When Trump’s Energy Secretary Was Governor, Texas Led the US in Carbon Emissions

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former governor of Texas and unsuccessful presidential hopeful Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy.

This is particularly surprising because Perry, in his 2012 bid for president, wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy altogether. Or, at least, we think he did. At one point he famously couldn't even remember the department he had previously vowed to scrap, in this cringe-tastic moment during a republican debate:

Oops.

But while the gaffe was embarrassing, we've all had brain farts before. More concerning to environmentalists should be Perry's track record when it comes to energy and pollution. Under Perry's governorship, Texas led the nation in carbon dioxide emissions, pumping out almost as much CO2 in 2005 as the entire country of Canada . Let that sink in. And though Texas is home to a lot of the nation's oil refineries, a third of those emissions came from transportation.

Yet Perry boasted about the state's ability to clean up its air without the "overreaching" EPA's influence, using figures that were misleading and cherry-picked. In reality, though Texas did make progress, it still significantly outpaces the rest of the country in its CO2 emissions.

"The cabinet choices become more absurd every day," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, in a press release. "By nominating Perry, President-elect Trump is continuing to pack his cabinet with allies of big polluters who put profits over people. The American people didn't vote to return to the dirty old days when smog choked our cities. And we didn't vote to turn a blind eye to the dangers of climate change."

Perry also joins Trump's ever growing list of climate change deniers in leadership positions. He's claimed the "science is not settled," and that putting caps on CO2 emissions would "do a disservice to the country."

As head of the Department of Energy, Perry will have influence over everything from energy regulations, to research funding, to the country's nuclear weapon program. As the New York Times pointed out, "While Texas is rich in energy resources and Mr. Perry is an enthusiastic advocate of extracting them, it is not clear how that experience would translate into leading what is also a major national security agency."

The pick does, however, fit in with Trump's overall ethos of backing out of important climate change-fighting efforts, like the Paris agreement. With his history of prioritizing energy business over the environment, and a very relaxed view on climate change, Perry would likely back Trump whole-heartedly in any efforts that eases regulations and ignored climate change. So maybe he's not such an unexpected pick after all.