In her opening remarks, ranking member Sen. Maria Cantwell reminded Perry that he once said he wanted to abolish the department of energy.

When Donald Trump named Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy, it seemed like a capstone to a series of worst-possible selections. Hire the guy who has eight open lawsuits against the EPA to run the EPA. Get the woman who wants to replace public education with a scam to run the schools. And put a cherry on top by taking the guy who wants to eliminate the Department of Energy and putting him in charge of the thing—a choice so awful it seemed like a deliberate punch to the national nose.

President-elect Donald Trump will pick former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head the Department of Energy (DOE), according to two transition team sources.

President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to serve as secretary of Energy. The former GOP presidential hopeful beat out two contenders for the Cabinet post: Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat representing West Virginia, and Ray Washburne, a Dallas investor working in oil and gas operations.

Perry will now lead a federal agency he doesn’t think should exist.

Turns out billionaires can't buy the White House.

Rick Perry dropping out of the 2016 presidential race is a damn shame. It's an indictment of Republican voters, who express a preference for entertainers and oddities, of the Republican Party apparatus that allowed Perry to languish at a "kid's table" debate, and the media institutions that spent more time talking about Donald Trump's hat than the success of governors.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry is suspending his campaign to win the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, announcing the decision in a speech to the Eagle Forum in St. Louis on Friday afternoon.

Mr. Perry, who served 14 years as governor of Texas, had struggled to raise money and gain traction in a crowded and heavily experienced field.

He said God works in mysterious ways, but his political future had become clear to him.

Rick Perry, the former Texas governor who insisted he learned lessons from his disastrous 2012 presidential campaign, dropped his second bid for the White House on Friday after just 100 days.

"Today, I am suspending my campaign for the presidency of the United States," Perry said in an address in St. Louis that virtually mirrored his standard stump speech until the very end. "Life is good. I am a blessed man."

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced Friday he is ending his presidential campaign.

Perry announced the end of his campaign at the Eagle Forum -- an event founded by conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly -- in St. Louis, Missouri.

"We have a tremendous field – the best in a generation – so I step aside knowing our party is in good hands, and as long as we listen to the grassroots, the cause of conservatism will be too," Perry said.