Obama’s Energy/Climate Change Czar is Leaving the White House

During the BP oil spill, Browner meets with President Obama and National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen aboard Marine One en route to Louisiana.

Maybe it’s the prospect of two years of uninterrupted Congressional witch hunts from House Republicans. Maybe she was just fed up with the Democrats failure to accomplish anything in the way of an energy or climate policy. Either way, President Obama’s Assistant for Energy and Climate Change, Carol Browner, is taking a walk.

Browner had been the EPA administrator during the Clinton years, and returned to the White House in 2009 with a great deal of hope. But Republicans in Congress spent the past two years blocking action on energy and climate, and Democrats in Congress spent the past two years “negotiating” with people whose only goal was to run out the clock and make sure that nothing got done.

They won.

Now she’s walking. Earlier this month the NY Times was reporting that she was a contender to replace Rahm Emmanuel as Obama’s chief of staff; if that was true, then Obama’s decision to instead appoint William Daley, a centrist Democrat with ties to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was probably the final blow. The Chamber of Commerce has fought environmental regulation tooth and claw, and poured millions into ads attacking Democrats as “job-killers”.

Here’s Politico:

Her calm, authoritative television presence during the BP oil disaster made her one of the few officials whose stature was enhanced in the aftermath of the Gulf catastrophe. But passage of a comprehensive energy bill, the chief goal of her office, seems unlikely under the House Republican majority.

…a White House official said “She is proud of the administration’s accomplishments — from the historic investments in clean energy included in the Recovery Act, to the national policy on vehicle efficiency that will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil and lower consumers’ prices at the pump.”

There is a list of accomplishments in last month’s progress report. “The Transformation to a Clean Energy Economy.” They include:

• The Recovery Act investments of $80 billion for clean energy will produce as much as $150 billion in clean energy projects.
• Existing investment programs could produce up to $90 billion in additional clean energy projects.
• Unprecedented growth in the generation of renewable sources of energy
• Enhanced manufacturing capacity for clean energy technology
• Advanced vehicle and fuel technologies
• A bigger, better, smarter electric grid.
• We’re on track to meet the goal of doubling our renewable energy generation, including solar, wind and geothermal, in just 3 years.
• Directly creating 253,000 jobs and indirectly leveraging 469,000 more jobs.
• Cutting red tape and fast-tracking renewable energy projects.

It’s impressive… but there could have been so much more.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)