John Podesta To Be Senior Clean Energy Advisor To Pres. Biden

[Webster]

(The Guardian) Podesta to be senior clean energy adviser to Biden
The White House has announced that John Podesta will become senior advisor to US president Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation, among other developments following the news earlier today that top climate advisor Gina McCarthy plans to step down.

Podesta was White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton when he was president, a climate adviser to Barack Obama and – infamously as it became, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid.

Current deputy White House national climate advisor, Ali Zaidi will be promoted to assistant to the president and national climate advisor.

The White House statement noted that: “In his new role, Podesta will oversee implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act’s expansive clean energy and climate provisions and will chair the president’s national climate task force in support of this effort.” Meanwhile, Zaidi will also be vice-chair of the national climate task force. Gina McCarthy will leave her current role on September 16.

Biden expressed gratitude to McCarthy and said of his new appointees: “Under Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi’s leadership, my administration has taken the most aggressive action ever, from historic legislation to bold executive actions, to confront the climate crisis head-on. The Inflation Reduction Act is the biggest step forward on clean energy and climate in history, and it paves the way for additional steps we will take to meet our clean energy and climate goals.

“We are fortunate that John Podesta will lead our continued innovation and implementation. His deep roots in climate and clean energy policy and his experience at senior levels of government mean we can truly hit the ground running to take advantage of the massive clean energy opportunity in front of us.”

Podesta, 73, is a veteran Washington establishment insider and Democratic party stalwart. But he achieved infamy in the 2016 presidential election campaign when, as a result of a chain of mishaps, his email was breached.

As the Guardian reported in late 2016, the blunder gave Kremlin hackers access to about 60,000 emails in Podesta’s private Gmail account. According to US intelligence officials, Moscow then gave the email cache to WikiLeaks. The website released them in October, and the email scandal dominated the news cycle and was exploited by Donald Trump, who went on to a shock victory over Hillary Clinton in the November election.

The revelation gave further credence to a CIA finding that the Moscow deliberately intervened to help Trump.