Donald Trump
Donald TrumpReuters

US President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday his decision to nominate former Texas Governor Rick Perry as Energy Secretary.

"As the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry created created a business climate that produced millions of new jobs and lower energy prices in his state, and he will bring that same approach to our entire country as Secretary of Energy," Trump said in a statement.

"My administration is going to make sure we take advantage of our huge natural resource deposits to make America energy independent and create vast new wealth for our nation, and Rick Perry is going to do an amazing job as the leader of that process," he added.

"As the former governor of the nation’s largest energy producing state, I know American energy is critical to our economy and our security," Perry said in a statement.

Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson said, "Over all, Governor Perry is a sound choice, because you need a strong leader with political stature and a megaphone for the job, and Rick has both.... But as a big fossil fuel advocate, my concern is that Perry will get sucked in by the Trump climate deniers and try to dismantle the valuable renewable energy and climate change programs that the department manages."

The US Department of Energy is responsible, among other things, for the country's nuclear weapons program, as well as climate-affecting energy policy - an issue which environmentalists worry Perry does not care enough about.

Perry served fourteen years as governor of Texas, and ran in the Republican primaries for presidency in both 2012 and 2016. He is also an expert of fossil fuel extraction.

Perry also called Trump a "cancer on conservatism" before bowing out of the 2016 presidential race. He also proposed to eliminate the Energy Department in a November 2011 debate.

In return, Trump said Perry "did a lousy job on the border" and had come to Trump "begging for support and money," and that he "put on glasses so people will think he's smart."

However, unlike Clinton, Perry accepted Trump as the people's choice without question.