Alex Guillén
WILL DIVERSITY SWAY CABINET PICKS? President Barack Obama is facing a diversity problem in his second-term Cabinet that could influence whom he picks to fill out his energy and environment team. Obama’s selections of late for his top-level diplomatic, national security and economic posts have been older, white males — including Sen. John Kerry for secretary of State, former Sen. Chuck Hagel for secretary of Defense, John Brennan to head the CIA and Jack Lew to lead Treasury.
Obama’s first-term heads at Energy and Interior, EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality include two women, one Hispanic and one Asian-American, representing perhaps the most diverse section of his administration’s leadership. Darren Goode, Andrew Restuccia and Darius Dixon have more: http://politico.pro/ZsSt9R
SALAZAR TO REMAIN AT LEAST UNTIL SUMMER: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar remained coy when reporters yesterday asked him about his future plans. “I have no personnel announcements to make today,” Salazar said, borrowing a line from White House spokesman Jay Carney. “The only thing I’ll say is that I still have a lot of work to do.” A source close to the administration tells ME Salazar plans to stick around at least until the summer, which would prevent a simultaneous turnover in the administration’s top energy and environment posts.
GREENS PRAISE SOLIS: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis yesterday announced she’ll be leaving the Cabinet (more on that here: http://politi.co/VTtxH5), and green business groups quickly praised her work. “She fought especially hard to create and sustain green jobs, a commitment that dates back to her career in Congress, and supported and implemented important green jobs training programs,” BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director David Foster said. “We need our next secretary of Labor to continue Hilda Solis’s strong legacy of advocating for American workers, and good, green jobs that leave a healthier future for our kids,” said Green For All CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins.
JACK LEW AND ENERGY: Obama’s pick for Treasury secretary has his own history in the energy industry, The Christian Science Monitor writes. “From 1988 to 1993, Lew was a partner at Van Ness Feldman, a Washington-based law firm focusing on energy and environment law. While at the firm, Lew specialized in issues related to power plant development.” CSM: https://bit.ly/13icEw1
HAPPY THURSDAY and welcome to Morning Energy, where it’s Oscar nomination day and your morning host is bracing in case “Promised Land” gets a nod and the press releases from both sides flow forth like a broken dam. Send your energy news to aguillen@politico.com, and follow on Twitter @alexcguillen, @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Energy.
GONE BABY GONE: Tongues are wagging on the Hill about the shakeup on the Republican side of the Environment and Public Works Committee (first reported yesterday by National Journal). New ranking member David Vitter (R-La.) is just beginning his reign, and he’s doing it with an almost entirely new staff. As many as a dozen members of Sen. Jim Inhofe’s EPW staff lost their jobs in the transition, with the exodus picking up around the holidays last month. The former staffer list includes senior economist James O’Keeffe and Inhofe’s longtime communicator Matt Dempsey. Inhofe’s longtime chief of staff Ruth Van Mark retired after the November elections, and several other staff positions had been left vacant prior to the transition, several staffers told ME.
The new team: Vitter’s legislative director Zak Baig took over as minority staff director, while his energy and environment counsel Bryan Zumwalt is now EPW chief counsel. Vitter brought on Margaret Caravelli as senior counsel for clean air from her post as a top advisor on the House Science Committee. Prior to that, Caravelli was counsel on E&C for Clean Air Act issues and lobbied for the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (not at the same time). The senator also snagged Kristina Moore as senior counsel on oversight from the National Automobile Dealers Association. Before that, Moore was senior counsel on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, focusing on energy, environment and regulatory issues. Professional staff hired on the committee also include Charles Brittingham, a Vitter transportation staffer, and Senate staffers Chris Tomassi, Peter Henry and Ward Cormier.
The old guard: The minority EPW team retained just two of Inhofe’s staff members: professional staffer Anna Burhop and counsel Dimitri Karakitsos. Several senate sources told ME that Karakitsos likely kept his spot due to a rare in-depth knowledge of chemicals reform issues; he has worked on TSCA reform for Inhofe, also a key priority for Vitter. One Democratic Senate staffer said Karakitsos “is a super nice guy; he's really well respected on both sides of the aisle.” The staffer characterized Karakitsos as “open minded” and a “problem-solver type” with detailed knowledge of the complicated policy behind chemicals regulation.
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: DOE spokesman Damien LaVera is moving to the green pastures of New York City to become a senior advisor and chief spokesman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. LaVera moved over to the DOE headquarters office after directing public affairs at the NNSA unit (where he led support for the New START treaty) only weeks before Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in 2011. ME is sure he’ll miss tussling with reporters about that issue. Tomorrow is his last day at DOE.
But wait, there’s more: Richard Kauffman, a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, will serve as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s “energy czar,” a cabinet-level position created by the governor as part of his 2013 agenda. … Brian Meinhart, a former aide to Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Scott Tipton, has joined the Western Energy Alliance as a policy analyst. … Michael Cuda has been elected a partner at the law firm Patton Boggs LLP. Cuda works on U.S. and international oil and gas drilling issues.
