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Trump picks former Texas governor Rick Perry as energy secretary

Xinhua, December 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will pick former Texas governor Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy.

"As the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry created a business climate that produced millions of new jobs and lower energy prices in his state, and he will bring that same approach to our entire country as Secretary of Energy," Trump said in a statement.

Perry, 66, served as governor of Texas from 2000 to January 2015, the longest serving governor in the history of the state.

Perry ran twice unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for president in 2012 and 2016.

Since Perry has repeatedly questioned scientific findings that human activity is warming our planet, his nomination has drawn criticism from some environmentalists.

"Yet again, Trump has chosen an unqualified individual who is at war with the central mission of the agency he is being nominated to lead," Rhea Suh, president of the U.S. Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental organization, said in a statement.

"By nominating Perry, President-elect Trump is continuing to pack his cabinet with allies of big polluters who put profits over people ... We oppose Perry and this entire special interest take-over of the American government," Suh said.

Besides, U.S. media reported last week that Trump will choose Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic, to head the country's Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition, there were several reports that the Trump transition team sent a request seeking names of people within the Energy Department who work on climate and clean energy.

The Washington D.C.-based World Resources Institute (WRI) slammed the request from the Trump transition team as "alarming."

"Recent signals about the Trump administration's energy agenda suggest a return to an earlier era and outdated energy model," Jennifer Layke, global director of WRI's Energy Program, said in a statement.

"This would undermine hundreds of small businesses and thousands of workers who are working in the clean energy sector. It would stand in conflict with the country's shift to a low-carbon, climate-resilient economy," she said. Endi