WASHINGTON (AP) – Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who famously forgot the Energy Department was one of the agencies he pledged to eliminate, is President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to become energy secretary, two people with knowledge of the decision say.
Perry is likely to shift the department away from renewable energy and toward oil and other fossil fuels that he championed as Texas governor.
Perry, 66, left office in January 2015 after a record 14 years as governor and then launched his second ill-fated bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
He was a harsh critic of Trump, even calling the billionaire businessman a “cancer to conservatism,” but Perry lasted only three months in the race for the 2016 nomination before dropping out.
Perry later endorsed the Republican nominee and said he’d be willing to work in a Trump administration.