Rick Perry’s energy legacy is more complicated than you think

[corbe]

Rick Perry’s energy legacy is more complicated than you think


With President-elect Donald Trump set to tap former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the department of energy, here's a closer look at the energy legacy of the state's longest-serving governor.
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by Jim Malewitz and Kiah Collier  Dec. 13, 2016  11:11 AM 
 


As he said farewell to the Texas Legislature in January 2015, Rick Perry couldn’t help but reflect on how energy technology and policy had transformed the state’s landscape — and fueled its economy — during his record 14 years as governor.

“Today, horizontal slant drilling is tapping oil and gas fields unreachable just a few years ago,” he said, going on to scold New York for banning hydraulic fracturing. “In Texas, we have chosen jobs. We have chosen energy security, and we will one day end America’s dependence on hostile sources of foreign energy.”

Although Texas' longest-serving governor was, perhaps unsurprisingly, pro-oil and gas during his tenure, he didn't simply nod to those iconic, staple fuels: “You can be proud that Texas produces more energy from wind turbines than all but five countries,” he said.

Indeed, Perry, left a nuanced energy legacy — including overseeing booms in fossil fuels and renewables — during his time in Austin. (Texas is now the No. 1 U.S. producer of both natural gas and wind energy.) Now, he is poised to take his experience to Washington, where President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly tapped him as U.S. secretary of energy. The appointment would mark a full repair in Perry’s relationship with Trump, who he called “a cancer on conservatism” last year while the two men were in a crowded field for the Republican presidential nomination.


If confirmed, Perry would become the third Texan to land that job, which involves overseeing energy research and policy with ramifications on the economy, environment and national security. And he would certainly bring different perspective and background to the role than his two predecessors — a nuclear physicist, Ernest Moniz, and a winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, Steven Chu.

Environmentalists and others question Perry's qualifications to lead the massive federal agency, particularly because he called for its elimination during his first unsuccessful presidential bid five years ago. While they concede that he championed renewables during his tenure, they also describe a more fervent support for traditional fossil fuels.

"Judging by the past, he has backroom deals with special interests and big polluters — the rest of the economy and the air be damned," said Jim Marston, the Texas head of the Environmental Defense Fund, recalling a 2005 executive order to approve coal plants that his group successfully challenged in court.

Last year, Perry joined the board of Energy Transfer Partners, the Dallas-based company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline; Its CEO, Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren, was a major supporter of Perry’s political endeavors.

But Perry's intimate understanding, and support, of the energy business makes him the perfect choice, said former Texas energy regulator Barry Smitherman, the only person to have served both on the Texas Railroad Commission and the state’s Public Utility Commission.

"He's incredibly qualified. I mean, he was the CEO of our state during 14 years of incredible energy development," he said, recalling Perry's support of state energy regulators during the shale revolution and of new electric lines to deliver wind energy. "Gov. Perry has been at the epicenter of all these advances."

Washington D.C.-based power utility lawyer Joseph Hall said he suspects "Perry will be well-received by the energy sector."

"He’ll need to express his goals for the National Nuclear Security Administration [a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE], but Texas is a market leader on the policy, law and economics of the oil, gas and electric power industries," Hall said in a statement. "He understands carbon policy, the oil and gas business and generation and transmission development."

Here’s a look back at Perry’s energy legacy in Texas.

Booming oil and gas

Oil and natural gas production surged in Texas during Perry’s tenure — by roughly 260 percent and 50 percent, respectively. Those booms poured billions of dollars into state coffers and helped lift Texas from the country’s last recession. The phenomenon, however, also stirred concerns about air and water quality and strained infrastructure in some regions, including roads and emergency response capabilities.

(Plunging oil prices since Perry left office have significantly slowed drilling and economic growth).

For the most part, technological advances like hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling spurred this energy renaissance. But industry officials cheered Perry’s relatively low-tax, low-regulation environment and willingness to push back against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Energy companies also supported his calls to lift a moratorium on new deepwater drilling after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and spill ravaged the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Perry called it an “act of God.”

Perry also signed a bill in 2003 that made permanent a controversial tax break for “high cost” natural gas that has saved drillers billions of dollars over the years in avoided payments.


In his final months in office, Perry called on federal leaders to construct a comprehensive energy plan and to speed up natural gas exports — partly to protect gas-dependent U.S. allies in Europe from Russian “aggression.”

Making Texas a wind powerhouse

The state’s wind power sector hardly existed when Perry took his oath of office, but Texas became the nation’s leader in wind energy generation during his tenure — and he helped steer that boom.

In 2000, wind farms composed just 116 megawatts of capacity on the state’s main electric grid. That number soared to more than 11,000 megawatts under Perry, with wind fuels about 10 percent of all generation. (On average, one megawatt-hour can power 260 typical Texas homes for an hour.)

Marston, of the Environmental Defense Fund, said much of the renewable expansion wasn't Perry's idea but that he also supported it. That was likely because of job growth, not global warming, noted Smitherman, the former Texas energy regulator.

 
"For us, wind development in Texas was never about climate change — it was about economic development and diversifying our portfolio," he said, adding that it "is nicely diversified at the moment with natural gas, wind, coal and nuclear."

Former Gov. George W. Bush laid the groundwork for Texas’ rapid wind energy growth. He signed a bill in 1999 that ultimately deregulated the electric sector — a mammoth undertaking that Perry would oversee — and established a renewable-energy requirement that kick-started wind development. Perry added to that in 2005 by signing legislation that required Texas to increase its renewable-energy capacity to 5,880 megawatts by 2015.

The state shattered that goal before Perry left office.

Perry also backed a $7 billion electrical transmission project to connect windy, largely empty West Texas to growing cities demanding more power. Completed in 2013, the Competitive Renewable Energy Zone, or CREZ, initiative stretches nearly 3,600 miles and can send up to 18,500 megawatts of power — including from non-wind sources — across the state.

Solar — not so much 


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https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/13/recap-rick-perrys-texas-energy-legacy/

[geronl]

Texas has a weak Governor system. Nothing about being Governor makes him qualified for this job

[corbe]

Texas has a weak Governor system. Nothing about being Governor makes him qualified for this job

   

   I agree @geronl The Lieutenant Governor holds most the power in Texas and though Rick was elected to that position in 1999, he immediately assumed governor on Bush's presidential election.

   I think both Bush and Perry were 'Good' Governors, but after Ann Richards anything looked good.