Environmental activists in Texas have stories to tell about Rick Perry, who was governor of the state for 14 years. Jim Marston, the Texas head of the Environmental Defense Fund, remembers when Perry, seemingly out of the blue, signed an executive order fast-tracking coal plant air permits in October 2005.



“We scratched our head,” Marston said. “What the heck is this about?”

The answer quickly emerged. A Texas coal company, TXU Corp, wanted to build 11 new coal plants in the state. Pollutants spewed by the facilities would in sum have surpassed the total emissions of dozens of other entire states. But the utility had the governor’s ear. Between 2001 and 2011, it made $633,575 in campaign contributions to Perry, Mother Jones has reported.

“Not only did he try to help a donor. He tried to do it illegally,” Marston said. “A judge ruled that that order was illegal.

“Texas politicians often help their donors but this was as bold and audacious in ignoring basic ethics rules as I’ve seen in my years as a lawyer, going back to 1978. I’ll let you draw the connection to draining the swamp.”

That was a reference to one of the slogans repeated on the campaign trail by Donald Trump, whose decision to nominate Perry to head the Department of Energy has resulted in new scrutiny of Perry’s environmental record. The department does not have a lead role in setting environmental conservation policy, but it makes research grants and participates in energy infrastructure policy in ways that can steer the national energy strategy.

Trump’s promise to reinvigorate the coal industry, his dismissal of renewable energy resources such as wind power, his climate change denialism and his nomination of the country’s top oil executive for secretary of state all have been taken by conservationists as discouraging signs for the future of sustainable energy.

But the nomination of Perry, who presided as governor over an explosion of wind power infrastructure in Texas, has been taken in some corners as a potentially encouraging sign that the United States is not on the verge of rolling back 46 years of green progress since Earth Day was first celebrated. The idea is that Perry – who has firsthand experience of how wind power can create jobs, make money for landowners and drive energy prices down for consumers – could help guide the Trump administration in the direction of renewables.

“I look forward to engaging in a conversation about the development, stewardship and regulation of our energy resources, safeguarding our nuclear arsenal, and promoting an American energy policy that creates jobs and puts America first,” Perry said in accepting Trump’s nomination.

The success of the Texas experiment with wind power under Perry is not disputed. In 2006, the governor signed legislation that raised benchmarks for the production of wind power and promoted environmentally sensitive siting for transmission lines. The legislation is credited with creating tens of thousands of jobs in the wind industry and attracting tens of billions of dollars in investment.

“Here you have a climate-denying, fossil fuel-loving, pro-renewable energy enthusiast,” Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, said of Perry in an interview.

“And you had this wind opportunity. A lot of wind in Texas. A lot of people with a lot of cheap, flat, windy land who like the idea of making money off their land with the wind. And you have an attitude to build stuff, and for wind to really get to market you have to build hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines.

“And Perry was there when it happened, and not just sort of idly sitting by, but actually helpful when it came time to build the power lines.”

“Perry signed that and it worked,” agreed Marston. “It wasn’t his idea. He did push forward with that. He gets some credit there.”

Former Texas governor Rick Perry exits after meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Tower earlier this week. Photograph: Brendan Mcdermid/Reuters

In multiple descriptions of the Texas wind experiment given to the Guardian, however, Perry emerged not as an environmentalist in any meaningful sense of the word, but as a chief executive with an eye on growing the economy and keeping business happy.

“It looks like his heart is not really in the climate science,” said Webber. “He doesn’t really care. But his heart is in economic opportunity, one way or another.”

Whatever Perry’s hidden environmental sympathies may be, his staying power at the top of Texas politics – he was the longest-serving governor in state history – indicates a basic loyalty to the top energy interest in the state, which for decades fielded a national football league team called the Oilers.

Texas produces more than three times as much crude oil as any other state. It is also far and away the national leader in total carbon dioxide emissions, producing 641m metric tons in 2013, compared with 353m metric tons emitted by second-ranked California, according to the US energy information administration.

Texas Oil and Gas Association president Todd Staples hailed Perry’s selection to lead the department of energy, in a statement obtained by the San Antonio Business Journal.

“Rick Perry would be a breath of fresh air as he would restore a market-based approach to the Department of Energy that will benefit our environment, our economy and our future,” Staples said. “Unlike the current administration, Perry would be committed to protecting the environment while making Americans less dependent on other nations for our energy needs.”

As head of the Department of Energy, Perry’s main charge would be to manage the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile and radioactive waste. The department also extends loans for energy research and development and takes a role in grid modernization, science education and environmental cleanup.

As a candidate for president in 2012, Perry proposed eliminating the agency – although when the moment came for him to mention it at a presidential debate, he forgot the department’s name. Prior to his recent turn on Dancing with the Stars, that “oops” debate moment was perhaps what Perry was best known for to the national audience.

Webber pointed out that Trump has described a plan to rebuild the national infrastructure, and Perry has experience building transmission lines and other renewable energy infrastructure. “If Perry plays a role in cheerleading that, or in encouraging building out the transmission infrastructure, well, that’d make it a lot easier to take sunshine from the desert south-west, or wind from the great plains states, and move it to the coast,” Webber said.

But there is concern that the job of energy secretary could overwhelm Perry, who has no background in nuclear issues, before he gets to talking about transmission lines.

“There’s some technical stuff at DoE,” said Marston. “Nuclear waste, nuclear arsenal. Grants. If you judge what he’s going to do in the future by what he’s done in the past, I’d be very worried about somebody being able to learn the details, care what the experts say and act on it. So I think we’ll have a lot of decisions that are made fact-free.

“You’re sometimes surprised. There could be a surprise. But it would be a surprise.”