Biden's National Climate Task Force Has First Official Meeting, Forms Climate Innovation Working Group

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:42:00 GMT

The White House National Climate Task Force, formed by a recent executive order, held its first meeting today. The first tweet from National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy’s official account displayed the participants.

Additionally, the White House announced the formation of the Climate Innovation Working Group as part of the Climate Task Force. The working group, co-chaired by the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, Office of Science of Technology and Policy, and Office of Management and Budget, will focus on climate technology research, development, and deployment.

According to the White House, the working group’s priorities will be:
  • zero net carbon buildings at zero net cost, including carbon-neutral construction materials;
  • energy storage at one-tenth the cost of today’s alternatives;
  • advanced energy system management tools to plan for and operate a grid powered by zero carbon power plants;
  • very low-cost zero carbon on-road vehicles and transit systems;
  • new, sustainable fuels for aircraft and ships, as well as improvements in broader aircraft and ship efficiency and transportation management;
  • affordable refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pumps made without refrigerants that warm the planet;
  • carbon-free heat and industrial processes that capture emissions for making steel, concrete, chemicals, and other important industrial products;
  • carbon-free hydrogen at a lower cost than hydrogen made from polluting alternatives;
  • innovative soil management, plant biologies, and agricultural techniques to remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the ground;
  • direct air capture systems and retrofits to existing industrial and power plant exhausts to capture carbon dioxide and use it to make alternative products or permanently sequester it deep underground.

As part of that initiative, the Department of Energy announced that $100 million of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) funds will be directed to the new ARPA-Climate initiative in support of basic research for advanced climate technology.

White House participants in today’s National Climate Task Force meeting:
  • Vice President Kamala Harris
  • John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
  • Gina McCarthy, White House National Climate Advisor
  • Ali Zaidi, deputy White House National Climate Advisor
  • Bruce Reed, White House Deputy Chief of Staff
  • David Hayes, special assistant to the president for climate policy
  • Sonia Aggarwal, Senior Advisor to the President for Climate Policy and Innovation
  • Susan Rice, Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council
  • Nicole Budzinski, Chief of Staff at Office of Management and Budget
  • Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council
  • Kei Koizumi, Chief of Staff and Acting Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy; during Obama administration was Assistant Director for Federal Research and Development and Senior Advisor to the Director for the National Science and Technology Council at OSTP
  • Cecilia Martinez, senior director for environmental justice, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ)
  • Mark Chambers, senior director for building emissions, CEQ; formerly director of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s sustainability office
  • Maggie Thomas, Chief of Staff, Office of Domestic Climate Policy
  • Jahi Wise, senior adviser for climate policy and finance in the Office of Domestic Climate Policy https://coalitionforgreencapital.com/cgcs-jahi-wise-heads-to-white-house-domestic-climate-policy-office/
Departmental participants:
  • Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation
  • Janet Yellen, Secretary of Treasury
  • Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense
  • Tarak Shah, Chief of Staff, Department of Energy
  • Katelyn Walker Mooney, Policy Advisor, Department of Labor, previously the associate general counsel for House labor committee Chairman Bobby Scott
  • Jenn Jones, Chief of Staff, Housing and Urban Development
  • Robert Bonnie, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Senior Advisor, Climate, Department of Agriculture
Unknown roles:
  • Raj Nayak; was on Biden Department of Labor transition team, and deputy Labor chief of staff during the Obama administration
  • Roque Sanchez; was on Biden DOE transition team, and a former White House climate advisor during the Obama administration
Officially, the members of the Climate Task Force are:
  • National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy
  • Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen
  • Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
  • Attorney General (Merrick Garland, nominated)
  • Secretary of the Interior (Deb Haaland, nominated)
  • Secretary of Agriculture (Tom Vilsack, nominated)
  • Secretary of Commerce (Gina Raimondo, nominated)
  • Secretary of Education (Miguel Cardona, nominated)
  • Secretary of Labor (Marty Walsh, nominated)
  • Secretary of Health and Human Services (Xavier Becerra, nominated)
  • Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (Marcia Fudge, nominated)
  • Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg
  • Secretary of Energy (Jennifer Granholm, nominated)
  • Secretary of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas, nominated)
  • Administrator of General Services (no nomination yet)
  • Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality (Brenda Mallory, nominated)
  • Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (Michael Regan, nominated)
  • Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Neera Tanden, nominated)
  • Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (Eric Lander, nominated)
  • Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy Susan Rice
  • Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Jake Sullivan
  • Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall
  • Assistant to the President for Economic Policy Brian Deese

Sanders, Blumenauer, and Ocasio-Cortez Introduce National Climate Emergency Act of 2021

Posted by Brad Johnson Thu, 04 Feb 2021 15:43:00 GMT

Legislation introduced today by Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calls on the President of the United States to declare a national climate emergency and begin taking action in line with the goals of the Green New Deal resolution introduced in 2019.

The National Climate Emergency Act mandates a presidential declaration of a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, and directs the president to mobilize the nation for climate and economic justice, rebuilding the national labor movement to protect the habitability of our planet.

To ensure accountability to Congress and the American people, the National Climate Emergency Act requires that the president deliver a report within one year of the bill’s enactment (and then every year thereafter until the emergency sunsets) that details the specific actions taken by the executive branch to combat the climate emergency and restore the climate for future generations.

As detailed in the legislation, this should include, but is not limited to, investments in large scale mitigation and resiliency projects, upgrades to public infrastructure, modernization of millions of buildings to cut pollution, investments in public health, protections for public lands, regenerative agriculture investments that support local and regional food systems, and more.

“It might be a good idea for President Biden to call a climate emergency,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last week. “Trump used this emergency for a stupid wall, which wasn’t an emergency. But if there ever was an emergency, climate is one.”

The legislation introduced today is supported by dozens of climate justice organizations including 350.org, Center for Biological Diversity, The Climate Mobilization, Food & Water Watch, Labor Network for Sustainability, Progressive Democrats of America, Public Citizen, Sunrise Movement, Justice Democrats, Greenpeace, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Align NY, Friends of Earth, and Climate Justice Alliance.

“We are at a life changing, civilization altering moment in our history, as we face a climate crisis that demands a thunderous voice and a full mobilization of every sector to match its scale and its urgency – all while serving as a great opportunity to build a more just and prosperous country,” said Varshini Prakash, Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement. “This bill is a good sign that our leaders are finally understanding what young people and climate activists have been shouting from the rooftops for years – that the fires that burned our homes to rubble, the floods that took our family and friends with them, are a climate emergency, and bold action must be done now to save our humanity and our future.”

