Carol Browner, director of the U.S. Office of Energy and Climate Policy
Posted on 01/25/2011 6:37:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Carol Browner is leaving her position as White House "energy czar," and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether, according to Democrats familiar with events.
The czar position, and Ms. Browner herself, have been lightning rods for critics of the president's environmental-policy agenda and a reassurance to its supporters, who liked having a top official in the White House devoted to their priorities.
The White House health czar position may also be eliminated, said people familiar with the process.
Ms. Browner led the administration's effort to gather votes in Congress for legislation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. The effort unraveled in the Senate last year, amid opposition from Republicans and some Democrats fearful of its impact on energy prices and jobs.
Ms. Browner was also a heroine to many environmentalists who cheered her decisions when she led the EPA in the 1990s and viewed her as an ally in internal administration debates over environmental regulation. Her influence within the administration within the White House has long been a source of concern to Republicans critical of her record in the Clinton administration. Fred Upton, the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce (R., Mich.), had suggested in recent weeks that he intended to investigate Ms. Browner's authority.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Maybe her husband can support her with his position at the Green Window company where he has a management position. The window company Obambi visited and promoted something like 4 or 5 times!
bttt
“..At this moment, the EPA is hopelessly politicized. In the wake of Carol Browner, it is probably better to shut it down and start over. ... We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast.” ~ Michael Crichton, September 15, 2003 Environmentalism as Religion http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speeches.html
APRIL 18, 2009
U.S. in Historic Shift on CO2
Businesses Brace for Costly New Rules as EPA Declares Warming Gases a Threat
By JONATHAN WEISMAN and SIOBHAN HUGHES
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123997738881429275.html
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration declared Friday that carbon dioxide and five other industrial emissions threaten the planet. The landmark decision lays the groundwork for federal efforts to cap carbon emissions — at a potential cost of billions of dollars to businesses and government.
The Environmental Protection Agency finding that the emissions endanger “the health and welfare of current and future generations” is “the first formal recognition by the U.S. government of the threats posed by climate change,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote in a memo to her staff.
The finding could touch every corner of Americans’ lives, from the types of cars they drive to the homes they build. Along with carbon dioxide, the EPA named methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride as deleterious to the environment. Even if the agency doesn’t use its powers under the Clean Air Act to curb greenhouse gases, Friday’s action improves the chances that Congress will move to create a more flexible mechanism to do so.
On a conference call Friday with environmentalists, EPA officials stressed they would take a go-slow approach, holding two public hearings next month before the findings are official. After that, any new regulations would go through a public comment period, more hearings and a long review.
“Whatever the process it, it will be the time-honored and ordinary process of soliciting public input,” an EPA official said.
New regulations driven by the finding could be years away. But unless superseded by congressional action, the EPA ruling eventually could lead to stricter emissions limits. Businesses that stand to be affected range from power plants and oil refineries to car makers and cement producers.
Uncertainty about the impact of such regulation is already affecting some companies. Consol Energy Inc., a big coal and energy company based in Pittsburgh, says it is delaying two large mining projects in Northern Appalachia because of uncertainty around pending carbon emission regulation.
“In terms of starting to move dirt, we would postpone that until there’s some clarity,” said Thomas Hoffman, vice president of investor relations.
Friday’s announcement marks a significant turn in U.S. policy on climate change. The U.S. has never ratified the Kyoto climate treaty. President Bill Clinton, who signed the pact, didn’t submit it to the Senate for ratification because of strong opposition to the deal, which didn’t impose greenhouse gas limits on China and other developing economies. President George W. Bush also didn’t submit the Kyoto treaty for ratification, and largely resisted calls for stronger action on climate change, including the endangerment finding.
That approach began to crumble two years ago, when the Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and declared that the EPA can regulate it.
With Friday’s finding, the U.S. takes a big step closer to European Union nations, which have agreed to Kyoto greenhouse gas limits and are pushing for a new treaty on climate change at a December meeting in Copenhagen.
Some Republicans and business groups that have long blocked action on climate-change legislation shifted positions in response, saying Congress now must act on legislation that would give businesses more flexibility in meeting emissions targets than rules issued under the Clean Air Act.
Rep. Edward J. Markey (D., Mass.), a co-author of sweeping climate change legislation, called the EPA’s decision “a game changer.”
“It’s now no longer a choice between doing a bill or doing nothing,” said the lawmaker, who will hold four days of climate change hearings next week before the formal drafting of a bill begins the last week of April. “It is now a choice between regulation and legislation.”
Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, sought a middle ground, proposing to focus carbon caps on coal-fired power plants and vehicle tailpipes — and holding off any move until the nation emerges from recession.
American Electric Power, a utility giant with 5.2 million customers in states from Texas to Michigan to Virginia, is already considering what coal plants would have to be shuttered and how high rates would have to go to comply with either a regulatory or legislative mandates to curb carbon dioxide. AEP spokesman Pat Hemlepp said rate increases stretch from 25% to 50% and beyond, depending on the climate change strategy that finally emerges from Washington.
A proposal by President Barack Obama would cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, then force polluters to purchase emission permits, which could be traded on the open market. The details of the cost of carbon credits have been left to Congress, although Mr. Obama has said he wants all emissions covered, with no allowance for free emissions, as some business groups and lawmakers want.
Heavy carbon emitters, such as utilities that rely on coal-fired power, would pay a hefty price, but the cost of compliance would be alleviated by purchasing extra emissions permits from companies that emit less or can more easily adapt with energy-saving technology.
Regulation, on the other hand, would probably exclude such flexibility, and simply force businesses to reduce emissions. Businesses also see a more favorable playing field in Congress than with EPA regulators, who do not have to face the voters.
“We’re pretty confident that Congress is going to be much more sensitive to the economic impact of this than some unelected bureaucrats,” said Hank Cox, a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers.
The impact of the EPA finding could be dramatic. Using the Clean Air Act, the EPA could raise fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles, such as by authorizing nationwide adoption of California’s rules for greenhouse-gas tailpipe emissions.
That could require auto makers to produce more hybrid and electric vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid under development by General Motors Corp. The Volt, however, is expected to carry a sticker of about $40,000, or roughly twice the price of a conventional Chevrolet Malibu sedan.
In electric power, the EPA could force new power plants to include emissions-reduction technology, although it is unclear whether emerging technologies to capture carbon-dioxide emissions would be feasible.
The EPA could order older power plants to be retrofitted, such as with more-efficient boilers, and it could mandate more reliance on wind and other renewable energy if coal-fired power plants can’t be made to run more cleanly. That could present technological and infrastructure challenges.
White House officials made clear Friday that President Obama prefers a legislative approach to curbing global warming. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold hearings next week on an Obama proposal to cap carbon emissions and sell tradable permits that businesses must buy to emit carbon dioxide. The White House will dispatch senior officials to those hearings, an official said.
The EPA finding comes about two years after the Supreme Court found that carbon dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and that the EPA can regulate it.
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A1
Obama climate czar has socialist ties
Group sees ‘global governance’ as solution
Stephen Dinan, January 12, 2009
Until last week, Carol M. Browner, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick as global warming czar, was listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group’s Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which calls for “global governance” and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change.
By Thursday, Mrs. Browner’s name and biography had been removed from Socialist International’s Web page, though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available.
lots more...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/12/obama-climate-czar-has-socialist-ties/
13 posted on Thursday, February 05, 2009 4:19:45 PM by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2179179/posts?page=13#13
She served enough to get the pension
go away far, far away and don’t come back. Boy, all congress has to say is we are going to investigate these posts and the commie rats start bailing.
One year ago (01/26/2010):
“..It makes a lot of sense for her to go,” said another top environmentalist, who thinks Browner has been pragmatic but also the most committed friend of the greens in the West Wing. “If you were her, would you stick around to watch your dream being dismantled?”
Browner brushed aside but didn’t completely rule out an early departure in an interview with POLITICO. ...”
Excerpted from:
BO’s “Energy Czar” Carol Browner lost her first and most important battle on climate change early in Obama’s term
Bumpy days for Browner
Politico ^ | September 26, 2010 | Glenn Thrush & Darren Samuelsohn
Posted on Sunday, September 26, 2010 7:30:53 PM by jazusamo
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2596669/posts
It’s a measure of Carol Browner’s growing influence in the West Wing that she’s been given the coveted key to the taupe-accented kingdom President Barack Obama’s personal BlackBerry e-mail address.
The administration’s so-called energy czar is just about the only high-ranking official to emerge from the BP oil disaster with an enhanced reputation making her, some say, the most powerful woman in the White House next to Obama’s longtime friend Valerie Jarrett.
Yet even as Browner’s stock rises, her rationale for remaining by Obama’s side is declining. The collapse of the administration’s comprehensive climate change effort a career-long goal for Browner has stoked rumors that she’ll head for the exit rather than settle for an incremental, vastly scaled-back energy agenda.
And some environmental advocates, deeply disappointed that Browner didn’t have enough clout to push climate change to the top of Obama’s agenda, blame her for the debacle. “The real challenge at the top is, Carol Browner is not a strategic thinker,” griped one environmental advocate with close ties to the administration.
