Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
President Trump is filling out more top roles at the Energy and Interior Departments with veterans of industry and Trump 1.0, sending several high-level nominations to the Senate.
Why it matters: Both agencies are critical for Trump's push to reorient federal policy around greater resource extraction and less emphasis on climate change.
Driving the news: New nominees at DOE, per congressional filings, include:
- Kyle Haustveit to head DOE's Office of Fossil Energy. He's currently an exec with Devon Energy, a large independent oil and gas producer, per his LinkedIn page.
- Conner Prochaska to head DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. He's previously worked with ARPA-E and led the department's Office of Technology Transitions in Trump 1.0.
- Tristan Abbey to lead the Energy Information Administration, DOE's independent stats and analysis arm. He's a senior fellow at the National Center for Energy Analytics, a conservative think tank, and was on the National Security Council from 2017-2019, per LinkedIn.
- Theodore J. Garrish to be the assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy. His LinkedIn bio says he's already serving as a senior adviser at DOE. He also had high-level roles with the agency in Trump 1.0 and was a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
At Interior, Trump's picks include:
- Andrea Travnicek, the director of North Dakota's Department of Water Resources and a former Trump official, to be an assistant secretary.
- William Doffermyre to be Interior's solicitor, the agency's legal counsel. He currently works on Energy Transfer's Lake Charles LNG project, per Linkedin.
- Leslie Beyer to be an assistant secretary of Interior. An energy industry veteran, Beyer appears to be tapped for Land and Minerals Management.
Former New York Rep. Marc Molinaro, who was defeated in his reelection bid by Democrat Josh Riley in November, has also been tapped to be Federal Transit Administrator.
And Trump nominated Paul Roberti to lead the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. He's a former Rhode Island utilities commissioner who served at the agency during Trump's first administration.
