatever he's been cramming now that he knows what the job is.
If approved by the Senate, he will take over from a secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, who was chairman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics department and directed the linear accelerator at M.I.T.’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science. Before Mr. Moniz, the job belonged to Steven Chu, a physicist who won a Nobel Prize.
Rick Perry - exactly the person I'd think of to follow those guys.
Mr. Perry studied animal husbandry and led cheers at Texas A&M University.
He'll be fine.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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