US ELECTIONS: Biden transition team rolls out energy agency review groups

Early energy-related steps began unfolding in the lead-up to a Biden administration, starting with the naming of agency review teams to help ready departments of Energy and Interior and financial and environmental regulators for a handover of power.

The team members for the DOE, Environmental Protection Agency and other energy-focused agencies included academics, representatives of environmental and labor groups, and veterans of the Obama administration.

The list is light on fossil fuel industry leaders and most lobbyists. The Biden team came under pressure during the campaign from climate activists to exclude individuals with fossil fuel industry ties from its transition team and circle of advisors.

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Of significance for energy derivative regulation, former Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler was tapped to head the team focused on financial policy.

Gensler is seen as a supporter of strong regulation of derivatives markets who quickly ushered through a suite of rules following passage of the Dodd-Frank Act during the Obama administration. Some were later scaled back to ease impacts on commercial energy market hedging. Representatives of nonprofits such as Center for American Progress and Better Markets, were also named to that team, as were academics and labor union representatives, with one private sector lawyer on board.

Advice for rapid start

With climate action high on the Biden agenda, advice to the president-elect's transition team began rolling in. Notably, former Obama administration officials joined by other experts offered a blueprint, dubbed the Climate 21 Project, with "actionable advice for a rapid-start, whole-of-government climate response."

Urging Biden's team to pursue early structural changes, that report recommended an executive order to create a White House National Climate Council, on par with the Domestic Policy Council or National Economic Council; a 90-day cabinet-level task force setting out a four-year climate agenda; and a high-level climate team in each department or relevant agency.

The group also urged that staffing and budget for climate and energy be prioritized across government. And, it suggested key program actions at departments, for instance, setting net greenhouse gas emissions goals for the Interior Department and slowing or halting onshore leasing at the Bureau of Land Management on Day 1.

The Biden transition team did not immediately comment on whether it would embrace that plan. Biden previously has laid out a climate agenda that cuts across multiple areas of government action, such as infrastructure, trade, environmental controls, procurement policies, research and development, financial regulation and land conservation.

Progressive groups also are expected to offer up 100-day wish lists in the coming days. Climate action proponents at 350.org already posted a list of first-day actions it would like to see, reaching well beyond Biden's campaign promises. That list included ending crude oil and gas exports, denying permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure and stopping fracking through EPA regulation.

Transition teams

On the energy side, Biden's DOE agency review team lead is Arun Majumdar, co-director of Stanford University's Precourt Institute for Energy and founding director of the DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. Also on board is former Obama climate and energy program official Jonathan Elkind, now at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy; Noah Deich, executive director of the nonprofit Carbon180, which is seeking to transform carbon into an asset; and Brad Markell, a top AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council official who was previously involved in tailpipe emissions negotiations.

Biden's transition team for EPA will be helmed by Patrice Simms, vice president for healthy communities at Earthjustice. Simms started his career in EPA's Office of General Counsel and later served in the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division under Obama.

The Interior transition team has considerable experience in tribal rights. The group will be led by Kevin Washburn, who was Interior assistant secretary for Indian affairs under Obama, and Janie Simms Hipp, CEO of the Native American Agriculture Fund. Also on board are Obama administration veterans such as Bob Anderson, co-chair of Obama's Interior transition team in 2008, and former Interior senior advisor Kate Kelly, currently director of public lands at the Center for American Progress.