WRAP UP

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
1/11/13

IN CONGRESS

Incoming Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) announced Committee staff appointments this week, including Joshua Sheinkman as staff director. “The committee has a tremendous combination of veteran committee staffers and dedicated newcomers to work on issues that can give a major boost to the U.S. economy and environment, as well as families’ pocketbooks,” Wyden said in a statement. Senior committee staff include: Sam Fowler as chief counsel, with Dan Adamson, Patty Beneke, David Brooks, Michele Miranda and Todd Wooten as senior counsel. Senior professional staff will include: Isaiah Akin, Meghan Conklin, Kevin Rennert, Allen Stayman and Sara Tucker. Dave Berick will serve as chief investigator, with Peter Gartrell as investigator. Keith Chu was named press secretary, and Samantha Offerdahl press assistant.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced that a former National Wildlife Federation attorney is joining the Committee staff as chief climate counsel. Boxer said Jan. 10 that Joe Mendelson, who most recently worked as policy director for NWF’s Climate and Energy Program, will join the staff in the newly-created climate change position. “Dangerous climate change poses an urgent threat and we have a responsibility to address that threat. I am so pleased that Joe Mendelson will be joining the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee team. We will make the most of his expertise as we craft solutions to climate change,” Boxer said in a statement. National Journal reported this week that incoming Ranking Member David Vitter (R-La.) recently fired most of the Committee’s Republican staff, retaining just two staffers from Inhofe’s tenure as top Republican on the panel. The move is considered a break from the norm given that it is typical for many committee staffers to stay on for years, despite leadership changes.

IN THE ADMINISTRATION

President Barack Obama’s pick for his new Treasury Secretary also briefly worked in energy. Obama nominated his current Chief of Staff Jack Lew this week to replace the outgoing Timothy Geithner as head of the Treasury Department. But Lew, who is best known for two stints as director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, also worked on energy and environmental issues while a lawyer at the Washington-based firm Van Ness Feldman, the Christian Science Monitor pointed out. Lew worked at the firm from 1988 to 1993 and specialized in power plant development issues, the news outlet said. Van Ness Feldman has in more recent years worked as counsel for major carbon capture and storage projects like FutureGen2.0 and American Electric Power’s now defunct Mountaineer CCS demonstration project and provided legal services to groups like the Coal Utilization Research Council.

ON THE INTERNATIONAL FRONT

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world’s richest oil and gas company by revenue, announced this week that they will establish a joint research center that aims to develop new technologies for carbon capture, utilization and storage. The two groups signed a memorandum of understanding Jan. 6 to establish the Saudi-Aramco-KAIST CO2 Research Center to be located in Daejeon, South Korea. The initial partnership will run for six years but could be further extended, the pair said in a press release. “The Saudi Aramco-KAIST CO2 Research Center represents another step part of our R&D strategy execution to help develop innovative technologies towards CO2 capture and conversion by bringing the strengths of Saudi Aramco as a technology innovator with those of KAIST as a center of academic excellence,” Samir A. Tubayyeb, Saudi Aramco‘s vice president for Engineering Services, said in a statement.