The chairman of President Donald Trump’s campaign in Massachusetts will join the administration, providing counsel on energy matters in the Interior Department.
According to the law firm Bowditch & Dewey where Vincent DeVito is a partner, the attorney has accepted the president’s appointment as senior counselor to the secretary of interior for energy affairs.
The Interior Department, headed up by former Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke, plays a major role in domestic energy production – from managing fossil fuel extraction from public lands to leasing offshore sites for wind farms.
According to the law firm, DeVito was an assistant secretary for policy and international affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy during the administration of President George W. Bush, and he has advised earlier presidential campaigns.
The firm reports that DeVito “served as an energy lawyer for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts within the legislature and at the Department of Public Utilities. In those positions, he pursued the development and implementation of the state’s electric utility deregulation plan.”
“We are proud of the firm’s tradition of having our lawyers serve in local, state, and federal government,” the firm’s managing partner, James Hanrahan, said in a statement.
Bowditch & Dewey said DeVito “assisted the legal and political operations of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. and was legal point for Collier County during the Florida recount.”
DeVito also hosted a Massachusetts reception at Washington, D.C.’s Omni Shoreham Hotel for Trump’s January inauguration.
Trump has promised to bring back the coal industry and jobs for coal miners.
“The miners told me about the attacks on their jobs and their livelihoods. They told me about the efforts to shut down their mines, their communities, and their very way of life. I made them this promise: We will put our miners back to work,” Trump said, according to a transcript. “We’ve already eliminated a devastating anti-coal regulation — but that was just the beginning.”
