Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, said in a presidential debate that he wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy. That must have been his primary qualification to be named Secretary of the Department. The oil and gas industry will be well protected by Perry. Consumers? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/trump-taps-former-texas-gov-rick-perry-to-head-energy-department-he-once-vowed-to-abolish/The environment? Forget about it, as we say in Brooklyn.
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What about T Rex .
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T Rex? T Rex with more brain power than Rick Perry. Absolutely and the beauty of Perry’s empty head is that it stands for nothing and goes along with everything. Even a T Rex had more character than that.
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And who would have run Hillary’s energy department? Certainly not oil and gas industry insiders! Oh nos!
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Hillary does not claim that climate change is a hoax. She would have been better than this current nightmare. Trump and his gang may kill off legal abortions once his right wing justices are in place. None of that would have happened with Hillary. But please continue beating the rotting stinking corpse of the dead horse into a fine puree.
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Forget the Paris accords as we eliminate any pretence of concern for the planet what will other nations do.
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pretense
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One never knows, but probably not. Energy Secretaries have generally (perhaps, until Trump, exclusively) been academics (Obama’s two picks have been nuclear physicists) or regulators.
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When Bush Sr. was President, the Secretary of Energy was an admiral.
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The Navy is deeply involved in nuclear energy development. One of those things I will forget and re-learn and forget etc. for the rest of my life.
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Diane,
One needs to be careful in judging others.
Here are the qualifications of this admiral. This admiral was highly qualified for the job.
Admiral James Watkins
Born: March 7, 1927, Alhambra, California
Deceased: July 26, 2012
Nominated: January 20, 1989
Confirmed: March 1, 1989
Term of Office: March 1, 1989-January 20, 1993
President: George Bush
B.S., United States Naval Academy. Graduate, reactor engineering course, Oak Ridge National Laboratory. M.S., Naval Postgraduate School, 1958. Chief of Naval Operations, 1982-86. Chairman, Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic, 1987-88.
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Raj,
I did not criticize Admiral Watkins. I worked with him when I was in the George H.W. administration and found him to be a very able and smart man. I was responding to a comment that in the past the secretaries of energy were academic researchers.
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Of course the saving grace, based on his “debate” performance, is that he will forget that the Department of Energy is one of the departments he wants to eliminate.
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Oops.
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About 10 years ago I was taking a class for my Superintendent’s certification. The professor happened to be Little Ricky’s high school principal. He made the comment that “little Ricky was not the brightest bulb in the box”…..I haven’t forgotten it and he has lived up to it ever since then.
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Private sector companies that are public utilities have public controls that make sure the prices for energy to our homes and businesses are affordable.
What will happen if those publicly controlled prices/costs are gone and prices for electricity soar until too many of us have no choice but to live without them and return to burning a bucket of coal in a cast iron stove to heat one room so we won’t freeze in the winter?
What happens if we can’t afford that bucket of coal and there are no more trees to chop down?
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You can come out to my place LLoyd, for some wood. Got plenty of trees. And even more acorns this year, crunch, crunch, crunch as I walk outside.
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Wouldn’t it be nice to disconnect from the grid?
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Oh, I do when I go camping, canoeing, fishing. Take no device as I don’t have one.
But I do like internet access when I choose to use it which is usually everyday but certainly not 24/7. Like reading the old fashioned way with a paper book.
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It’s moments like this when I truly miss Some DAM Poet. How much more absurd can this so-called “transition” get. At least Some DAM Poet could give us a laugh.
“Transition”? Imagine a garbage truck falling off the Empire State Building. I wouldn’t call THAT a transition! Neither is this take-over by our modern day Know Nothing Trump.
Like a meme on Facebook put it, how about El Chapo for head of the Drug Enforcement Agency??
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John,
That was a joke by Andy Borowitz of the New Yorker
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The late Nobel-prizewinning economist Milton Friedman, advocated for the abolishment of the US Department of Energy (and transferring its national-defense tasks to the Defense Department). I find myself in concurrence. There is really no need for a federal department of energy. Ronald Reagan also advocated the DOE’s elimination.
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