From staff and wire reports / The (Morgan City) Daily Review
President Donald Trump has picked an Assumption Parish native as his next secretary of energy.
Trump on Friday selected Dan Brouillette, deputy to departing Energy Secretary Rick Perry, to lead the Energy Department, calling him a “total professional” with unparalleled experience.
Brouillette is a native of Paincourtville in Assumption Parish, according to the office of U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, who offered his congratulations.
“Dan Brouillette understands the relationship between energy policy and the overall economy. Louisiana workers depend on thought-through energy policy,” Cassidy said in a press release. “Mr. Brouillette’s experience will serve the country well as the United States pursues energy dominance and energy employment.”
Brouillette has served as chief of staff to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce under former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin. He has also served as a member of Louisiana’s State Mineral and Energy Board.
Brouillette is a U.S. Army veteran. He also previously worked as a vice president at Ford Motor Co. and as the head of public policy and senior vice president at United Services Automobile Association
Trump acted quickly on the appointment, just a day after Perry told the president that he would leave by year’s end.
Perry said his decision was not related to his role in administration actions on Ukraine that are now the focus of a House impeachment inquiry.
Brouillette has embraced Trump’s call for U.S. dominance of international energy markets and says he backs an “all of the above” policy that promotes nuclear and renewable solar and wind energy as well as coal, natural gas and oil.
Environmental groups, many lawmakers and others fault the administration for trying to spur the country’s oil and gas production boom rather than rein in the climate-damaging fossil fuels.
He has traveled from Japan to former Soviet states to Qatar and Israel and beyond, promoting U.S. natural gas and natural gas production companies.
“When it comes to exporting LNG, the United States is open for business,” Brouillette said in one such European stop last year.