Trump picks Bush veteran to be Rick Perry’s deputy

President Trump will nominate Dan Brouillette, a former Energy Department official under former President George W. Bush, to be the department’s deputy secretary.

The White House announced Trump’s intent to nominate Brouillette to the post late Monday. The department oversees a network of national laboratories conducting a wide variety of research and development. It also maintains the nation’s nuclear arsenal and nuclear reactors for the Navy.

If confirmed by the Senate, Brouillette would become the second Senate-confirmed senior official at Energy, following Rick Perry, who started as secretary last month.

Brouillette would bring years of energy policy experience to the department, the kind of credentials that Perry, Texas’s former governor, lacks.

Brouillette served at the Energy Department from 2001 to 2003, where he was assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs.

He was also a member of Louisiana’s State Mineral and Energy Board from 2013 to 2016.

After his work in the Bush administration, he went on to work at the House Energy and Commerce Committee as its chief of staff under then-Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), who was the panel’s chairman at the time.

Brouillette then worked as a vice president at Ford Motor Co., leading its policy and government affairs activities, from 2004 to 2006.

He is now an executive at USAA, a banking and financial services firm.