Speaking of Patton Boggs: The firm has also signed Arch Coal as a lobbying client, according to newly filed disclosures. Arch, which spent nearly $1.4 million on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2012, has employed Bracewell & Giuliani as a lobbyist for the past few years.
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT: DOE may be prepping to finally release its Blue Ribbon Commission-inspired nuclear waste implementation plan tomorrow, according to current and former agency sources. The plan was originally expected last July, but all Pete Lyons, DOE’s chief nuclear energy official, could tell lawmakers in September was that it would be out “soon.” White House revisions to the plan are believed to have dragged the process out, but any strategy is likely to support temporary waste storage and a call for the Congress to implement new laws. DOE wouldn't comment on the plan or its release date.
ME FIRST — UP IN THE AIR: The federal government invests too little into R&D, limits access to foreign scientific talent, and often hobbles tax credit programs like the PTC with repeated stops and restarts, according to a new report from the American Energy Innovation Council being released today and summarizing interviews with 17 R&D leaders. Since the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the PTC has been allowed to expire five times. Even though Congress has reinstated it retroactively, Scott Elrod, a lab director at Xerox’s R&D shop PARC, said the often short-term, uncertain nature of the credit has been a “total disaster for the renewables industry,” and that the inconsistency has undermined the economics of deploying large projects. The report: https://bit.ly/13i8Jzc
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: If you’re still jonesing for “State of the” addresses but can’t wait for the big one, U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue delivers his annual “State of American Business” address today at 9 a.m. Donohue’s address will portray energy as “America’s cash cow,” the Chamber tells ME. He’ll also push lawmakers and administration officials to open up new land for oil, gas and coal extraction and drop EPA regulations critics say harm the coal industry.
LOST HORIZON: President Obama has a lot to do when it comes to conservation, Jessica Goad and Christy Goldfuss of the Center for American Progress write today. “Just 2.6 million acres of public lands have been permanently protected during the Obama administration by both the president and Congress. Of this total, 186,000 acres were protected by the president using administrative authorities.” More: https://bit.ly/WB90WT IL POSTINO: From ME’s mailbag.
— Green groups including the Alaska Wilderness League, Friends of the Earth and NRDC wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday asking him to suspend Arctic oil and gas drilling in the wake of Shell’s issues in the region. https://bit.ly/VIJWyQ
— Some environmental and auto industry groups want the Obama administration to get a move on so-called Tier 3 regulations to further limit sulfur in gasoline, which they say would boost fuel efficiency and provide dramatic cuts to tail-pipe pollution: http://politico.pro/13iz0gM
— Meanwhile, the Clean Air Task Force has its own plans and plans to issue a policy letter to the president today laying out a detailed climate policy wish-list for Obama’s second administration and beyond, ME has learned.
AS GOOD AS IT GETS: White House press secretary Jay Carney dodged a question during his daily press briefing Wednesday about Jack Lew’s connection to the Solyndra loan guarantee during his time as OMB director. “You're trying to, in a back-end way, get me to talk about an announcement the president has not made. And I will leave it to the president to announce who his next Treasury secretary will be,” Carney said. “I will certainly say — and would have said this at any time in my tenure as press secretary — that Jack Lew's record has and continues to be stellar.”
THE RIGHT STUFF: The Energy Department selected the Ames Laboratory in Iowa to lead a new research “hub” specializing in rare earth and other materials critical to energy, technology and national security. The research hub will include a partnership between several national labs and universities, as well as industry partners such as GE and Molycorp Inc. The hub will receive $120 million over five years with the possibility of renewal. Details: http://1.usa.gov/13jniBy
THE GREEN MILE: EPA should develop a strategic plan for its new compliance initiative, GAO says in a new report on the agency’s efforts to increase transparency in its enforcement and compliance program, aimed at keeping the public better informed and thereby holding regulated industries accountable for their action. While the agency has completed several steps towards this goal, GAO says — and the agency agrees — that EPA needs a “strategic plan” to integrate new practices into its enforcement and compliance program. http://1.usa.gov/XOioNK
SPOTTED: Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, who is said to be in the running to take over for Lisa Jackson at EPA, was in town yesterday. Gregoire attended a Council of Governors meeting with several federal officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who is on the shortlist for Energy secretary.
WHAT ME IS READING: Patrick Doherty writes about a new “grand strategy” in Foreign Policy: “The halting logic of unwieldy climate negotiations will be supplanted by harnessing the greater force of economic self-interest: The United States will have to work with its partners to forge, implement, and verify a durable transition framework among the world's major economies.” http://atfp.co/VLXVWR
SALAZAR AT GUNS MEETING TODAY: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is at the White House today for a meeting with sportsmen and wildlife interest groups on the administration’s Newtown-inspired policy changes. Also at the meeting are Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.