President-elect Joe Biden’s choices on whom to appoint for Cabinet positions and other personnel will be the first “real test” of whether he will deliver for liberal climate activists who were initially reluctant to back him in the campaign.
Liberal activists are keeping pressure on Biden not to appoint Obama-era centrists with ties to the oil and gas industry to his administration even as he faces the challenge of getting his appointees approved through a Senate run by Mitch McConnell if Republicans maintain control.
“This is the first real test if Biden is able to back up his rhetoric on climate,” said Collin Rees, a senior campaigner with Oil Change International, an environmental group that advocates for keeping fossil fuels in the ground. “We want to refute this false narrative that just because the Senate might be in McConnell’s hands means we need to roll over and instantly pick Republicans or corporate-friendly Democrats. It’s really dangerous and self-defeating.”
Liberals are urging Biden to make recess appointments or deploy the force of the Vacancies Act to get liberal officials in key positions if a GOP Senate proves too big a barrier. President Trump made “generous” use of the Vacancies Act, progressives say, which enabled him to install acting leaders of agencies without Senate confirmation.
“Progressives are not going to stifle themselves from criticizing fossil fuel-friendly potential appointees just because some elements in Biden’s camp might find the Constitution’s recess appointment power or use of the Vacancies Act too provocative,” said Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project.
The push by liberals, however, risks provoking a Democratic conflict over how far to go in combating climate change. Within hours of his victory, centrists argued that Biden owed his success to winning back swing voters in industrial Midwestern states and blamed liberal positions such as the “Green New Deal” and banning fracking for losing House seats in GOP-leaning districts.
Environmentalists and liberals, meanwhile, claimed that young voters delivered Biden a “climate mandate” and are threatening to turn on him if he doesn’t deliver.
“Given the popular and decisive mandate we delivered, he has a responsibility to carry that forward and use every tool in his toolbox to make climate a top priority, which includes putting personnel who reflect that,” said Lauren Maunus, legislative and advocacy manager for the Sunrise Movement, a group of young climate activists who helped inspire the Green New Deal.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, told the Washington Examiner that it’s “not going to be easy” for Biden to confirm a cabinet if Republicans control the Senate.
Whitehouse, however, warned that it’s counterproductive to impose limits on the pool of talent who can provide counsel to Biden on a complex and technical issue such as climate change.
“Litmus tests are one of the ways we waste our own time and create circular firing squads and give aid and comfort to the fossil industry,” Whitehouse said. “The question is: What’s the agenda, and how hard are [personnel] fighting? Let’s get it done.”
Liberal activists say they’ve seen positive signs from Biden since more than 100 groups, led by Oil Change U.S., the Sunrise Movement, 350.org, and Greenpeace demanded in a letter before the election that he ban fossil fuel executives, lobbyists, and representatives from working for him.
Last month, Biden’s campaign released a transition team code of ethics that includes a ban on lobbyists, which seems to apply to people with ties to the oil and gas industry.
Rees and Hauser, along with other liberals, hope Biden deploys the same policy as president-elect.
“Progressives are being listened to like they were not in past two transitions, but it doesn’t mean everything is rosy,” Hauser said.
Liberals are also mostly happy with Biden’s picks for personnel volunteering on transition teams.
The teams, including those covering energy and environment agencies, are packed with Obama administration alumni, but they also include environmentalists, clean energy experts, and people of color.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are true champions for climate action, clean energy jobs, and environmental justice, and we are confident that their nominees will reflect the diversity of our country in all ways and advance our shared values and goals,” said Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, a progressive environmental group.
Leading the transition team for the Department of Energy is Arun Majumdar, the first director of ARPA-E, the agency’s advanced energy research hub. He is rumored to be on Biden’s shortlist to lead the department.
The Interior team is led by Kevin Washburn, who served as assistant secretary of Indian affairs during the second term of the Obama administration.
Heading up the Environmental Protection Agency transition team is Patrice Simms, vice president of healthy communities at Earthjustice, which has spearheaded many of the legal challenges against the Trump administration’s rollbacks of climate and environmental regulations.
Notably missing from the list is former Obama administration Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who has been the biggest target of liberal activists who want to block or limit his influence in a Biden administration because of his stance that natural gas should play a role in the clean energy transition.
Moniz is on the board of Southern Company, a utility that generates most of its power from natural gas.
Environmentalists and liberals also liked Biden’s selection of Ron Klain as chief of staff, citing his experience helping Biden implement clean energy funding from the 2009 American Recovery Act.
But progressives are trying to keep out corporate-tied personnel from any position that could influence climate policy — not just the EPA and the Energy Department, but also the Treasury, the Office of Budget and Management, the National Economic Council, and more.
Rees and Hauser were disappointed with Biden’s choices for the OBM transition team, which include Brandon Belford of Lyft, Divya Kumaraiah of Airbnb, and Mark Schwartz of Amazon.
“The OMB Review Team is a huge corporate mess,” Rees said. “They’ve got the potential to throw up some serious roadblocks to a climate agenda across the board.”
They also criticized the inclusion of Bridget Dooling, a George Washington University professor who worked in the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs during the administrations of former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. That office has influence over regulations issued by environmental agencies.
“OMB determines the regulatory trajectory of the entire executive branch,” Hauser said. “Under Obama, strong EPA administrators were rendered ineffectual by corporate captured personnel in OIRA.”
In addition to demanding that he focus all agencies on climate, liberal groups such as the Sunrise Movement have urged Biden to create a new White House Office of Climate Mobilization that would report directly to the president and coordinate the federal government’s response to the issue.
Jeff Navin, a former acting chief of staff at the Energy Department during the Obama administration, said Biden would balance appointing personnel with prior federal experience with people bringing “new perspectives and ideas to the table.”
“This will be Joe Biden’s government, not Barack Obama’s third term. But Biden is going to be able to bring people back into the government who know how the system works and can hit the ground running on Day One,” said Navin, who is now a partner at Boundary Stone Partners, a government affairs and communications firm.