“We’re already in a five-alarm emergency for communities on the frontlines of fossil fuel pollution and the climate crisis,” said John Noël, senior climate campaigner of Greenpeace USA. “Our government has squandered precious time in the fight for a liveable planet, and now we need legislation like the Climate Emergency Act to kick things into gear. Congress must mobilize in full force to declare a climate emergency then immediately act to end fossil fuel subsidies and reinstate the crude oil export ban. We have the unprecedented opportunity this year to advance climate, racial, and economic justice, and to create millions of union jobs in the process. This historic legislation is just step one.”

“Obstruction, corporate greed, and denial has left us with just 10 years to rapidly transition off fossil fuels and toward a 100% clean and renewable energy economy,” said Alexandra Rojas, Executive Director, Justice Democrats. “There’s no time to waste in declaring this a national emergency and taking swift action to create millions of good-paying union jobs in the process.”

Full text of the legislation:

A BILL: To require the President to declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘‘National Climate Emergency Act of 2021’’ or the ‘‘Climate Emergency Act of 2021’’.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:
  1. The years 2010 to 2019 were the hottest decade on record.
  2. Global atmospheric concentrations of the primary global warming pollutant, carbon dioxide—
    1. have increased by 40 percent since preindustrial times, from 280 parts per million to 415 parts per million, primarily due to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation;
    2. are rising at a rate of 2 to 3 parts per million annually; and
    3. must be reduced to not more than 350 parts per million, and likely lower, ‘‘if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,’’ according to former National Aeronautics and Space Administration climatologist Dr. James Hansen.
  3. Global atmospheric concentrations of other global warming pollutants, including methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrofluorocarbons, have also increased substantially since preindustrial times, primarily due to human activities, including the burning of fossil fuels.
  4. Climate science and observations of climate change impacts, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, floods, droughts, wildfires, and extreme weather, demonstrate that a global rise in temperature of 1.5 degree Celsius above preindustrial levels is already having dangerous impacts on human populations and the environment.
  5. According to the 2018 National Climate Assessment, climate change due to global warming has caused, and is expected to continue to cause, substantial interference with and growing losses to human health and safety, infrastructure, property, industry, recreation, natural resources, agricultural systems, and quality of life in the United States.
  6. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, climate change is already increasing the frequency of extreme weather and other climate-related disasters, including drought, wildfire, and storms that include precipitation.
  7. Climate-related natural disasters have increased exponentially over the past decade, costing the United States more than double the long-term average during the period of 2014 through 2018, with total costs of natural disasters during that period of approximately $100,000,000,000 per year.
  8. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are wide-ranging, acute, and fatal public health consequences from climate change that impact communities across the United States.
  9. According to the National Climate and Health Assessment of the United States Global Change Research Program, climate change is a significant threat to the health of the people of the United States, leading to increased—
    1. temperature-related deaths and illnesses;
    2. air quality impacts;
    3. extreme weather events;
    4. numbers of vector-borne diseases;
    5. waterborne illnesses;
    6. food safety, nutrition, and distribution complications; and
    7. mental health and well-being concerns.
  10. The consequences of climate change already disproportionately impact frontline communities and endanger populations made especially vulnerable by existing exposure to extreme weather events, such as children, the elderly, and individuals with pre-existing disabilities and health conditions.
  11. Individuals and families on the frontlines of climate change across the United States, including territories, living with income inequality and poverty, institutional racism, inequity on the basis of gender and sexual orientation, poor infrastructure, and lack of access to health care, housing, clean water, and food security are often in close proximity to environmental stressors or sources of pollution, particularly communities of color, indigenous communities, and low-income communities, which—
    1. are often the first exposed to the impacts of climate change;
    2. experience outsized risk because of the close proximity of the community to environmental hazards and stressors, in addition to collocation with waste and other sources of pollution; and
    3. have the fewest resources to mitigate those impacts or to relocate, which will exacerbate preexisting challenges.
  12. According to Dr. Beverly Wright and Dr. Robert Bullard, ‘‘environmental and public health threats from natural and human-made disasters are not randomly distributed, affecting some communities more than others,’’ and therefore a response to the climate emergency necessitates the adoption of policies and processes rooted in principles of racial equity, self-determination, and democracy, as well as the fundamental human rights of all people to clean air and water, healthy food, adequate land, education, and shelter, as promulgated in the 1991 Principles of Environmental Justice.
  13. Climate change holds grave and immediate consequences not just for the population of the United States, including territories, but for communities across the world, particularly those communities in the Global South on the frontlines of the climate crisis that are at risk of forced displacement.
  14. Communities in rural, urban, and suburban areas are all dramatically affected by climate change, though the specific economic, health, social, and environmental impacts may be different.
  15. The Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community have identified climate change as a threat to national security, and the Department of Homeland Security views climate change as a top homeland security risk.
  16. Climate change is a threat multiplier with the potential—
    1. to exacerbate many of the challenges the United States already confronts, including conflicts over scarce resources, conditions conducive to violent extremism, and the spread of infectious diseases; and
    2. to produce new, unforeseeable challenges in the future.
  17. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in 2018 that the Earth could warm 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels as early as 2030.
  18. The climatic changes resulting from global warming above 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, including changes resulting from global warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, are projected to result in irreversible, catastrophic changes to public health, livelihoods, quality of life, food security, water supplies, human security, and economic growth.
  19. The United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found in 2019 that human-induced climate change is pushing the planet toward the sixth mass species extinction, which threatens the food security, water supply, and well-being of billions of people.
  20. According to climate scientists, limiting global warming to not more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and likely lower, is most likely to avoid irreversible and catastrophic climate change.
  21. Even with global warming up to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the planet is projected to experience—
    1. a significant rise in sea levels;
    2. extraordinary loss of biodiversity; and
    3. intensifying droughts, floods, wildfires, and other extreme weather events.
  22. According to climate scientists, addressing the climate emergency will require an economically just phase-out of the use of oil, gas, and coal in order to keep the carbon that is the primary constituent of fossil fuels in the ground and out of the atmosphere.
