No president-elect in modern times has assembled a Cabinet of more members whose backgrounds suggest they are openly hostile to the core missions of the federal agencies they are being tapped to lead.

President-elect Donald Trump’s cast of contrarians includes the choice of a secretary of energy who once pledged to abolish the department and an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency whose portfolio includes a series of lawsuits against the EPA over its rules on clean air and water.

How hostile are they? As a 2012 GOP presidential candidate, ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry promised to abolish three departments: Commerce, Education and Energy. His campaign took a major blow when he could only remember two in a CNBC debate. The one he forgot? Energy. The department’s 93,000 employees can only hope his amnesia continues into the Trump administration.

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, recruited to run the EPA, has been a lawsuit machine against the agency and what he has called the “anti-fossil-fuel mentality” of the Obama White House.

Those two selections were reminiscent of President Ronald Reagan’s choice of two extraction-industry-friendly Westerners, James Watt and Anne Gorsuch, to lead the Department of Interior and the EPA. Interior’s Watt quickly became Public Enemy No. 1 among environmentalists for aggressively opening public lands to coal mining and vast swaths of the outer continental shelf to offshore oil drilling. EPA’s Gorsuch instantly slashed its budget by 22 percent, tried to weaken pollution standards and dramatically reduced enforcement actions.

But there were some important distinctions between the Trump and Reagan transitions. Reagan had a more clearly defined conservative ideology and a legitimate claim to a mandate, having carried 44 states and winning 489 of 538 electoral votes; Trump lost the popular vote and was elected because of relatively narrow victories in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Also, while Trump has picked an unusually high number of Cabinet members without any government experience — most disturbingly, oil executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state — Reagan’s first Cabinet drew upon many seasoned hands in critical posts.

It remains to be seen how much members of this Trump team can impose their will on federal agencies they have deplored. As Reagan famously said, a government bureaucracy is “the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this Earth.” It also can be notoriously change-resistant, especially when Americans widely embrace a government role in areas such as preserving natural resources, assuring fair wages, improving public education, protecting civil rights and slowing climate change.

Trump campaigned against the establishment. Now he appears ready to govern against it.

John Diaz is The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@JohnDiazChron

At odds with their agencies’ missions

President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks include several whose past actions cast doubt on their commitment to government programs they will oversee:

Department

of Energy

Trump’s choice: Rick Perry, former Texas governor

His history: Perry’s bid for the 2012 GOP nomination took a big hit when he pledged to eliminate three federal agencies, but could name only two. The one that slipped his mind? The Department of Energy.

Department of Labor

Trump’s choice: Andrew Puzder, CEO of the parent company of Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.

His history: He has been an outspoken critic of worker protections installed by the Obama administration and has opposed raising the minimum wage or expanding overtime rules.

Environmental Protection Agency

Trump’s choice: Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general.

His history: The oil-industry-friendly attorney general brought lawsuits against the EPA during the Obama years, including over clean air rules. He has called himself a leading advocate against its “activist agenda.”

Department

of Education

Trump’s choice: Betsy DeVos, businesswoman, philanthropist and education-reform activist.

Her history: She has long been a crusader for making public funds available to private schools via vouchers. She told a group of Christian conservatives that education reform was a way to “advance God’s kingdom.”

Secretary of State

Trump’s choice: Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil

His history: As an oil industry executive, he opposed U.S. sanctions against Russia. Also, his company’s track record on working with repressive regimes and allegedly deceiving shareholders about climate change raise questions about how he would approach two key issues in State’s portfolio: human rights and global warming.

Department of Justice

Trump’s choice: Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

His history: The Senate rejected his 1986 bid for a federal judgeship over accusations of racism. He has been a harsh critic of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act (“intrusive legislation”) and has resisted attempts to ease draconian drug laws. The attorney general will play a key role in deciding whether to continue the Obama administration’s noninterference with states’ legalization. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he said last year.

Health and

Human Services

Trump’s choice: Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.

His history: The chair of the House Budget Committee has been a leading force in the effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. He also wants to convert Medicare from a fee-for-service system to one in which seniors would get a fixed amount of money to buy their own insurance.

Housing and

Urban Development

Trump’s choice: Ben Carson, neurosurgeon