ARPA-E February Newsletter: Energy Secretary Perry to Keynote ARPA-E Summit
Robert Murray of Murray Energy, right, hugging Energy Secretary Rick Perry
I like to attend the annual ARPA-E summit (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy) summit every year; I’ve made many excellent contacts there through the years, and I’m always enthralled by the exhibits. Having said that, I’m sure I’m not alone in sharing my misgivings about this year’s event, principally that the keynote speaker is none other than U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry.
The only qualification Perry brings to the job is his loyalty to Donald Trump, and his willingness to comply with whatever orders he’s given to destroy the agency for which he works, forward the interests of the fossil fuel giants, while stepping on the throats of those of us trying to bring clean energy to the country we love.
If what I’ve said here sounds oversimplified and potentially unfair, don’t forget about Perry’s most recent headlines:
• Trump Desperate To Expand Fossil Fuels–But Here’s Why He’s Failing: People say that Trump is so impetuous and unpredictable that he’s impossible to deal with. That may be true in certain cases, but certainly not in his energy policy, which is extremely consistent; it’s all about bringing back jobs in dead-end technologies, while attempting to kill their competition, i.e., renewable energy. It’s a lucky accident that, even with all that tenacity, this is a strategy doomed to failure. What happened when Energy Secretary Rick Perry promoted his idea to subsidize coal-fired power plants on the basis that they store their fuel on-site? It was rejected unanimously by FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission), whose members were stunned that they were forced to consider an idea utterly asinine and regressive.
• The U.S. Department of Energy – Hard At Work: Here’s a video that’s illustrative of a couple of important operating principles in the U.S. government: 1) Our laws are made almost exclusively at the behest of Corporate America, and 2) This is supposed to be a secret. It’s the story of how the official photographer for the U.S. Department of Energy was fired after leaking the photo shown above, featuring an embrace between Robert Murray, coal kingpin, and Rick Perry, Energy Secretary. This took place at the conclusion of a meeting in which Murray laid out his wish-list by which the coal industry should be regulated (which was then copied almost verbatim in the proposal that Perry later made to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission).
I have a peculiarity…ok, several peculiarities, one of which is that I find it very hard to sit still and listen to complete horsecrap. I know for a fact that I’d have a strong impulse to shout something somewhere between vulgar and obscene at Perry, which could result in my arrest. I don’t look good in stripes, so I think I better stay home.
Craig,
Yep, that’s always for the best, stay home shut your eyes and ears carefully, that way you are protected from listening first hand to the speaker’s message, instead find comfort in a misquoted, out of context, interpretation by a biased journalist who also wasn’t listening very intently !
Simon Edelman was retained as a photographer for the Department of Energy. As such he regularly attended meetings with Secretary Rick Perry and snapped pictures for official purposes. His terms of employment clearly state all the photo’s he takes are the property of the DoE and he must act in the same manner as any other government employee in a no partisan political capacity.
Simon Edelman attended a official meeting of the DoE in his official capacity with the full knowledge he was breaking the terms of his employment. He admits by his own statement he identifies as a democrat activist and has a political agenda to use his civil service access opportunity to improperly gather material for the New York Times, and Bernie Saunders.
Mr Edelman also misused his position to illegally photograph private documents or papers brought by meeting attendees to official meetings, regardless of content or privilege.
The photo he took (which you display) is hardly sensational. Rick Perry has been photographed thousands of times with all kinds of people. He’s a politician, it’s what he does.
Having listened to, and met Robert Murray on a number of occasion, I must admit he’s a difficult man to like. Robert Murray has many admirable traits as a human being, he’s unfailingly courageous, hard-working, determined, strait-forward,loyal and true to his word. He can be entertaining, warm and highly intelligent. Unfortunately, he’s also stubborn, dogmatic, unyielding and contemptuous of aesthetic,cultural or environmental concerns. Like many self-made men his view on the world is focused basically around his own interests, not so much selfish or greedy, as tunnel visioned.
My impression of Robert Murray is he’s an American from an earlier era.
Robert Murray’s political contributions to Republican candidates and causes are surprisingly minuscule, about $ 200,000 over 15 years (less than 1% of Warren Buffets contributions to the Democrats).
Robert Murray is far less influential as the media portrays him. Most of the Coal mining industry has distanced themselves from Murray’s opinions at one time or another. Murry is considered a bit of an anachronism (albeit a very active one).
If you were correct in your assertion “Our laws are made almost exclusively at the behest of Corporate America” then Hillary Clinton would be President and the Democrats would control Congress. Large corporate donors were almost completely absent from the Trump campaign,(less than 100 million) while Clinton raised raised literally $ billions from corporate supporters.