With the appointment of Former Texas Governor Rick Perry as the head of the Energy Department, president-elect Donald Trump is once again signaling a departure away from combating climate change and a balanced approach to energy development. Perry – who once forgot the name of the Energy Department when trying to name three agencies he would eliminate in the government – was a strong proponent of fossil fuel expansion during his time as governor.
Sportsmen and women know that in order to continue to hunt and fish the lands we love, we must protect the land and watersheds in New Mexico and across the country. Someone who denies the thorough, exhaustive, and longstanding peer-reviewed science addressing climate change and its adverse impacts to the environment and fish and wildlife heading the Energy Department should ring alarm bells among sportsmen and women nationwide. To meet our energy needs going forward, a balanced approach that includes renewable energy is a necessity. While Texas did expand wind energy under Governor Perry, he has also called climate change a “hoax” and has conflicting ties to fossil fuel industries. The New Mexico Wildlife Federation is not against energy production and mineral development, but we strongly believe a balanced approach is needed when it comes to the management of our public lands and our national natural resources. It is crucial to make sure energy production/mineral development is expanded in a sustainable way that does not adversely impact critical wildlife habitat and watershed integrity.
Perry is on the board of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, as well as Sunoco Logistics Partners. As the head of the Energy Department, which is tasked with overseeing energy technologies and regulating energy efficiency, these ties could represent a significant conflict of interest.
The Energy Department is also responsible for managing our nuclear weapons, here in New Mexico that responsibility hits especially close to home. By nominating someone to lead the agency who believes it should be disbanded, the president-elect is sending a dangerous message that this responsibility of managing our nuclear weapons and especially nuclear waste – which protects our workers, the environment and our water quality – is not important.
A return to an energy economy based nearly exclusively on fossil fuels fails to diversify national and local rural economies, has the potential to adversely impact critical habitat for fish and wildlife, undermine crucial wildlife corridors, and strain our already limited water resources. Sportsmen and women should support a diversified national energy future that calls for balanced/tempered fossil fuel development on public lands and intensified renewable energy expansion so we can conserve the vast public lands and watersheds we currently love to recreate on.
