As of yet, President Trump hasn’t de-funded the DoE and shut down badly needed sustainable energy programs. His appointee Rick Perry is making the rounds, and appears to be interested in creating connections with level headed backers of green technology.
Many of the future programs that the DOE will offer come down to the new federal budget, so we are still very much in the dark when it comes to knowing how this situation will unfold. But so far, what Trump did to the EPA hasn’t happened to the DOE.
Rick Perry has taken some high level meetings, though the content of the conversations are private. He met with Bill Gates recently, and given Mr. Gates’s recent push into wind power we can assume that it was mentioned.
A new offshore wind project in North Carolina was approved recently, and a recent dinner with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would suggest that Mr. Perry is at least aware of the development.
Mr. Zinke had this to say about the new wind farm, “The success of this lease sale reflects the continued interest of coastal communities to develop their offshore energy resources…Renewable energy, like offshore wind, is one tool in the all of the above energy toolbox that will help power America with domestic energy, securing energy independence, and bolstering the economy.”
As time goes on we will see how Mr. Perry really feels about sustainable energy in the United States, but so far his position isn’t especially revealing. We can only hope that the people he has met with so far have talked some sense into him, and he doesn’t really think fossil fuels have a place in the future.
While using natural gas makes sense for now, there isn’t any need to use any of the other fossil fuels at all for power generation. Sadly this seems lost on the Untied States at a federal level, but at least the DOE hasn’t been gutted yet.
[via cleantechnica]
