Energy Czar, and also later Climate Czar, is a nickname, using the political term "czar", for the person in the government of the United States given authority over energy or climate policy within the executive branch. This has never been the official title of any office, but has often been informally used to refer to various officials since the 1970s.
Additionally, officials supervising energy policy at State or other sub-Federal levels have also sometimes been called "Energy Czars", for example Richard W. DeKorte was referred to as the "Energy Czar of New Jersey".
John A. Love, appointed Director of the Office of Energy Policy by President Richard M. Nixon in 1973, was the first to be widely styled as "Energy Czar".[1] In December 1973, Nixon replaced the Energy Policy Office with the Federal Energy Office, which in May 1974 became the Federal Energy Administration.[2] Heads of these posts (Love was followed by William E. Simon, then John Sawhill) continued to be styled "Energy Czars" through the Nixon administration, as well as under his successor Gerald Ford who appointed Frank Zarb to head of the FEA.
In December 2008, President-elect Barack Obama named Carol Browner to the position of Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change.[3] After Obama took office, Browner was appointed director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy. The nickname "Energy Czar" was revived to sometimes describe Browner's position.[4] The term "Climate Czar" was also used.[5] (The form "Czarina" was also sometimes used for Browner.[6]) However, once she left the administration in 2011, the term fell into disuse again at the federal level.
However, it continued to sometimes be used at the state level. In January 2013, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the creation of the first energy czar position in New York State, and appointed Richard Kauffman to lead the state's energy policy.[7]
↑ "President-Elect Biden Announces Key Members of Foreign Policy and National Security Team" (Press release). November 23, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2020. Former Secretary of State John Kerry will fight climate change full-time as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and will sit on the National Security Council. This marks the first time that the NSC will include an official dedicated to climate change, reflecting the president-elect's commitment to addressing climate change as an urgent national security issue.
The assistant to the president for national security affairs (APNSA), commonly referred to as the national security advisor (NSA), is a senior aide in the Executive Office of the President, based at the West Wing of the White House. The national security advisor serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all national security issues. The national security advisor participates in meetings of the National Security Council (NSC) and usually chairs meetings of the principals committee of the NSC with the secretary of state and secretary of defense. The NSA also sits on the Homeland Security Council (HSC). The national security advisor is supported by NSC staff who produce classified research and briefings for the national security advisor to review and present, either to the NSC or the president. The national security advisor is appointed by the president and does not require confirmation by the United States Senate. An appointment of a three- or four-star general to the role requires Senate confirmation to maintain that rank in the new position.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a United States–based 501(c)(3) non-profit international environmental advocacy group, with its headquarters in New York City and offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bozeman, India, and Beijing. The group was founded in 1970 in opposition to a hydroelectric power plant in New York.
John David Podesta Jr. is an American political consultant who has been serving as Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy since 2024, having previously served as the Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation from 2022 to 2024. Podesta previously served as White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015. Before that, he served in the Clinton administration as White House staff secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House deputy chief of staff for operations from 1997 to 1998.
Carol Martha Browner is an American lawyer, environmentalist, and businesswoman, who served as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011. Browner previously served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001. She currently works as a Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business strategy firm.
The environmental policy of the United States is a federal governmental action to regulate activities that have an environmental impact in the United States. The goal of environmental policy is to protect the environment for future generations while interfering as little as possible with the efficiency of commerce or the liberty of the people and to limit inequity in who is burdened with environmental costs. As his first official act bringing in the 1970s, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law on New Year's Day, 1970. Also in the same year, America began celebrating Earth Day, which has been called "the big bang of U.S. environmental politics, launching the country on a sweeping social learning curve about ecological management never before experienced or attempted in any other nation." NEPA established a comprehensive US national environmental policy and created the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement for "major federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the environment." Author and consultant Charles H. Eccleston has called NEPA the world's "environmental Magna Carta".
