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Carol Browner

President Obama’s key adviser on energy and environmental issues, Carol Browner, will leave her White House post in the near future, according to administration officials.

Browner, who served as Environmental Protection Agency administrator during the Clinton administration, is assistant to the president for energy and climate change. In that post, created at the outset of the Obama administration, she has directed the administration’s effort to win congressional approval of comprehensive climate legislation.

Browner also helped coordinate the administration’s response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf and other key initiatives.

While a climate measure passed the House last year, it did not clear the Senate. The president has acknowledged that Election Day’s results, including a Republican-led House, make passage of such a bill unlikely during the next two years.

It remains unclear whether Browner’s position will be filled following her departure. Responding to a reporter’s question on Jan. 26, the day after the president’s State of the Union Message, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “I don’t know exactly what the structure of her office is going to look like.”

Gibbs added, however, “I can assure you that regardless of the staffing inside the White House, first and foremost the president is committed to continuing our important investments in the innovation around clean energy manufacturing and in addressing the long-term problems and … our continual increase in our dependence on energy sources in other places in the world.”

Kirk Johnson, NRECA vice president of energy and environmental policy, suggested that it is unlikely that Browner will be replaced or her office kept in the White House. Most of her staff has already been moved to other agencies or are on their way to other agencies, he pointed out.

With the shift now underway, Johnson added, power over energy and environmental matters will broaden, with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley and the Office of Management and Budget among the recipients.

However, much of the work will still be coordinated or vetted through the White House, probably by the staffs of the Domestic Policy Council and National Economic Council, the NRECA executive indicated.

Tags: Climate Change