  23. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has determined that limiting warming through emissions reduction and carbon sequestration will require rapid and immediate acceleration and proliferation of ‘‘far-reaching, multilevel, and cross-sectoral climate mitigation’’ and ‘‘transitions in energy, land, urban and rural infrastructure (including transport and buildings), and industrial systems’’.
  24. In the United States, massive, comprehensive, and urgent governmental action is required immediately to achieve the transitions of those systems in response to the severe existing and projected economic, social, public health, and national security threats posed by the climate crisis.
  25. The massive scope and scale of action necessary to stabilize the climate will require unprecedented levels of public awareness, engagement, and deliberation to develop and implement effective, just, and equitable policies to address the climate crisis.
  26. The Constitution of the United States protects the fundamental rights to life, liberty, property, and equal protection of the laws.
  27. A climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society, and is preservative of fundamental rights, including the rights to life, liberty, property, personal security, family autonomy, bodily integrity, and the ability to learn, practice, and transmit cultural and religious traditions.
  28. The United States has a proud history of collaborative, constructive, massive-scale Federal mobilizations of resources and labor in order to solve great challenges, such as the Interstate Highway System, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, Reconstruction, the New Deal, and World War II.
  29. The United States stands uniquely poised to substantially grow the economy and attain social and health benefits from a massive mobilization of resources and labor that far outweigh the costs climate change will inflict as a result of inaction.
  30. Millions of middle class jobs can be created by raising labor standards through project labor agreements and protecting and expanding the right of workers to organize so that workers in the United States and the communities of those workers are guaranteed a strong, viable economic future in a zero-emissions economy that guarantees good jobs at fair union wages with quality benefits.
  31. Frontline communities, Tribal governments and communities, people of color, and labor unions must be equitably and actively engaged in the climate mobilization, in such a way that aligns with the 1996 Jemez Principles of Democratic Organizing, and prioritized through local climate mitiga tion and adaptation planning, policy, and program delivery so that workers in the United States, and the communities of those workers, are guaranteed a strong, viable economic future.
  32. A number of local jurisdictions and governments in the United States, including New York City and Los Angeles, and across the world, including the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Portugal, and Canada, have already declared a climate emergency, and a number of State and local governments are considering declaring a climate emergency.
  33. State, local, and Tribal governments must be supported in efforts to hold to account those whose activities have deepened and accelerated the climate crisis and who have benefitted from delayed action to address the climate change emergency and to develop a clean energy economy.
  34. A collaborative response to the climate crisis will require the Federal Government to work with international, State, and local governments, including with those governments that have declared a climate emergency, to reverse the impacts of the climate crisis.
  35. The United States has an obligation, as a primary driver of accelerated climate change, to mobilize at emergency speed to restore a safe climate and environment not just for communities of the United States but for communities across the world, particularly those on the frontlines of the climate crisis which have least contributed to the crisis, and to account for global and community impacts of any actions it takes in response to the climate crisis.
SEC. 3. EMERGENCY DECLARATION.
  1. IN GENERAL.—The President shall declare a national emergency under section 201 of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1621) with respect to climate change.
  2. RESPONSE.—In responding to the national emergency declared pursuant to subsection (a), the President shall ensure that the Federal Government—
    1. invests in large scale mitigation and resiliency projects, including projects that—
      1. upgrade the public infrastructure to expand access to clean and affordable energy, transportation, high-speed broadband, and water, particularly for public systems;
      2. modernize and retrofit millions of homes, schools, offices, and industrial buildings to cut pollution and costs;
      3. invest in public health, in preparation for and in response to increasingly extreme climatic events;
      4. protect and restore wetlands, forests, public lands, and other natural climate solutions;
      5. create opportunities for farmers and rural communities, including by bolstering regenerative agriculture, and invest in local and regional food systems that support farmers, agricultural workers, healthy soil, and climate resilience;
      6. develop and transform the industrial base of the United States, while creating high-skill, high-wage manufacturing jobs across the country, including by expanding manufacturing of clean technologies, reducing industrial pollution, and prioritizing clean, domestic manufacturing for the aforementioned investments; and
      7. establish new employment programs, as necessary, to meet the goals described in subparagraphs (A) through (F);
    2. makes investments that enable—
      1. a racially and socially just transition to a clean energy economy by ensuring that at least 40 percent of investments flow to historically disadvantaged communities;
      2. greenhouse gas emission reductions;
      3. resilience in the face of climate change impacts;
      4. a racially and socially just transition to a clean energy economy;
      5. small business support, especially for women and minority-owned businesses; and
      6. the expansion of public services;
    3. avoids solutions that—
      1. increase inequality;
      2. exacerbate, or fail to reduce, pollution at source;
      3. violate human rights;
      4. privatize public lands, water, or nature;
      5. expedite the destruction of ecosystems; or
      6. decrease union density or membership;
    4. creates jobs that conform to labor standards that—
      1. provide family-sustaining wages and benefits;
      2. ensure safe workplaces;
      3. protect the rights of workers to organize; and
      4. prioritize the hiring of local workers to ensure wages stay within communities and stimulate local economic activity;
    5. prioritizes local and equitable hiring and contracting that creates opportunities for—
      1. communities of color and indigenous communities;
      2. women;
      3. veterans;
      4. LGBTQIA+ individuals;
      5. disabled and chronically ill individuals;
      6. formerly incarcerated individuals; and
      7. otherwise marginalized communities;
    6. combats environmental injustice, including by—
      1. curtailing air, water, and land pollution from all sources;
      2. removing health hazards from communities;
      3. remediating the cumulative health and environmental impacts of toxic pollution and climate change;
      4. ensuring that affected communities have equitable access to public health resources that have been systemically denied to communities of color and Indigenous communities; and
      5. upholding the fundamental rights of all Americans from the perils of climate change; and
    7. reinvests in existing public sector institutions and creates new public sector institutions, inspired by and improving upon New Deal-era institutions by addressing historic inequities, to strategically and coherently mobilize and channel investments at the scale and pace required by the national emergency declared pursuant to subsection (a).
  3. REPORT.—Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, and every year thereafter, the President shall submit to Congress a report describing actions taken in response to the national emergency declared pursuant to subsection (a).

Biden Names Joe Bryan as Climate Advisor for Department of Defense

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 03 Feb 2021 18:42:00 GMT

The Department of Defense has named Joseph Bryan its Senior Advisor on Climate, joining several other agencies with this new position.

