A useless science advisor. A secretary of energy [DOE is mostly an R&D outfit for those who don’t know] who was the epitome of a do nothing Bush appointee. We agreed to dump zillions into ITER, as a sop to the French and Japanese in return for support on Iraq [sic], even though technically it is a bad idea. Bush adopted a reasonable policy on expanding nuclear energy but let his f-all useless minions drive it into the dirt because he was to far above the fray to kick some tail and fire folks who were unwilling to execute his programs. His science appointees have been about as useless and inept as his FEMA appointee in Katrina who didn’t even know what was on the news on CNN.
PS On the global warming front, the approach was entirely ideological, to the point that a lot of the nonsense could have been put to rest had Bush insisted that we fund high quality research to try to understand whether it is an issue or not. Instead his administration fueled the flames by suppressing research activities as much as possible.