Answer: A climate-change skeptic and former Texas governor, ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 promising to dismantle the federal energy agency. The DOE is already resisting a Trump request to furnish lists of staffers working on climate issues, though his transition team has since backed away from the demand.
Explanation: It’s a reminder that the legions of U.S. federal workers are themselves a force in policy. Conspiracy-minded Americans worry about a powerful “deep state” that steers government activity regardless of who’s in elected office.
Until Trump picked him on Wednesday, Perry was best known for a 2011 debate gaffe in which he blanked on one of the federal departments he’d like to abolish. He could only name two of three, but later clarified that the other was the $30 billion Energy Department. That makes Perry the most ironic of Trump’s several fox-in-the-henhouse appointments. Last week Trump named Scott Pruitt, also a climate-change unbeliever, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The cabinet provides figureheads, but the new administration will need government employees to carry out its bidding. It’s too early to tell whether the DOE’s early resistance is a prelude to a broader bureaucratic revolt, but it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. Much of the agency’s budget is dedicated to national-security matters, including testing and securing America’s nuclear weapons.
