Failed Dancing with the Stars contestant Rick Perry has been tapped by Trump to lead a department...we forget which one though… Sorry. Oops. For a refresher on the man who will replace nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz (who replaced Nobel laureate Steven Chu) see this 2011 politico piece, Is Rick Perry Dumb?
While we reconcile that with the fact that that the Department of Energy oversees the nation’s nuclear arms, it’s reassuring to hear that the DoE has refused to provide the requested list of names of employees working on climate. Meanwhile, the effort to backup government climate data is moving ahead too, so while the incoming administration may want to send our climate knowledge down the memory hole, we’ll have other copies.
Perhaps more alarming than the coming conflicts between staffers and the admin, always something of a thrust and Perry in normal circumstances, is the pick of State to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state. Though some point to the fact that he came recommended by the respectable trio of Baker, Rice and Gates, their support little...shall? Turns out Baker’s law firm has represented both Exxon and Rosneft, the Russian company partnered with Exxon, and Rice and Gates’s consultancy counts ExxonMobil among their clients.
Regardless of who told Trump to pick Tillerson, a man described as having “more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American with the exception of Henry Kissinger,” we should be worried. Tillerson has spent his entire career at ExxonMobil, a company with a long history of anti-climate lobbying, among other unsavory endeavors. As detailed in Steve Coll’s Private Empire and summarized by Coll recently, “ExxonMobil saw itself as an independent, transnational corporate sovereign in the world, a power independent of the American government, one devoted firmly to shareholder interests and possessed of its own foreign policy.”
This should make for an interesting confirmation, as senators hear about Tillerson’s close ties with Russia, the many other potential conflicts of interest, and of course, the #ExxonKnew investigations.
If you’re just now interested in what #ExxonKnew, David Halperin has a handy primer and ICN has a new look at Exxon’s Canadian tar sands exploits. And the latest update on the legal front is that MA AG Healy convinced the Texas judge to reconsider forcing her to show up for a deposition, news heralded by Senator Warren.
Between Scott “unprecedented, secretive alliance” Pruitt at EPA, Rex “I might actually be a Captain Planet villain” Tillerson at State, and Rick “Board member of the company that owns DAPL” Perry at DoE, it seems Trump’s picks might turn out to be more strategic than he’s gotten credit for.
Because if everyone is focused on the many conflicts of interests among Trump’s cabinet, maybe they’ll forget about his.
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