Joe Bryan, formally appointed as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy during the Obama administration starting in 2014, coming from the U.S. Senate where he was a military issues staffer. He started his career in energy and mining policy, with jobs in South Africa and Namibia, after earning a masters in energy and environmental policy from the University of Delaware.

After leaving the Obama administration, Bryan joined the Atlantic Council as a senior fellow and founded Muswell Orange, LLC, a one-man clean-energy consultancy. In recent years he wrote numerous pieces and offered testimony on climate change, clean energy, and the military.

In one piece he wrote: “Mitigating the worst impacts of climate change ultimately depends on significant reductions in global carbon emissions. The United States should rejoin the international community and recommit to aggressive cuts in CO2.”

He has also emphasized the strategic issue of the minerals supply chain for batteries and other renewable-energy technology.

Additionally, climate hawk Andy Oare was named the director of digital media for the Department of Defense. During the Obama administration, he was part of the digital media and outreach team for the Department of Energy.

Bryan’s biographical details:

Joseph M. Bryan was appointed as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy in November 2014. Mr. Bryan served as the Secretariat focal point on all matters pertaining to the Department of Navy’s energy initiatives.

Mr. Bryan joined the Department of the Navy from the United States Senate where he served in several professional staff roles. Most recently, Mr. Bryan was the Investigations Team Lead for the Committee on Armed Services. During his tenure, the committee completed investigations into cyber intrusions affecting U.S. Transportation Command contractors, U.S. costs and allied contributions to support the U.S. military presence overseas, the presence of counterfeit electronic parts in the military supply chain, the use of private security contractors in Afghanistan, and the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

From 2005 to January 2007, Mr. Bryan served on the Select Committee on Intelligence, where he advised Senator Carl Levin on legal, policy, and programmatic issues affecting the U.S. Intelligence Community. He also represented Senator Levin in legislative negotiations and investigations into pre-Iraq war intelligence.

From 2001 to April 2005, he was responsible for legislative issues related to Senate Judiciary and Governmental Affairs Committees, including judicial nominations, criminal justice, legal reform, and federal employees.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Bryan worked at the University of Cape Town’s Energy and Development Research Center, Cape Town, South Africa. In this position, he coordinated research and briefings for Chairman of the South African Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Minerals and Energy on the development and regulation of domestic energy industries. He also advised Namibian Ministry of Minerals and Energy on the development of a white paper to guide development of national energy policy.

Mr. Bryan earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1991 from Fordham University and a Master of Arts in Urban Affairs and Public Policy, with a focus on energy and environmental policy from the University of Delaware.

Biden Administration Names Climate Advisors at NASA, SEC, USDA, GSA

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 03 Feb 2021 14:21:00 GMT


Administration names Gavin Schmidt, Robert Bonnie, Sonal Larsen, Satyam Khanna climate advisors (clockwise from top left)
President Joe Biden is continuing to build out an administration-wide climate infrastructure with new appointments. This interagency “climate cabinet,” anchored by National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in the White House, looks to extend to every department. Here are the recent announcement for four diverse agencies:



National Aeronautic and Space Administration: Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, will serve in the newly created position of senior climate advisor. Schmidt has been GISS director since 2014. His main research interest is the use of climate modeling to understand past, present, and future climate change, and he has authored or co-authored more than 150 research papers in peer-reviewed literature. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was the inaugural winner of the AGU Climate Communication Prize in 2011. He also was awarded NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal in 2017. He has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Oxford University and a doctorate in applied mathematics from University College London.

Securities and Exchange Commission: Satyam Khanna will serve as Senior Policy Advisor for Climate and Environmental and Social Governance. Khanna was most recently a resident fellow at NYU School of Law’s Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance and served on the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition’s Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators Agency Review Team. He was previously a member of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee, where he served on the Investor-As-Owner Subcommittee, and was a senior advisor to the Principles for Responsible Investment. Prior to that, he served as Counsel to SEC Commissioner Robert J. Jackson Jr. Earlier in his career, Khanna was a member of the staff of the Financial Stability Oversight Council at the U.S. Treasury Department and was a litigation associate at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery. He is a graduate of Columbia Law School and Washington University in St. Louis. He was also a blogger at ThinkProgress for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

U.S. Department of Agriculture: Robert Bonnie was named Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Senior Advisor, Climate, in the Office of the Secretary: Most recently Bonnie served as an executive in residence at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University. Previously, he served as Director of the Farm and Forests Carbon Solutions Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, where worked to develop new initiatives to combat the climate crisis through agricultural innovation. During the Obama Administration, he served as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment and as a Senior Advisor to Secretary Vilsack for climate and the environment. He worked at the Environmental Defense Fund for 14 years. Bonnie holds a master’s degree in forestry and environmental management from Duke University, and a bachelor’s from Harvard College.

General Services Administration: Sonal Kemkar Larsen, formerly a national advisor for the mayoral level City Energy Project partnership in Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker’s sustainability office. She was a former official at both the White House Council of Environmental Quality and at the Department of Energy. Previously she was a sustainability consultant at the United Nations Environment Program in Bangkok. She will play a role as senior advisor on Climate.

Climate Envoy John Kerry: "We Have a Huge Methane Problem, Folks"

Posted by Brad Johnson Fri, 29 Jan 2021 16:09:00 GMT

Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum, US Climate Envoy John Kerry offered a strong critique of natural gas: “Gas is primarily methane, and we have a huge methane problem, folks.”

Kerry was responding to Shell CEO Ben van Breundel’s argument that the US government should reduce demand for fossil fuels and not take action to reduce production by companies like Shell.

UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed offered an even more blunt criticism of van Breundel’s argument that we can drill our way out of global warming: “You can’t be talking about new [fossil-fuel exploration and production], when the science tells you have to reduce that production 6 percent per annum and you’re increasing by 2 percent.”

Climate Envoy John Kerry Remarks at U.N. Climate Adaptation Summit

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 26 Jan 2021 22:01:00 GMT

Remarks by U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry at the opening of the Climate Adaptation Summit 2021.

Transcript:
It’s a privilege to be able to be with you. And let me start by thanking Prime Minister Rutte and the government of the Netherlands for hosting this important and timely meeting.

I’m really delighted to be here. I also want to thank, if I may, Secretary General Guterres for his tireless leadership on climate change. And of course my friend Ban Ki-Moon, who was central as we negotiated the Paris agreement and brought it into force. And he’s been a partner not just on climate but on many other things and challenges.

Three years ago, scientists gave us a pretty stark warning. They said we have 12 years within which to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. Now we have nine years left. And I regret that my country has been absent for three of those years.

In the United States, we spent 265 billion dollars in one year for three storms, just cleaning up after those storms. Last year, one storm, 55 billion dollars.

We’ve reached the point where it is an absolute fact that it’s cheaper to invest in preventing damage, or minimizing it at least, than cleaning up. Now, without question, I think, everybody understands this, the best adaptation is to treat the crisis as the emergency that it is and do more to hold the earth’s temperature increase to the Paris-stated 1.5 degrees. I think scientists are more and more landing on the 1.5 as a critical figure.

A 3.7 to 4.5 increase centigrade, which is exactly the path that we are on now, invites for the most vulnerable and poorest people on earth fundamentally unlivable conditions. So our urgent reduction of emissions is compelled by public conscience and by common sense. President Biden has made fighting climate change a top priority of his administration. We have a president now, thank God, who leads, tells the truth, and is seized by this issue.

And President Biden knows that we have to mobilize in unprecedented ways to meet a challenge that is fast accelerating. And he knows we have limited time to get it under control. For that reason, the United States immediately rejoined the Paris agreement. And we intend to do everything we possibly can to ensure that COP26 results in ambitious climate action, in which all major-emitter countries raise ambitions significantly, and in which we help protect those who are the most vulnerable.

We have already launched our work to prepare a new U.S. nationally determined contribution that meets the urgency of the challenge. And we aim to announce our NDC as soon as practicable.

The administration also intends to make significant investments in climate action, both domestically and as part of our efforts to build back better from COVID. And internationally, we intend to make good on our climate finance pledge.

In the long term driving towards net zero emissions no later than 2050, and keeping a 1.5 degree limit within reach remain the best policies for climate resilience and adaptation. There is simply no adapting to a three or four degree world except for the very richest and most privileged. At the same time, we have to also build resilience to protect communities from the impacts of climate change that already built in to the emissions that are in the atmosphere.

Now some of these impacts are inevitable, because of the warming that’s already taken place. But if we don’t act boldly and immediately by building resilience to climate change, we are likely going to see dramatic reversals in economic development for everybody. Poor and climate-vulnerable communities everywhere will obviously pay the highest price.

So the United States will work on three fronts to promote ambition and resilience and adaptation: leverage U.S. innovation and climate data and information to promote a better understanding and management of climate risk, especially in developed countries; we will significantly increase the flow of finance, including concessional finance, to adaptation and resilience initiatives; we will work with bilateral and multilateral institutions to improve quality of resilience programming; and we will work with the private sector, in the United States and elsewhere in developing countries, to promote greater collaboration between businesses and the communities on which they depend.

And it is our firm conviction throughout all of our administration every agency is now part of our climate team. And only together are we going to be able to build the resilience to climate change that is critical to save lives and meet our moral obligation for future generations, and to those currently living in very difficult circumstances. So we’re proud to be back. We come back, I want you to know, with humility, for the absence of the last four years, and we’ll do everything in our power to make up for it.

Green New Appalachia: The Smart Way To Sell Climate Action To Joe Manchin

Posted by Billy Fleming Fri, 08 Jan 2021 04:40:00 GMT

This post is an expanded version of a Twitter thread.

With the pair of Democratic U.S. Senate victories in Georgia, the Democratic Party will have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress come January 20th. West Virginia’s Democratic senator, Joe Manchin, will become the chair of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and will hold tremendous power over any climate legislation.

While I’m sure that part of bribing Manchin to go along with a series of climate bills as bold as President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign platform will require funds for coal-industry boondoggles like direct air capture and carbon-capture sequestration, as well as for advanced nuclear technology, we ought to be a bit more creative than that.

Here are a few other ideas to consider:
  • New funds for building pumped hydroelectric storage facilities in Appalachia. These use abandoned coal mines to create a low-tech battery for renewable energy storage, pumping water into the uphill mines when production is high and releasing it through turbines when it wanes.
  • Ending the federal grant program that incentivizes converting abandoned strip mines into federal prisons. Those funds should go toward building up the clean energy and electrovoltaic manufacturing facilities in Appalachia on sites that have already been cleared or flattened sites that are adjacent to transportation infrastructure.
  • Decommissioning the network of prisons in Appalachia, converting their onsite and resilient electricity generation infrastructure into community-based electric co-ops. Every prison there has the ability to island itself off from the grid and power itself. Give that power to the people of Appalachia.
  • Investing in the now-closed north-south railway that could connect Appalachia to Atlanta in the South, Pittsburgh to the North, Columbus and St. Louis to the West, and the entire northeast corridor to the East. A massive corridor already exists and just needs track upgrades for it to be active.
  • Offering Appalachia up as the first pilot site for a new Climate Conservation Corps that puts people to work capping orphaned wells, remediating brownfield and other toxic sites, and reforesting the hiking, hunting, and other recreational landscapes of the region.

The best part of it all is that “bribing” Joe Manchin to go along with a more progressive climate agenda is really just a way of driving investment to some of the people and places that need it most—in this case, Central Appalachia.

Billy Fleming is the Wilks Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center in the Weitzman School of Design. and a senior fellow with Data for Progress.

Biden Transition Packed With Climate Hawks

Posted by Brad Johnson Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:06:00 GMT

Even though the loser of the presidential election, Donald Trump, continues his quest for autogolpe, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team is hard at work preparing his new administration. Among the hundreds of staff and volunteers comprising the agency review teams are dozens of climate hawks. These are people with significant experience in climate policy and politics. Some have careers rooted in environmental justice, while others are technologists.

Cabinet departments are listed in order of creation, an approximate reflection of their power and significance within the federal government. This post will be continually updated.

State (nominee: Tony Blinken)

Treasury (nominee: Janet Yellen)

  • Andy Green, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer from 2014 to 2015 and a longtime counsel for U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), worked on pricing climate risk while at the SEC. As a Center for American Progress fellow, he has been an outspoken advocate for ending the financing of carbon polluters.
  • Marisa Lago, former Assistant Secretary for International Markets and Development, has experience with international climate finance as well as urban climate adaptation planning. Lago is presently the director of city planning for New York City, having held similar roles in the 1990s for Boston and New York City. Before joining the Obama administration, Lago was Global Head of Compliance for Citigroup after a similar role at the S.E.C. running the Office of International Affairs.
  • Damon Silvers, long-time counsel and policy director for the AFL-CIO, has served on the board of Ceres for many years, advocating for labor’s interests in a green economy. He received his B.A., M.B.A., and J.D. from Harvard University and supported worker and divestment campaigns while a student there.
Defense (nominee: Gen. Lloyd Austin) Justice
  • Prominent environmental law scholar Richard Lazarus, a Harvard Law professor. His most recent book, The Law of Five, reviews the landmark Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court case which affirmed that greenhouse emissions are pollution. He served as the executive director of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Future of Offshore Drilling. In 1992, he was part of Clinton’s transition team for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In a recent interview, he stated, “There’s no greater problem that overwhelms us these days in environmental law than climate change.”
Interior (nominee: Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.))
  • Maggie Thomas is the political director at Evergreen Action, a climate advocacy group run by veterans of Jay Inslee’s presidential campaign. Thomas was climate policy advisor for the Elizabeth Warren campaign after Inslee’s campaign ended, where she was deputy climate director. She joined Inslee’s campaign from Tom Steyer’s NextGen America organization. She holds a B.S. in biology and environmental management from Trinity College and a masters in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
  • Kate Kelly served in the Obama administration as senior adviser to and communications director for Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell. She is the director of public lands at the Center for American Progress. Previously, she was communications director for Sen. Arlen Spector (R-Penn.) She has written on how the United States can equitably abandon fossil-fuel extraction and embrace renewable energy development on public lands.
  • Elizabeth Johnson Klein, an environmental attorney and former Deputy Assistant Secretary at Interior for Policy, Management & Budget during the Obama administration and served as assistant to the Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton administration. Klein is now the Deputy Director of the State Energy & Environmental Impact Center at NYU School of Law. For years she worked with Obama and Clinton Interior official David Hayes, the center’s director. She received her B.A. in economics from George Washington University and her JD from American University, where she was president of the Environmental Law Society. She has written on environmental justice and the dire need for climate leadership.
  • Robert (Bob) Anderson is a legal scholar whose career has been focused on protecting Native American water rights and environmental protection. In 2016, he reviewed the Dakota Access Pipeline conflict, noting that “the colonial process is on full display.” (He also wryly noted, “One might think that a multi-state project to carry a toxic substance would require an extensive federal appraisal, safety, and permitting process. Not so here.”)
Agriculture (nominee: Tom Vilsack)
  • Team lead Robert Bonnie, former U.S.D.A. Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment and Senior Advisor to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack for environment and climate change, is the co-author of the Climate 21 Project’s U.S.D.A. chapter, which lays out a comprehensive climate agenda for the agency. Now a scholar at Duke University’s environmental policy institute, Bonnie was formerly the vice president for land conservation for the Environmental Defense Fund. He has a master’s in environmental management from Duke and a B.A. from Harvard.
  • Meryl Harrell, now the executive director at Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, worked for Bonnie at the U.S.D.A. and was his co-author on the Climate 21 Project chapter. She has a B.A. in geoscience and environmental studies from Princeton and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
  • Jonathan Coppess, former chief counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee and administrator of the U.S.D.A. Farm Service Agency, has worked on biofuels programs including the Renewable Fuels Standard and biomass crops as well as several land, water, and soil conservation programs for farmers.
  • Andrea Delgado is a co-founder of Green Latinos, a national Latino environmental justice organization. Currently the chief lobbyist for the United Farm Workers Foundation, she was previously legislative director of the Healthy Communities program at Earthjustice.
  • John Padalino is the former administrator for USDA’s Rural Utilities Service, having also served as Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary for Rural Development to Acting Principal Deputy General Counsel in the department. He works on rural water and electric cooperatives and is now general counsel to Bandera Electric Cooperative, a rural Texas electricity provider that has been working on smart grids and solar deployment for its members.
  • Jeffrey Prieto is a long-time Department of Justice environmental lawyer who helped set up its environmental justice division. He rose to general counsel at USDA during the Obama administration. He is presently general counsel for the Los Angeles Community College District.
Commerce
  • Karen Hyun, Ph.D. is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Department of the Interior and was Interior Secretary John Bryson’s senior policy adviser on energy and environment issues. She is now Vice President for Coastal Conservation at the National Audubon Society. She has a Ph.D. in Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island M.S. and B.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University.
  • Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., former NOAA administrator. Both an oceanographer and astronaut, she is the only human to have both walked in space and visited the Challenger Deep. She served as NOAA’s chief scientist during the Clinton administration. She received her bachelor’s in earth sciences from U.C. Santa Cruz and her Ph.D. in geology from Dalhousie University. She has written on the urgency of the climate crisis and fought attempts by climate denier Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) to hobble her agency.
  • Political scientist Todd Tucker, director of governance studies at the Roosevelt Institute, author of The Green New Deal: A Ten-Year Window to Reshape International Economic Law. Tucker has a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University and a PhD from the University of Cambridge. He was the long time research director at Public Citizen.
  • Kris Sarri, President and CEO, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. She was a climate and oceans Senate staffer with Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) from 2006 to 2010, and worked in the Obama administration as chief climate and oceans staff in the Commerce Department, and rose to senior positions at the Office of Management and Budget and Interior. An Ann Arbor native, she received her MS and MPH from the University of Michigan and BA from Washington University in St Louis.
  • Dr. Sandra Whitehouse, oceanographer and marine policy expert who has studied the impacts of climate change on our oceans. She is a senior policy advisor for the Nature Conservancy and the wife of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). Dr. Whitehouse holds a B.S. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in biological oceanography from the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. As her husband has done on the Senate floor, Dr. Whitehouse has raised the alarm about the crisis of climate pollution. “We are just beginning to understand the far-reaching impacts temperature change is having on ecosystems and wildlife. We are seeing the entire collapse of deep-sea ecosystems, and we don’t know what those ramifications are.”

Labor

  • Josh Orton, senior policy advisor to climate champion Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). As Orton said when Sanders unveiled his climate plan during his presidential campaign, “This threat is beyond ideology — it’s a question of life and death.”

Health and Human Services none

Housing and Urban Development none

Transportation

  • Patty Monahan, lead commissioner on transportation for the California Energy Commission. Monahan has worked on clean transportation policy and advocacy for the Energy Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She received a B.S. in environmental studies from U.C. Berkeley and an M.S. from the Energy Analysis and Policy program of the University of Wisconsin. Monahan: “Climate Change was and remains the single biggest problem facing our world and energy is a major piece of the puzzle.”
  • Dr. Austin Brown, executive director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, the Environment, and the Economy. Brown was the Assistant Director for Clean Energy and Transportation in the Obama White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has also worked in the Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He holds a B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford University. He is working towards a zero-carbon transportation sector.

Biden Names John Kerry As Special Climate Envoy, With Seat on National Security Council

Posted by Brad Johnson Mon, 23 Nov 2020 21:08:00 GMT

President-elect Joe Biden has named former senator and Secretary of State John Kerry as his special envoy for climate, sitting on the National Security Council. Throughout his long career of public service, Kerry has been an ardent environmentalist who seeks to find common ground through diplomacy. His approach has found greater success on the international stage than with American conservatives, despite repeated attempts.

As a Massachusetts senator, Kerry worked desperately to salvage climate legislation when it was abandoned by the Obama White House following the Tea Party uprising of 2009. Lacking a unified Democratic caucus, Kerry tried without success to find Republican votes for climate legislation by working with former running mate Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

As Obama’s second Secretary of State, John Kerry’s diplomatic leadership was key to the successful Paris agreement, which marked a dramatic turnaround from the 2009 debacle of the Copenhagen climate talks. His support for killing the Canada-to-US Keystone XL tar-sands pipeline – in response to powerful pressure from climate activists – was also a change in direction from Kerry’s predecessor Hillary Clinton, who fast-tracked the permit process for the project. Like Clinton, however, Secretary of State Kerry was bullish on fracking as a means of energy diplomacy, despite its threat to the climate.

Kerry’s diplomatic approach has borne less fruit at home. Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump mocked Secretary Kerry for calling global warming “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction,” presaging the burn-it-all-down Trump presidency.

During the Trump years, Kerry founded a new organization called World War Zero, still attempting to find Republicans to get on board with climate action. Although Kerry’s organization supposedly intends to build a broad coalition of climate activists, World War Zero’s Republican participants include climate-science skeptic John Kasich, who mocks youth climate activists and vilifies the Green New Deal.

In his role Kerry will face several challenges unresolved by previous administrations. To date, immigration, trade, peace, and climate policy have been treated as wholly distinct milieus by government and advocates alike. Remarkably, even energy and climate diplomacy have largely operated on parallel tracks, with clashing agendas.

A critical test will be whether Kerry has say over international trade agreements which have always trumped climate negotiations. The so-called free-trade agenda has rendered international climate deals moot.

Similarly, it remains to be seen if Kerry will be an effective spokesman for the global South as it is ravaged by fossil-fueled storms and floods and drought, destabilizing governments and fueling the global migration crisis.

The military euphemism is that climate pollution is a “threat multiplier” – in other words, global conflict is now defined by the devastation to human civilization that results from the industrial destabilization of a habitable climate.

In response to this rising destabilization, right-wing movements around the globe have seized on the politics of militarized nativism and environmental exploitation, described approvingly by white-nationalist ecologist Garrett Hardin as “lifeboat ethics” in 1974.

One hopes that Kerry’s position on the National Security Council could mean the US military may shift away from its longtime role as the armed protection for the global oil industry. Kerry is highly interested in the military’s role during the Anthropocene. With his World War Zero campaign, Kerry has brought together a long list of military brass and former Defense Department officials.

Unfortunately, the primary narrative for climate policy within military circles is one of responding to the rising threats of climate destruction, with little to no engagement in ending climate pollution.

Of course, Kerry can’t guide international climate policy on his own. The makeup of Biden’s team will determine what is possible.

Rahm Emanuel, the neoliberal who was instrumental in killing White House support for climate legislation as Obama’s chief of staff, is being considered for U.S. Trade Representative. His selection would be a devastating setback.

Biden campaign advisor Heather Zichal, who has become notorious for joining the fracked-gas industry after leaving the Obama White House, came to prominence as the top Kerry climate policy staffer on his presidential campaign and in his Senate office. Zichal has been mentioned as a possible high-level staffer in the Biden White House despite broad opposition from climate activists.

Biden’s pick for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, began his career studying fossil-fuel geopolitics. He wrote his dissertation in the 1980s on the Siberian pipeline crisis, in which the Reagan administration imposed far-reaching sanctions on oil-sector technology sharing in an attempt to block the pipeline’s construction. Blinken criticized the sanctions effort. His career since has been interventionist and pro-fossil-fuel development.

Surmounting the challenges of being Biden’s international climate czar will be a life-defining test for the 76-year-old statesman.

"Climate Mandate": Sunrise and Justice Democrats Call For a Green New Deal Biden Cabinet

Posted by Brad Johnson Tue, 17 Nov 2020 14:32:00 GMT

The youth-led Sunrise Movement and progressive political group Justice Democrats have teamed up for the Climate Mandate campaign to push President-elect Biden to assemble a progressive governing team. Their message:

“President-elect Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump with the highest youth turnout ever. Now, Joe Biden must assemble a powerful governing team to stop the climate crisis, create millions of good-paying jobs, address systemic racism, and control the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The “Climate Cabinet” should have no ties to fossil fuel companies, or corporate lobbyists; be representative of America; and “fight with the urgency that the climate crisis demands,” the groups say.

In addition, they are calling for the formation of the White House Office of Climate Mobilization to coordinate efforts across agencies.

They offer three recommendations each for many Cabinet-level agencies, with a top pick listed first. The list leans heavily into the progressive caucus of the House of Representatives, not surprisingly previously endorsed for election by the groups. The list does not include some major departments, like Defense and Energy. Some of their recommendations, like Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) for Interior, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for Treasury, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for Labor, are known to be on Biden’s short list of candidates.

People can support the effort by signing a petition for a “fierce and creative governing team” to “build back better from the crises we’re in.”

In an aggressive video promoting the effort, the groups ask of Biden: “Will he be the leader of the American majority, or will he be Mitch McConnell’s vice president?”

Their recommended picks:

Interior :”A visionary Secretary of the Interior has enormous latitude to crack down on giveaways to fossil fuel corporations, like permits to drill for oil on public lands and in public waters. With a progressive leader at the helm, we can make real progress. As the first Native American to hold this position, Rep. Deb Haaland would usher in a new era of Indigenous authority over stolen land. She is a fierce ally of our movement who has fought for renewable energy job creation in the House as Vice Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and Chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands.”
  • Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.)
  • Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
  • Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.)
State :”America needs a Secretary of State who will raise the level of ambition for climate action throughout the world. Beyond rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, the next Secretary of State can convene world leaders during the first 100 days to ratchet up the global response to climate change. Rep. Barbara Lee is one of a few brave Congressional Representatives who voted against the Iraq War. Her foresight would end the era of oil wars. She introduced the Women and Climate Change Act to develop coordinated strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on women and girls around the world.”
  • Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)
  • Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)
  • Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
Treasury :”A bold Secretary of the Treasury can help transform the country’s spending priorities, even without Congress. By steering federal money to programs that encourage the development of renewable energy job creation, a Treasury Department can make real progress. Senator Warren has been a visionary leader, and one of our staunchest allies in Congress. She’s taken on Wall Street her entire career, and fought for transformative change in her presidential campaign. She’s a Green New Deal champion, and has called for transformative investments to tackle climate change and create millions of good union jobs.”
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
  • Sarah Bloom Raskin, former member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and former United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury
  • Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor
Attorney General :”A visionary Attorney General can stand up for justice, work to dismantle systemic racism, and hold polluters accountable for their crimes by enforcing clean air and water laws already on the books, and using others to go after fossil fuel corporations who profit off of deception about climate change. Keith Ellison is the Attorney General of Minnesota, and a longtime progressive leader. He has sued Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute over their campaign of deception about climate change, and took George Floyd’s killers to court. As the first-ever Muslim Member of Congress, he co-chaired the Progressive Caucus.”
  • Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General
  • Larry Krasner, Philadelphia District Attorney
  • Dana Nussel, Minnesota Attorney General
Council of Economic Advisors :”The Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) is a key leader who helps guide the nation’s economic strategy. A visionary leader at the helm can help the nation build back better, guarantee every American a good job, expand workers rights, and deliver investment equitably to every community, whether Black, white, brown, Indigenous, urban or rural. Darrick Hamilton is a leading expert on closing the racial wealth gap and a strong advocate for a federal jobs guarantee.”
  • Darrick Hamilton, Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University
  • Stephanie Kelton, professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University
  • Heidi Shierholz, Senior Economist and Director of Policy, Economic Policy Institute
  • National Economic Council* :”A progressive Director of the National Economic Council will have a pivotal role in helping the president build back better, guarantee every American a good job, expand workers rights, and deliver investment equitably to every community. Joseph Stiglitz is a world-renowned economist who has called for a mobilization to confront climate change on par with mobilizing for a third world war.”
  • Joseph Stiglitz, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
  • Bharat Ramamurti, managing director, Roosevelt Institute
  • Manuel Pastor, director, USC Equity Research Institute
Labor :”America needs a Secretary of Labor ready to create green jobs with good pay and good benefits, and who can create a Civilian Climate Corps to employ millions of people to do the urgent work of repairing and strengthening our communities in the face of climate change. Senator Sanders has shifted American politics to focus on solutions at the scale of the crises workers are experiencing. He can bring the power of the federal government to every labor contract negotiation. He can lead the push to create millions of good-paying jobs as we mobilize to stop climate change.”
  • Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
  • Mary Kay Henry, SEIU President
  • Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.)
Environmental Protection Agency :”A visionary EPA Administrator can do a lot to combat the climate crisis without Congress. It’s not just undoing Trump’s rollbacks of clean air and water standards; an EPA Administrator who understands the urgency of the crisis can help electrify the economy by enacting new standards for green vehicles and buildings. Mustafa Ali is a visionary environmental justice leader who began working on social justice issues at the age of 16. He joined the EPA as a student, and is one of the country’s most respected voices on climate and environmental justice issues.”
  • Mustafa Santiago Ali, former EPA assistant associate administrator
  • Kevin De Léon, former California Senate Senate Leader
  • Heather McTeer Toney, Director, Moms Clean Air Force
Housing and Urban Development :”America needs a Secretary of Housing and Urban Development who understands our vision for a Green New Deal for public housing, because ending homelessness and moving our economy to clean energy must go hand in hand. Rep. Rashida Tlaib is a progressive powerhouse, and the author of the People’s Housing Platform—a groundbreaking, progressive housing framework that declares housing as a fundamental human right. She is also a champion of environmental justice and addressing the disparate health impacts of fossil fuel emissions on frontline communities.”
  • Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.)
  • Jumaane Williams, New York City Public Advocate
  • Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.)
Transportation :”America needs a Secretary of Transportation who is ready to combat climate change by building accessible public transit for all. A visionary in charge could redirect federal grants towards electric vehicle charging station, and public transit. Rep. García is one of the first Mexican immigrants to serve as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. He serves on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and has been a leader in calling for federal transportation and infrastructure policies that address climate change.”
  • Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.)
  • Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants
  • Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)
Agriculture :”America needs a Secretary of Agriculture who will bring investment and economic opportunity to family farmers and rural communities. By investing in local and regional food systems that support farmers, agricultural workers, healthy soil, and climate resilience, the next Secretary of Agriculture can ensure economic security while advancing our fight against climate change. Rep. Chellie Pingree has been an organic farmer for more than 40 years and recognizes that farmers are allies in the fight against climate change. She is Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Committee on Interior and Environment and serves on the Subcommittee on Agriculture of the House Appropriations Committee.”
  • Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)
  • Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio)
  • Sen. Cory Bookery (D-N.J.)
Health and Human Services :”All people have a right to quality health care. The COVID pandemic has demonstrated all too tragically the interconnected threads of environmental injustice, lack of access to affordable health care, and mortality from new risks. A visionary Health and Human Services Secretary can work to expand access to health care for all. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is a progressive powerhouse, and the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s a leading proponent of Medicare for All, and a key champion of the Green New Deal.”
  • Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)
  • Dr. Abdul El Sayed, former candidate for governor of Michigan
  • Dr. Donald Berwick, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

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