“It makes a lot of sense for her to go,” said another top environmentalist, who thinks Browner has been pragmatic but also the most committed friend of the greens in the West Wing. “If you were her, would you stick around to watch your dream being dismantled?”
Browner brushed aside but didn’t completely rule out an early departure in an interview with POLITICO. “I’m enjoying what I do . . . I don’t have any date [to leave],” said Browner, who served a bruising eight years as head of Bill Clinton’s Environmental Protection Agency, the longest tenure of any Clinton Cabinet official.
Browner, who briefly considered a Senate run in her native Florida back in 2000, has no taste for elective office these days but is at no loss for private-sector options. During the Bush administration, she served on the boards of green nonprofits while earning a handsome living as an environmental adviser to private companies as a founding member of The Albright Group.
If Browner decides to stay in the White House, she can expect a bureaucratic slog one senior administration official said there’s only “a tiny chance” the Senate will take up the comprehensive climate change bill during the lame-duck session. And Democratic leaders have even less ambitious ideas for climate over Obama’s next two years, assuming they’re even controlling Congress.
Obama aides said the loss of Browner would be a serious blow at a time when Obama is looking to recalibrate his energy agenda and defend against coming attacks. Besides, she’s one of the few Clinton veterans the president genuinely trusts with Obama often taking Browner’s side during internal policy debates.
Browner, brought on board by Obama Transition Director John Podesta, talks with the president almost daily and e-mails him even more frequently. In addition, she is one of only three or four female staffers who regularly attend chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s 7:30 a.m. meeting, along with a dozen or more male officials, aides said.
Many environmentalists, too, would be sad to see her go, as would feminists who decry the paucity of women in Obama’s inner circle. Add to that a small handful of Senate Republicans who hint at browner
revisiting climate change once the polarizing midterms have passed.
“I heard, by reputation, she was some environmental wacko, but I didn’t find that at all,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who pulled the plug on bipartisan talks over the summer.
On the other hand, a Browner departure would be the gladdest of tidings for industry lobbyists who think she is a green zealot like her former boss Al Gore.
And while she’s managed to insulate Obama from the wrath of many environmentalists on the left one of them referred to her as the president’s “green Teflon” some say Browner and the White House legislative affairs team erred by refusing to negotiate a scaled-back deal when prospects of a bigger cap-and-trade bill evaporated for good earlier this spring.
“They never had a legitimate legislative strategy to get 60 votes in the Senate,” said an environment expert who worked with Browner in the Clinton administration. “The consequence of that is the policy they really do believe in has been damaged beyond recognition politically.”
Union of Concerned Scientists President Kevin Knobloch said he’s not sure why Obama and Browner didn’t release a written plan to drive the climate debate. “I personally don’t understand why it wasn’t translated into, early on, a legislative outline that then leadership in the House and Senate could work from,” he said.
Browner has just as many defenders. Brian Wolff, director of communications at industry group Edison Electric Institute, was impressed by her tenacious lobbying in June 2009 during the House climate bill vote. Wolff said he was surprised Browner exhibited a similar level of intensity during a meeting with utility CEOs this summer, when the effort was on the verge of being declared dead.
“She’s very methodical; she’s very to the point. Some people are offended by it. But I think it’s her biggest strength,” added Wolff, a veteran Democratic operative.
Those traits served Browner well when the administration scrambled to cope with the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. White House insiders said that Obama and Emanuel were deeply frustrated by bureaucratic tangling during the first days of the spill and felt that the response needed a strong, centralized command based in the West Wing.
The 54-year-old University of Florida graduate, who had no real background in emergency management, was involved from the start, as was Jarrett, who handled the sensitive issue of how to deal with local officials highly critical of the federal response.
But aides said it was only after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson proved unable to coordinate the massive interagency effort that Obama and Emanuel tapped Browner to quarterback.
“She knew how to put together all the pieces,” said an administration official involved in the talks.
Browner filled another void as a spokeswoman who could reassure the American public at a time when no one knew how long the spill would last or how dire the environmental and economic consequences would be.
The Miami native, who once snorkeled in the Florida Keys when she was eight months pregnant, comes across as approachable but unflappable on TV. But she flinched when White House staffers informed her she had been booked for the May 30th Sunday morning shows.
Browner spent two days nervously honing her message — and dragooned her staffer Jake Levine for beer, leftovers and a mini-murder board session.
After it was over, White House officials, from Obama on down, told Browner she had struck the right tone.
