For many people who remember the 2012 presidential campaign, the first reaction to President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy was a chuckle. Back then, Perry put Energy on the list of three departments he wanted to abolish—and then famously forgot the department entirely when trying to recite his list during a debate.

But for people who understand the Department of Energy, there’s been a second tier of alarm. The agency’s chief responsibility isn’t energy policy: It’s maintaining and overseeing the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up nuclear waste, a role critical to America’s national security. There’s a reason that President Barack Obama’s two energy secretaries, Ernest Moniz and Steven Chu, were both physicists.

Given his resume—former Texas governor, Air Force pilot and “Dancing with the Stars” contestant—is Perry a worrisome choice to lead an agency with that kind of technical responsibility? To find out, POLITICO talked to energy experts, former Perry staffers and former DOE officials about his background and the nearly 120,000-person agency. Perry isn’t a particularly unusual choice for energy secretary; in fact, Moniz and Chu were the outliers. Perry is a more conventional pick, a politician with a military background but no scientific experience, a gap that critics believe makes him less suited for the role—but which confidants dismiss as an obstacle that the former governor of Texas, the top-energy producing state, could easily overcome.

“Frankly, I disagreed with the decision to make academic scientists energy secretaries,” said Avik Roy, a senior adviser on Perry’s 2016 presidential campaign. “When it comes to the energy economy … it makes a lot of sense to have somebody who has been in that public policy role and understands the tradeoffs of different policies.”

Even Perry’s past support for abolishing the DOE is unlikely to pose major problems, experts said. In fact, he wouldn’t even be the first energy secretary to have suggested it. Spencer Abraham headed the department from 2001 to 2005; before that, as a senator from Michigan, Abraham had co-sponsored legislation to eliminate the department, moving various DOE programs into other agencies. He had softened that position by the time Bush nominated him as energy secretary; in an interview, he recalled being concerned about skepticism among the DOE’s civil servants in the first few months of his tenure, but said he managed to get past it. “We worked hard to try to be reassuring to people who were career DOE employees that we weren’t going down that road [of abolishing the agency] and respected and admired what they did,” he said.

The Department of Energy has responsibility for designing and manufacturing key components of the U.S.’s nuclear weapons and making sure they are secure from outside threats. It also maintains the weapons so they are ready for use, although the department does not have the authority to launch them. And it is responsible for safely disposing of nuclear waste.

Beyond keeping an eye on the nuclear stockpile, the Department also conducts scientific research—both basic research and applied research—including giving out billions of dollars in grants to help uncover new energy-related discoveries. Under Obama, the DOE has issued billions of dollars in loan guarantees to green-energy companies and had a significant role in negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. The department even once ran the human genome project.

Given the broad powers of the DOE, experts said it’s hard, if not impossible, to find a candidate completely qualified for the role. An ideal candidate both understands nuclear energy and the DOE’s military duties while also having the political experience necessary to navigate and oversee a giant federal bureaucracy. “Nobody has it all,” said Susan Tierney, a former DOE official under Bill Clinton. “Everybody has to learn on the job.”

Chu, the first physicist to hold the role, was in some ways a cautionary tale about appointing a person with too much scientific background. While Chu understood the science behind the DOE’s research and operations, he had little experience running a major bureaucracy and navigating political relationships with Congress. In turn, he at times struggled to manage the DOE’s programs and lawmakers grew frustrated with him.

Moniz, on the other hand, was likely more qualified for the role than anyone in the department’s history. A nuclear physicist, he worked in the department during the 1990s, giving him a strong understanding for how to manage the bureaucracy and communicate with Congress. Despite conservatives’ opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, which Moniz played a significant role in crafting, he is still well-regarded by both Democrats and Republicans alike. “Ernie Moniz has done a really good job as secretary,” said Abraham.

Perry’s experience doesn’t match that of Moniz, but he still has a number of strong qualifications for the role. Like Abraham, he will likely face some skepticism from DOE employees over his past comments about abolishing the agency. Yet Perry also has other experience that will help in his new role. He was a pilot in the Air Force, spending time at overseas bases in England and Germany; he also served as Texas’s agriculture commissioner and lieutenant governor. “That makes him able to balance both the economic angle of energy and industry but also the defense and foreign policy angle,” said Abby McCloskey, the policy director on Perry’s 2016 campaign. “In a way, it fits very neatly into the governor’s experience.”

Texas is a massive state with a weapons facility and huge portions of land devoted to renewable energy like wind and solar. It’s also a major source of oil and gas energy, making it the largest energy producing state in the United States, and no one has been governor of Texas longer than Perry, who served from 2000 until 2015. That will give him a strong familiarity with how a major bureaucracy functions, along with experience working with various energy programs.

For environmentalists, it’s not Perry’s career history that most concerns them, it’s his past stances on climate change. Perry has frequently doubted the scientific consensus on global warming, going so far as to say in 2011 that “a substantial number of scientists ... have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” As governor, he sent letters to the president arguing that Obama was killing the energy industry and has supported rolling back Obama-era energy regulations. Many of those regulations were issued by the EPA, so Perry, if confirmed as energy secretary, won’t be able to roll them back—but Energy has pursued its own policies to combat global warming through research grants and green-energy investments, efforts that environmentalists fear Perry could curtail.

Yet that may not be Perry’s top priority if and when he is confirmed. The first few weeks and months can be some of the most challenging times for new DOE secretaries as they must quickly learn their responsibilities in the agency. One such responsibility is to certify to the president that the nuclear warhead capability is intact, which requires having technical conversations with the lab directors. For someone with little experience in physics, those conversations can be difficult, especially at first. Tierney led Obama’s Department of Energy transition team in 2008 and stayed on for the first weeks of the administration to help Chu transition into the role. She said that in meetings with lab directors, Chu—a former lab director himself—understood the technical details of the presentations. “The leg up that the nuclear physicist would have in that spot is immeasurable,” she said.

A background in physics is also extremely helpful in the diplomatic responsibilities of the energy secretary. Moniz was able to play a significant role in crafting the Iran nuclear deal because of his technical expertise. “If you don’t understand the science, you’re not going to have the same kind of an impact,” said Jeff Navin, a former chief of staff of the Energy Department under Obama.

That Perry is not a nuclear physicist does not disqualify him from the role, of course. It does mean that he would be well-suited to have a deputy who has a background in physics. And, said Tierney, “There’s going to be a lot of things on his reading list.”

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