Rick Perry Says Trump Will ‘Need To Renegotiate’ The Paris Agreement

By MICHAEL BASTASCH

Energy Secretary Rick Perry told conference goers he would not advise President Donald Trump to “walk away” from the Paris climate agreement, but conceded the agreement will need to be renegotiated.

Perry made the remarks at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance summit in New York City Tuesday. Perry is the only Trump administration slated to speak at the conference, which largely focuses on promoting green energy as a solution to global warming.

 

The White House is considering whether or not to keep Trump’s campaign pledge to pull out of the Paris agreement. Conservative groups want Trump to keep his promise, but some energy companies and administration officials are trying to pull him the other way.

On one side, Ivanka Trump, White House aide Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson support remaining in Paris. White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt oppose the Paris agreement.

Perry’s remarks likely put him in the “remain” camp, pitting him against Bannon and Pruitt. A source previously told The Daily Caller’s Kaitlan Collins that Perry has softened his stance on Paris.

The Paris agreement commits United Nations members to reduce greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming. President Barack Obama’s Paris pledge has the U.S. cut emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025.

The Paris agreement was never ratified by the Senate — a constitutional requirement for treaties.…

Rick Perry is Trump’s pick to run Energy Department he wanted to abolish

President-elect Donald Trump has selected former Texas Gov. Rick Perry — who famously once forgot that he wanted to abolish the Energy Department — to be secretary of energy, two sources familiar with the transition process told NBC News on Monday night.

Perry, a rival of Trump’s during the Republican presidential nominating campaign, met with Trump for about 90 minutes earlier in the day at Trump Tower in New York.

Perry dropped out of the race and endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz, a fellow Texan. Before he left the race, he denounced Trump’s candidacy as “a cancer on conservatism” and criticized Trump, himself, as a “barking carnival act.”

By May, however, as it became clearer that Trump was likely to win the Republican nomination, Perry had retreated from his criticism, saying that “I will be open to any way I can help” and that “I believe that Donald Trump should be our guy.”

IMAGE: Rick Perry at Trump Tower
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry smiles Monday as he leaves Trump Tower, where he met with President-elect Donald Trump. AP

Perry also ran for president in 2012, which led to a gaffe during a debate in November 2011 in which he forgot that he’d named the Energy Department — the agency Trump now wants him to head — as one of three Cabinet departments he’d eliminate. The memory loss became known as Perry’s “oops” moment.

As governor, Perry championed the oil industry, questioning science that shows that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change and deriding what he called “the secular carbon cult.”

At a presidential town hall in 2011, he said, “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.”

Perry is also likely to be questioned during confirmation hearings about the Dakota Access Pipeline. He serves on the board of directors of Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the controversial project near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.…