As Donald Trump’s cabinet took shape, a pattern started to emerge: many of the people the Republican president chose to lead agencies fundamentally opposed the purpose of those agencies.Betsy DeVos is a Secretary of Education who opposes public schools; Rick Perry is the Secretary of Energy who’s called for the elimination of the Department of Energy; Scott Pruitt leads an Environmental Protection Agency he’s fought to undermine for years; and so on.But what’s less appreciated is the degree to which this problem extends beyond the high-profile cabinet posts, and reaches some important offices with lower profiles. The Washington Post reported yesterday, for example:
President Trump has appointed Daniel Simmons, a conservative scholar who sharply questioned the value of promoting renewable energy sources and curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, to oversee the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), according to an email distributed to department employees. […]Though no official announcement has been made, the acting head of the office, Steve Chalk, sent an email to DOE employees Monday saying that Simmons, a member of the Trump transition team, will become the principal deputy assistant secretary for EERE.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."