Energy Secretary Rick Perry spoke at an energy conference in Houston this morning where he decried European nations and others that are making moves to eliminate fossil fuels from their economies over the next decade.
Perry just can't imagine going back to a world without electricity.
At the annual CERAWeek energy conference in Houston, Texas on Wednesday, reporter Lisa Friedman asked Energy Secretary Rick Perry about certain countries’ plans to stop using coal. Mocking the decision, Perry responded, “I think it’s a fool’s errand to stand up and say ‘by 2030 we’re going to be done with fossil fuels’ … and what? Go back to living like we were living in the mid-1800s?”
The good news is no one is proposing that.
I hesitate to snark because this reveals a truly stunning level of ignorance about his own country, not just others. Significant portions of America are powered by gas, wind, solar, nuclear, and hydroelectric power.
America could also dump fossil fuels by 2030 if we had the political will in Congress to do so.