Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, who chairs a subcommittee that writes energy and water spending bills, has spent much of his last 14 years in Congress trying to rev up nuclear power.
Now, as Elon Musk tears through the federal government promoting efficiency, deleting spending he doesn’t like and encouraging tens of thousands of workers to resign, the Tennessee Republican says he’s not worried the so-called Department of Government Efficiency could obstruct the mission of the Department of Energy.
In an interview Thursday, Fleischmann — chair of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee — said the Trump administration’s energy goals are very much aligned with his new bipartisan energy caucus.
“The mission is going to be synonymous with ours,” he said. “It can’t be theoretical. … The goal is to ramp up domestic energy production across the board to get that net gain up, which is what we’ve got to do.”
