Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Sign of the times: Heather Zichal, Obama's deputy assistant for energy and climate change, just remembered that oil and gas companies are “incredibly important to our domestic energy portfolio.”

Obama’s Aide on Climate Change Seeking Oil, Gas Allies - Bloomberg

Heather Zichal spent her early days in the Obama administration pushing a climate-change bill in Congress that oil and gas companies helped to derail.

Now President Barack Obama has named Zichal, his deputy assistant for energy and climate change, as a liaison to that industry, and to make sure proposed rules don’t slow the surge in U.S. natural-gas development.

...Heather Zichal said, “It’s hard to overstate how natural gas and our ability to access more of it than ever has become a game changer."

...Zichal, picked last month to lead the multiagency task force, is trying to walk a middle ground. She says natural-gas development is the “sweet spot” in the U.S. energy mix because it’s both cheap and cleaner than other fossil fuels...

She told the audience of officials from the industry, Congress and states that oil and gas companies are “incredibly important to our domestic energy portfolio.”

...Zichal says Obama’s backing of natural gas shouldn’t be seen as dispensation to a well-heeled industry in an election year.

Tom Nelson: Search results for zichal

[2008]: [Zichal] sees the US aggressively "charging forward" with domestic cap-and-trade, which she imagines will then bring countries like India and China "on board" with CO2 hysteria. She also imagines a US electorate where CO2 hysteria is "front and center".

1 comment:

Sean said...

Poor Heather, she'll have to convince the oil and gas companies who have been vilified by this administration for the last 4 years, that they are on the fossil fuel industry side and support therefor should support president. Meanwhile, the Catholic church who supported Obamacare, have had gone to court to protect their religious liberty. Perhaps they also need to coordinate better the Sierra Club, who are already firmly in the Obama camp, to call off their attack dogs about natural gas production ... at least until after the election.