“We are fortunate to have John Podesta lead our continued innovation and implementation,” Biden said in a statement. “His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and experience at senior levels of government mean we can really hit the ground running to take advantage of the huge clean energy opportunity ahead of us.”
Podesta also previously served as former President Barack Obama’s top climate advisor and was actively involved in the administration’s climate executive actions and the international negotiations that led to the Paris Climate Agreement. Podesta was most recently at the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, which he founded, and has been informally advising the Biden administration on climate issues.
The administration also announced Friday that White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy is stepping down. McCarthy — one of two top climate officials appointed by Biden early in his administration — had long been expected to stay on for about a year, but she stayed on for months afterward to help investigate the historic Democratic climate legislation.
She will be succeeded by Ali Zaidi, said the administration official, who has been McCarthy’s deputy since the beginning of the Biden administration. Biden’s other top climate official, US climate envoy John Kerry, is expected to remain in place during the UN climate summit this fall.
Biden praised McCarthy and Zaidi for their work.
“I am extremely grateful for Gina’s service and am proud to announce Ali’s appointment as National Climate Advisor,” Biden said in a statement. “Gina has been an invaluable member of my senior staff since day one of management and I wish her the best as she moves forward.”
McCarthy headed the Environmental Protection Agency under former President Barack Obama and was a key architect of that administration’s clean power plan. In the Biden administration, McCarthy was tasked with creating a first-of-its-kind White House office to coordinate interagency climate action.
“Her legacy will be that she set the president and the administration up for the most aggressive climate action in US history,” said Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president for energy and environmental policy at the Center for American Progress. “All of these will be what she is most proud of and remembered for. These positions will remain and the structure she helped lead will be needed long into the future.”
While McCarthy greased the wheels for climate action at various agencies, the White House’s most significant climate victory came through Congress last month in the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $370 billion in new tax credits. clean energy credits and climate provisions — a record amount of climate spending and the most important environmental legislation since the landmark Clean Air Act.
As the Biden White House has pursued a mostly legislative climate strategy, McCarthy hasn’t played much of a role in congressional negotiations, multiple lawmakers told CNN. In the end, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer played the biggest role in the final negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that produced a surprise eleventh-hour climate bill.
During a year of stop-and-go negotiations before the bill passed, lawmakers said McCarthy focused heavily on guiding the agency’s executive actions and regulations. He has had regular check-ins with Senate climate hawks to keep them apprised of climate-focused executive actions, Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota told CNN.
“I think that’s been her sweet spot; more on the executive action side than the negotiating side of Congress,” Smith said.
