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Comment by ModernMech | Hacker News Reader

> ex: Perry has no experience in nuclear, yet is in charge of the Department of Energy / National Labs / Nuclear program.

Not only that, but in the 2012 debates, Perry proposed that he would want to eliminate the Department of Energy as president:

> Gov. Rick Perry couldn't remember the third federal agency he has pledged to eliminate. "The third agency of government I would, I would do away with, the Education, the... Commerce and, let's see," Perry said, as his brain freeze continued. However, a few minutes later in the debate, Perry remembered that the third department was the Energy Department. "By the way that was the Department of Energy I was reaching for a while ago," he said with a chuckle when he was asked another question.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rick-perry-fails-to-remember-wh...

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That is the ideal qualification if you are trying to stop unbounded self-serving expansion of bloated bureaucracies.

A government agency that has less work to do does not shrink, and one that has completed its job does not just disappear. Organizations find excuses to exist. They are self-perpetuating, always seeking new justification for their continued parasitic existence.

This is ideology, not rationality. Nuclear energy is not some bureaucratic wasteland of dithering and meaningless regulation—it is literal world-ending stuff.

I don’t know how committed you have to be to a libertarian view to get here but trying to paint the entire Department of Energy as feckless bureaucrats and red tape in need of abolishing, that Perry could actually mean that in good faith for the betterment of our country, is just preposterous.

I strongly disagree. The nation's nuclear project is absolutely necessary for defense. Fortunately, Perry has learned the importance of the Department of Energy (aka: Department of Nuclear) and is appropriately funding it and doing his best to run the place. A big problem is that Perry didn't even know what Department of Energy did before he got the job. Perry is the first non-nuclear engineer to run the Department of Energy, he was a horrible pick, but at least he understands his department now.

I would have much preferred to have an actually qualified person running our nation's nuclear program, but... I'll take a cautiously-optimistic non-expert over a lot of the other secretaries who are aiming at destroying their specific departments.

The FCC is a good example of active destruction from within. All those Robocalls you've been getting the past year or two are precisely because of the new FCC Head refusing to do his job to punish robocallers. The fact of the matter is that only the FCC has the authority and power to effectively police Robocalls, and ignoring those responsibilities leads to the annoying situation we have today.

> Perry is the first non-nuclear engineer to run the Department of Energy

For some context in case anyone is curious: the position of Secretary of energy was created together with the Department of energy in 1977. There have been 14 Secretaries of energy, and 2 more acting secretaries.

It's not trivial to summarize each into a single field, but they have had degrees in law (x6), chemical engineering (x2), physics (x2), dentistry, economics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and political science.

To the best of my research, it seems only one (Ernest Moniz) could be called a "nuclear physicist" or "nuclear engineer". He immediately preceded Rick Perry as Secretary of energy (if one skips over an acting secretary).

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