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Dan Brouillette, 57, a former lobbyist at Ford Motor Co and Louisiana state energy regulator, would replace Rick Perry, who has said he is stepping down on Dec. 1.

Perry became known as one of the “three amigos” in a side-channel Ukraine policy led by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, that has been at the center of the Trump impeachment probe. But Perry has said he was not involved in any conversations where former Vice President Joe Biden was brought up…….

If, as expected, he is confirmed by the Senate Energy Committee and then by the full Senate, Brouillette will work to carry out Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda of boosting U.S. production of oil and natural gas.

Brouillette told Republican senators from Wyoming and Louisiana that he supports technology on curbing climate change by capturing and storing underground carbon dioxide from coal and natural gas facilities, adding that fossil fuels would power a large portion of global energy needs for the next 40 to 50 years…….

Brouillette also said he wants to support development of advanced nuclear power plants, hopefully one day bringing microreactors that provide relatively small amounts of power to remote places like rural Louisiana, where he was born, to Alaska. ……

Democratic senators not on the Energy Committee, including Ed Markey and Tim Kaine, sent Brouillette a letter on Wednesday asking whether he supported nonproliferation standards in any deal on sharing U.S. nuclear power technology with Saudi Arabia, a question he will likely continue to face if he is confirmed.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Peter Cooney and Tom Brown https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy/trump-energy-pick-to-face-questions-on-coal-nuclear-power-idUSKBN1XO1OH