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Republicans push through controversial energy nominee

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee for a federal energy board despite a video that shows the nominee saying renewable energy “screws up” the nation’s electrical grid.

The Republican-controlled Senate approved Bernard McNamee’s nomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on a 50-49 party-line vote Thursday.

McNamee now heads the Energy Department’s Office of Policy and worked on a stalled effort to bail out struggling coal and nuclear plants.

In the video, McNamee says fossil fuels and nuclear energy “keep the lights on” and that renewable energy such as wind and solar power “screws up … the physics of the grid” providing the nation’s

electricity.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., opposed McNamee after backing him in committee. Manchin, whose state has long relied on coal, is one of the Senate’s strongest supporters of the coal industry, but he said in a statement that McNamee wasn’t serious enough about climate change.

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