At the time, Browner had wanted, perhaps naively, to turn the BP spill to her advantage, hoping it would jump-start the moribund climate change bill in the Senate. It didn’t happen.
“People just weren’t talking about it,” she said. “The vast majority of people it really surprised me they moved on very quickly.”
With no forward momentum, Browner is now forced to play defense.
In the short term, her energy will be consumed fighting off challenges to EPA’s authority for writing climate-themed rules in the absence of congressional action.
And she has already assembled a to-do list for the end of this year and 2011: new emissions standards for tractor-trailers and large trucks, a series of EPA rollouts and a bipartisan legislative push to enact new national standards for renewable energy, a move backed by some industry and environmental groups.
A year ago, Browner and the small green team she oversees in the Old Executive Office Building had much more ambitious goals. But she lost her first and most important battle on climate change early in Obama’s term, when the president and his brain trust, including her old friend Emanuel, pushed comprehensive climate change to the back of the legislative queue, behind the health care reform effort.
“The clock ran out,” she said. “You had health care taking far longer than anyone anticipated.”
Browner and her aides flatly refuted a report that Emanuel scuttled her plans to draft a set of legislative principles, a charge leveled in Bloomberg Businessweek Deputy Editor Eric Pooley’s book “The Climate War.”
But that hasn’t quelled the what-if speculation by embittered environmental activists, who say Browner’s strategy which included generous deals on nuclear power loan guarantees and the lifting of the offshore drilling moratorium didn’t result in a single GOP defection to the legislation.
For Browner, the setbacks evoke a “Groundhog Day” feeling. She had Bill Clinton’s superficial commitment to climate policies in the early 1990s but had to fight for attention amid Hillary Clinton’s disastrous health care reform push.
In 1994, newly minted House Speaker Newt Gingrich made systematic attacks on the EPA, with no fewer than 16 legislative “riders” to defund or derail Browner’s regulatory agenda.
“This is somewhat reminiscent to me” of the ’90s, she said of the current mood. “It feels very similar. You’ve got a lot of attacks on ... the use of the regulatory authorities.”
Instead of folding, Browner dug in. She proposed the most sweeping air pollution regulations in her agency’s history, cannily using authority that bypassed the GOP-controlled Congress.
A decisive moment of Browner’s career came during an Oval Office meeting when Clinton canvassed a handful of advisers to see if they backed Browner’s smog and soot regulations.
Clinton’s economic and political advisers had just finishing trashing her plans, when Clinton shouted, “What do you think?” to Emanuel who was walking into the room.
Emanuel paused, then blurted out, “I agree with her.”
Clinton eventually backer Browner and she, in turn, never forgot the favor Emanuel did her.
In 2002, when Emanuel was locked in a tough Democratic primary against Illinois State Representative Nancy Kaszak for a Chicago House seat, Browner campaigned for him, despite opposition from women’s groups, including EMILY’s List.
Later, a puzzled Emanuel approached Browner to ask why she was so dedicated to his cause.
A Democrat who worked on the campaign said that when Browner recounted his role in the EPA debate, Emanuel shrugged: He’d nearly forgotten the whole episode.
<>
More:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2596669/posts?page=6#6
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2596669/posts?page=8#8
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2596669/posts?page=9#9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2596669/posts?page=12#12
Whatever happend to the “Endangerment” findings lawsuit brought against the EPA last Feb?
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3874392
Will the postion be filled? If so, any guesses on who?
RE: Will the postion be filled? If so, any guesses on who?
Not sure if it will be filled with the new Congress holding the purse strings. But if Obama has his way, we can all bet our bottom dollar that it will be another admirer of Marx, Lenin and Mao.
‘Will the postion be filled?’
Not if the article is correct.
“and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether”
Maybe with the guy who owns the Mercedes plated with WHITE GOLD? Or the one covered in 300,000 Swarovskis?
“energy costs will skyrocket” (and everything else, apparently)
Van Jones.
I hope the pot is NEVER refilled
I hope the post is NEVER refilled
RE: and a staff shake-up is likely to eliminate her post altogether
Wish this would be true of ALL Czar positions. They were simply meant to by-pass the confirmatory powers of Congress and are mostly USELESS and in fact positions that create nothing but TROUBLE.
Thanks for the ping.
This is great news! Browner doesn’t belong in any kind of a policy position with anything to do with environmentalism. It’s also good that Obama seems to be backing off on the carbon emission fiasco, I think he knows there’ll only be more losses for him down the road if he keeps pursuing it.
We may see more Czar’s being eliminated with the House going to look into the constitutionality of them, be nice to think they will all be eliminated. :)
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