The top Democrat on the Senate energy committee criticized President Trump’s refugee ban Tuesday as the wrong direction for America’s leadership on energy science and technology.
“The Muslim ban … may not have any direct effect on the Department of Energy, yet,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, noting that refugee scientists led to the country’s most revolutionary leaps forward on energy and science in the last 100 years.
“In fact, refugee scientists were key to our Manhattan Project’s success,” she said. “Have we forgotten the Albert Einstein was an immigrant that fled Europe?”
She also noted that Enrico Fermi, the Italian physicist whose wife was Jewish, fled to the United States to escape facist oppression.
Fermi built the world’s first nuclear power reactor at a government lab outside of Chicago that is now named after him and is a leading global research center.
She made the statements after the committee voted to confirm Trump’s picks to lead the Energy and Interior departments, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont., respectively.
Cantwell said she adamantly opposed Perry over reports that the adminsitration will be closing programs at the Energy Department focused on clean energy and grid security. She said the country’s electric grid is undergoing a major shift to newer, cleaner sources, and that must be supported at the agency.
“We have to make sure the Trump administration is going to respect the science,” Cantwell said. “The global nature that clean energy solutions are meant to help us in meeting some of our greatest challenges. But also, and most importantly, growing jobs here.”