New Energy for America was a plan led by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden beginning in 2008 to invest in renewable energy sources, reduce reliance on foreign oil, address global warming issues, and create jobs for Americans. The main objective of the New Energy for America plan was to implement clean energy sources in the United States to switch from nonrenewable resources to renewable resources. The plan led by the Obama Administration aimed to implement short-term solutions to provide immediate relief from pain at the pump, and mid- to- long-term solutions to provide a New Energy for America plan. The goals of the clean energy plan hoped to: invest in renewable technologies that will boost domestic manufacturing and increase homegrown energy, invest in training for workers of clean technologies, strengthen the middle class, and help the economy.
Barack Obama assumed office as president of the United States on January 20, 2009, and his term ended on January 20, 2017. The president has the authority to nominate members of his Cabinet to the United States Senate for confirmation under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution.
The White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy was a government entity in the United States created in 2008 by President Barack Obama by Executive Order. It existed for over two years and was combined with another presidential office in April 2011. The office was created to coordinate administration policy on energy and global warming. Under the Biden administration, it has been succeeded by both the Office of Domestic Climate Policy and the Office on Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation.
Czar, sometimes spelled tsar, is an informal title used for certain high-level officials in the United States and United Kingdom, typically granted broad power to address a particular issue. The title is usually treated as gender-neutral although the technically correct Russian term for a female title holder would be czarina.
The climate change policy of the United States has major impacts on global climate change and global climate change mitigation. This is because the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world after China, and is among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person in the world. Cumulatively, the United States has emitted over a trillion metric tons of greenhouse gases, more than any country in the world.
Heather Renée Zichal(last name pronounced with long 'i') is an American executive, consultant, and political advisor who specializes in climate change and environmental policy.
Regina McCarthy is an American air quality expert who served as the first White House national climate advisor from 2021 to 2022. She previously served as the thirteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017.
Amos J. Hochstein is an American businessman, diplomat, and former lobbyist. He is a top national and economic security official in the Biden administration. Hochstein has worked in the U.S. Congress, has testified before congressional panels and has served in the Barack Obama administration under Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry. He was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in 2011 and as Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs in 2013. In 2015, President Barack Obama nominated Hochstein to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources but the Senate did not act on the nomination.
The environmental policy of the first Donald Trump administration represented a shift from the policy priorities and goals of the preceding Barack Obama administration. Where President Obama's environmental agenda prioritized the reduction of carbon emissions through the use of renewable energy with the goal of conserving the environment for future generations, the Trump administration policy was for the US to attain energy independence based on fossil fuel use and to rescind many environmental regulations. By the end of Trump's term, his administration had rolled back 98 environmental rules and regulations, leaving an additional 14 rollbacks still in progress. As of early 2021, the Biden administration was making a public accounting of regulatory decisions under the Trump administration that had been influenced by politics rather than science.
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020, and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week of November and the inauguration on January 20, Biden's presidential transition was shortened somewhat because the General Services Administration under the outgoing first Trump administration did not recognize Biden as the "apparent winner" until November 23.
The United States special presidential envoy for climate is a position in the Executive Office of the President of the United States with authority over energy policy and climate policy within the executive branch. It is currently held by John Podesta.
The White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy is an office within the White House Office that is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. It is headed by the Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor, which is president's chief advisor on domestic climate change policy. In addition, the National Climate Advisor serves as vice-chair of the National Climate Task Force.
Brenda Mallory is an American lawyer specializing in environmental law who is the current chair of the Council on Environmental Quality in the Biden administration. She previously served as director of regulatory policy at the Southern Environmental Law Center, and helped lead the Climate 21 Project.
Ali A. Zaidi is a Pakistani-American lawyer and political advisor serving as the second White House National Climate Advisor since 2022. He was the New York deputy secretary for energy and environment. Zaidi held climate policy positions in the Obama administration including United States Domestic Policy Council deputy director for energy policy and associate director for natural resources, energy, and science at the Office of Management and Budget. Zaidi was a policy aide to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. He served as the first White House Deputy National Climate Advisor from 2021 to 2022.
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