Hill Heat

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.

Rep. Kathy Castor (Fla.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, has announced the Democratic members: Reps. Ben Ray Luján (N.M.), Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Sean Casten (Ill.), Jared Huffman (Calif.), Mike Levin (Calif.), Donald McEachin (Va.) and Joe Neguse (Colo.).

Luján is by far the biggest recipient among the committee of fossil-fuel dollars. He received $159,600 in campaign contributions from oil & gas, mining, chemical, electric utilities, and other energy interests in the last election cycle. Over his career, he has received $386,150 from oil & gas and electric utility companies and their employees. As Assistant Democratic Leader, he is now the number four Democrat in the House.

“We are in a race against time,” Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), the incoming chair of the new Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, told reporters. In an interview with USA Today’s Ledyard King, Castor highlighted not just the urgency of the climate crisis but also her interest in pursuing new fuel economy standards and flood insurance reform, practical policy problems that have remained stalled under the Republican Congress and Trump administration.

While not enforcing a band on fossil-fuel contributions for members of the committee, Castor has pledged that she will not accept such donations as chair to “help build confidence in the committee.”

Castor’s plans come in the context of the vigorous push by youth climate activists and new members of Congress for an ambitious Green New Deal, that arguably would build on elements of President Obama’s economic stimulus package of 2009.

“There’s some fabulous proposals in the Green New Deal, and I’m excited about all that. You may see some similar language. Clearly, the focuses are going to be the same,” Castor told The Hill. “This will be a committee clearly in the spirit of the Green New Deal.”

“People don’t understand how forward-leaning the stimulus was on climate issues,” Castor told Michael Grunwald in a Politico interview. “It’s a road map for a Green New Deal.”

More highlights of Rep. Castor’s interview with The Hill’s Timothy Cama:

“I’m hoping that folks will come to this committee ready to take on the corporate polluters and special interests. There shouldn’t be a purity test, that if a member of Congress has ever accepted contributions,” she said.

Castor said she has decided not to take any donations from fossil fuel companies.

“I think me saying that right now will help build confidence in the committee,” she said, noting that such a pledge won’t be a “huge sacrifice,” since she has received just about $2,000 in campaign donations from the oil and natural gas industries during 12 years in office.