The Commerce Department has appointed 39 members to the Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee tasked to advise the secretary on policy administration to increase the export of U.S. civil nuclear products and services.

Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced the new appointments of senior-level, private-sector representatives on Tuesday.

“Maintaining U.S. leadership in the nuclear industry is critical to our country’s economic vitality and to global efforts to combat climate change,” said Pritzker.

“The Civil Nuclear Trade Advisory Committee is a valuable mechanism for private sector representatives to contribute to policy discussions and work with government leaders to create the conditions that will strengthen U.S. competitiveness in this sector,” she added.

New CINTAC members include:

• Larry Sanders – president of Accelerant Technologies
• H.M Hashemian – president and CEO, Analysis and Measurement Services
• Michael Whitehurst – director of business development at Centrus Energy
• Russell Neely – chief operating officer, Edlow International Co.
• Colin Austin – vice president of international business at EnergySolutions
• Woody Lawman – director of sales for Navy and nuclear products at Flowserve Limitorque
• David Jonas – partner at Fluet, Huber + Hoang
• Brad Porlier – vice president of sales and nuclear power at Fluor Enterprises
• Jarret Adams – CEO of Full On Communications
• Scott Singer – VP and chief security and information officer at PAR Systems
• Jeffrey Merrifield – partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman
• Eddie Guerra  – director of structural engineering at Rizzo Associates
• Eric Rasmussen – director of engineering at RSCC Wire and Cable
• Josh Freed – VP of clean energy program at Third Way
• Tyson Smith – partner at Winston & Strawn
• Jeffrey Harper – VP of strategy and business development at X Energy

For a complete list of the CINTAC members, click here.

Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, has been selected by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as secretary of the Energy Department, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Coral Davenport writes Perry is former Texas agriculture commissioner before he served as governor of the state from 2000 through 2015.

He graduated from Texas A&M University with a bachelor’s degree in animal science and authored the 2010 book “Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington,” Davenport added.

Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson also report for the Washington Post that wind power capacity in Texas rose to 14,098 megawatts in 2014 from 200 megawatts in 2000 during Perry’s tenure as governor.

The American Wind Energy Association told the publication that Perry helped support the development of transmission lines for the distribution of wind power-based electricity.

Perry, who ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2012 and 2016, is a member of the board of directors of Energy Transfer Partners, Eilperin and Mufson write.

He is likely to advance the development of fossil fuels once he assumes the DOE chief post, the Washington Post added.

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson for nomination to become the next secretary of state, the New York Times reported Monday.

Michael Shear and Maggie Haberman write Tillerson’s Senate confirmation hearings will likely focus on Exxon Mobil’s business relationships with Russia, where the company has billions of dollars in pending oil contracts after the U.S. government imposed economic sanctions on the country.

Exxon has established joint ventures with Russia-backed oil company Rosneft, and supported health and social programs in the country under Tillerson’s leadership, the Times reports.

James Baker III, secretary of state under then-President George H.W. Bush, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates recommended Tillerson as a candidate for the post, the report says.

The White House has released a new document that details actions to guide federal agencies on the implementation of intellectual property policies over the next three years.

The Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement sets four goals for the federal government and one of them is to increase national awareness of the social and economic impacts of IP rights infringement and trade secrets misappropriation, Danny Marti, U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, wrote in a blog post published Monday.

The plan also aims to reduce counterfeiting activities on the internet, promote lawful trade and build up domestic strategies and collaboration worldwide in order to support enforcement of IP policies.

Marti noted the document’s objectives build on the accomplishments made through the previous strategic plan.

Those accomplishments include changes to how agencies collaborate in order to “leverage an all-of-government approach to IP enforcement,” passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 and efforts to fight illicit trade through coordination among trading partners and creation of IP attaches and IP law enforcement coordinators worldwide, Marti wrote.

The Senate has unanimously approved a bipartisan bill that would provide individuals, government agencies and other organizations access to machine-readable public information at Data.gov.

Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) introduced the Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary Government Data Act, Schatz’s office said Monday.

Schatz said he will continue to work with Sasse to advance the bill in the next Congress.

The OPEN Government Data Act would also require federal agencies to use government data to facilitate decision making operations as well as ensure privacy and protection of national security data.

Organizations that support the bill include the Data Coalition, Sunlight Foundation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Center for Data Innovation, BSA/The Software Alliance and the Taxpayers for Common Sense.