Rick Perry, Secretary for Energy, gave a speech last week in Houston. As reported by the Financial Times, this was the gist of that speech:

Rick Perry, the Trump administration’s energy secretary, several times at the conference referred to the importance of cutting greenhouse gas emissions through technologies including nuclear power, carbon capture and natural gas to replace coal for power generation. He even had some conciliatory words for Ms Ocasio-Cortez and other proponents of the Green New Deal, saying that while he might disagree with their means, he hoped they could agree on some of their goals, including helping China and India curb their emissions.

So he has revealed himself to be absolutely clueless with respect to carbon dioxide, increasing levels of which in the atmosphere are wholly beneficial. He is a useful fool in wanting to help the Marxist plotter Occasional Cortex. And wanting to help China reduce its emissions is Children’s Crusade-level wishful thinking.

Official Portrait of the Secretary of Energy

The reason Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 was because the rest of the field were spineless invertebrates. One of the most spineless was Rick Perry, who was among the first to drop out. The spinelessness continues as evinced by this quote of his from Houston last week:

“I’d rather be agreeable. Life’s too short to be pissed off all the time.”

That explains why you can’t expect the Department of Energy to achieve anything during his tenure. So end his tenure.

The first two years of the Trump administration have been a bit of a lost weekend. Reducing regulation helped a lot with the economy but in other parts of government the Obama administration ethos continues without adult supervision.It is time to pick a new Secretary of Energy.

David Archibald’s latest book is American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare.