Experienced environmental lobbyists and former House colleagues Ana
Unruh Cohen and Alison Cassady have been tapped by Rep. Kathy Castor
(D-Fla.) to become the chief and deputy chief of staff respectively for
the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Unruh Cohen had been the
deputy director of the committee’s predecessor, the Select Committee on
Energy Independence and Global Warming.
They previously worked directly together as staffers helping to craft
the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) for their bosses
Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) from 2007
until the bill’s demise in 2009.
Dr. Unruh Cohen was a long-time staffer for Markey, moving with him to
the U.S. Senate before becoming the top lobbyist for the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Cassady was a long-time staffer for
Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) before becoming the head of Energy and
Environment Policy at the Center for American Progress—a role Unruh
Cohen originated in 2004.
Unruh Cohen’s Hill experience also includes working as the deputy staff
director of the Natural Resource Committee Democratic staff.
Unruh Cohen holds a bachelor’s in chemistry from Trinity University and
received her PhD in earth sciences from Oxford University, where she was
a Rhodes Scholar. She is based in NRDC’s
Washington, D.C., office.
As the managing director of Energy and Environment Policy at the Center
for American Progress, Cassady wrote reports on issues as varied as the
social cost of
carbon
and the power of corporate polluter
lobbyists.
Cassady joined CAP after working as a senior
professional staff member for Rep. Henry Waxman and the U.S. House of
Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, where she focused on
unconventional oil and gas development, climate change, air quality, and
nuclear issues.
As a House staffer, Cassady led an investigation into hydraulic
fracturing, uncovering the continued use of diesel fuel in hydraulic
fracturing and writing a first-of-its-kind report on the chemical
components of hydraulic fracturing
fluids.
Cassady developed additional expertise on offshore oil and gas
development as a key member of the Energy and Commerce Committee team
investigating the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in 2010.
She also served Rep. Waxman during his tenure as chairman of the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and helped investigate the
events leading to the financial crisis in 2008. Before beginning her
time in the House, Cassady was research director for Environment America
and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. She is a graduate of the
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.