Perry Visits Princeton Plasma Lab- Mr. SEC of Coal & Oil

Today U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry will visit the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ. While there, he will tour the facility and participate in an all-hands meeting where he will provide remarks and answer questions from employees. Perry currently serves as the 14^th United States Secretary of Energy.

“As head of the Department of Energy, Rick Perry is a disaster. He thinks he a lobbyist for coal and oil industry instead of dealing with America’s energy needs. He is eliminating funding on renewable energy research and subsidizing coal, fossil fuels, and nuclear instead. Perry is cutting grants for places he is visiting today.  As head of the agency, he is an oxymoron because he is blocking clean energy that would help our country fight fossil fuels and pollution. Perry is a climate denier and part of Trump’s war on the environment,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. “Rick Perry visiting the Princeton Physics Lab is like Ben & Jerry going to a Weight Watchers meeting.”

As head of DOE, Perry has attacked climate change policy and believes shifting away from fossil fuels is ‘immoral’. When he ran for President, Rick Perry called for abolishing the agency he now runs.  Over the past year, Perry has been pushing for the federal government to insert itself in the nation’s power markets, with the goal of providing government-mandated subsidies to bail out the coal and nuclear industries. At the same time he has cut back on grants for renewable energy. Perry even stated that fossil fuels can help prevent sexual assault.

“When running for President, Perry wanted to get rid of the department he is now head of. He is not only rolling back environmental protections and denying climate change, he is hurting our economy and green jobs. There are more jobs in renewable energy than there are in coal and fossil fuels. Perry loves coal so much was even caught hugging coal industry lobbyists,” said Tittel. “Perry even took a young girl’s plea for clean energy and manipulated it into a call for more dirty fossil fuels — fuels that exacerbate assault and illness. That is disgraceful.”

When Perry was a nominee for directive of the Department of Energy he didn’t realize he would be in charge of U.S’s nuclear arsenal with nearly two-thirds of the department’s $30 billion budget spent on maintaining the world’s most dangerous weapons. As director of DOE, Perry wants to revive licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository plus implement interim storage at other sites.

“Rick Perry is head of our nuclear arsenal, this should make you scared. What is even worse is that he is planning to open up the Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste. He is a safety disaster for our county. Perry is just as bad as Wheeler and Pruitt. They are all Fossil Fools who will do anything to keep corporate polluters happy at the expense of the public,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.  “Perry is in lockstep with Trump’s war on the environment and a climate denier. You don’t have to be an Einstein to know that climate change is real and Perry is no Einstein.”