President-elect Donald Trump has added another name to his cabinet: former Texas Governor Rick Perry will head the U.S. Department of Energy. The announcement has drawn mixed responses. The oil and gas industry, on the one hand, welcomed the fossil fuel industry-friendly climate change skeptic, and immediately requested that he support increases in natural gas exports. On the other hand, environmentalists and others concerned with accelerating global warming found the choice worrisome, to say the least. A few years ago, Perry proposed abolishing the department altogether, although he also forgot its name once during a debate in a notorious gaffe.
The nomination is the latest addition of an oil industry-friendly climate change skeptic to the cabinet, following the selection of Exxon Mobil Corp’s CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a major opponent of climate change mitigation efforts, as head of the EPA.
Besides managing energy-related research and domestic energy production, the US Department of Energy is in charge of the country’s nuclear weapons program, nuclear energy production, and nuclear waste disposal—making Perry’s suggestion to eliminate the department all the more baffling. The United States possesses one of the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world, as well as the largest stockpile of radioactive waste. The Department of Energy also directs research into genomics.
For more on the new U.S. government-in-formation, follow these links:
4 Comments
Department of Energy*
*(Oil & Gas)
As far as I remember the US has more nuclear weapons than any other country. It has indeed more warheads than all other countries taken together. It's also the only country that ever used nuclear bombs against humans.
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This article is not about nuclear warheads, and your assertion that the united States has more warheads than anyone else is probably not accurate
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
Its not the number of nuclear warheads that counts - its how to quickly deliver them before the other side can respond -
Russia has the upper hand on that one with TOPOL and SATAN2 for which there is no defense
http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/26/europe/russia-nuclear-missile-satan-2/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-2PM2_Topol-M
IOW Russia has first strike capability
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