2021-01-18 Biden nominates Gary Gensler for SEC commissioner, Rohit Chopra to lead Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Gensler and Chopra are both allies of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Currently a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Chopra will — if confirmed — return to the CFPB, where he previously worked as its top student loan watchdog. The nomination of Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned ferocious advocate for stricter regulation on big banks, is a signal that Biden’s team is poised to take a harder line with Wall Street than previous administrations.
Only two weeks ago, people close to the Biden transition team had penciled in centrist Robert Jackson Jr. — an NYU law professor and SEC commissioner under Trump — as the SEC frontrunner because he was seen as more likely to win confirmation
Gensler, 63, is a former partner at Goldman Sachs who joined the Clinton administration as a senior advisor to his former Goldman boss, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. During the George W. Bush presidency, Gensler stuck around DC as a senior Senate staffer and a key architect of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulation.
Barack Obama put Gensler in charge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2009 where he became infamous among his former Wall Street colleagues for overhauling the regulation of derivatives that created the 2008 financial crisis. Gensler also used the CFTC to uncover and prosecute the massive Libor rate-rigging scandal.
Gensler and Chopra are both allies of Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Currently a member of the Federal Trade Commission, Chopra will — if confirmed — return to the CFPB, where he previously worked as its top student loan watchdog. The nomination of Gensler, a former Goldman Sachs executive turned ferocious advocate for stricter regulation on big banks, is a signal that Biden’s team is poised to take a harder line with Wall Street than previous administrations.The choices are a victory for the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, which has led the charge for more aggressive oversight of the financial industry. Chopra was in on the ground floor with Warren, who built the CFPB as part of the Dodd-Frank law passed in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Gensler worked in the Obama administration for a time as the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, where he earned a reputation as a hardliner on regulatory matters.
2021-01-17 Biden taps Warren ally Chopra to lead Consumer Bureau If confirmed, Chopra, now a member of the Federal Trade Commission, would be returning to helm an agency he helped Warren set up after its establishment by the landmark Dodd-Frank financial reform law of 2010.
He is an ally of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who proposed and built the consumer-focused agency. He is also backed by progressive groups. Bloomberg first reported Chopra’s selection. Among those who applauded the move Sunday were Randi Weingarten, leader of the American Federation of Teachers, and the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, which called him a “fantastic pick who will return the agency to its days of actually fighting for consumers.”
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2021-01-22 The Chopra Gambit On Monday, President Biden announced his intention to name Federal Trade Commissioner Rohit Chopra as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s next director, earning a rare, unqualified cheer from the party’s left flank. Despite serving in the minority on the FTC, Chopra has managed to have a ground-shaking impact, earning a reputation for skillful and creative maneuvering. It is encouraging to see his dogged work for the public interest rewarded and the CFPB land in such capable hands. Just elevating Chopra, however, is not enough. If Democrats are serious about good governance and building their party’s power, they must look to the institutional features that provided Chopra with a platform and honed his governing skills so that, moving forward, he is not such a lonely figure.
2021-01-22 Fintech Loves This Rumored Biden Nominee A leading contender to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Michael Barr, has a particular cheering section among the shadiest of online financial operators.
Barr’s name is familiar, but that is not a good thing. Keeping the former Tim Geithner–era Treasury Department official from confirmation to a Federal Reserve Board of Governors position became a heated and ultimately successful campaign for progressives in 2014. Barr was a key figure in the crafting of the Dodd-Frank financial reform, and a willing destroyer of more progressive ideas for it, on behalf of the Obama administration. His rumored appointment is particularly dispiriting for progressives who hoped that Mehrsa Baradaran, a law professor and expert on the racial wealth gap, would win the OCC appointment.
Jubilant at Barr’s elevation, however, are the fintech and cryptocurrency sectors. “Fintech” refers to the quickly burgeoning world of borrowing and financial services apps that often look and act as predatory as payday lenders but have much snappier graphic design. “Crypto” is shorthand for the smattering of unregulated digital currencies currently being pumped and dumped and used for money laundering, among other things. Fintech luminaries, publications, and cryptocurrency mavens across the board are cheering the possible appointment of the person who should, in theory, be tasked with regulating them.
2020-11-27 The inexorable rise of Jake Sullivan “So in the end he’s the only human being who went to 112 countries with Hillary. His capacity for work is just that annoying,” Philippe Reines joked in an interview, one of a dozen for this story.
All that work has clearly paid off: Sullivan, now 43, will be the youngest national security adviser in nearly 60 years when President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated in January — in what those who know him described as an almost-inevitable next step for a man who’s always seemed preternaturally older than his actual age.
After holding top positions at the State Department and in the Obama White House and playing a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal, it’s clear Sullivan is “on the Benjamin Button track,” Reines said, referring to the F. Scott Fitzgerald character who is born into an old man’s body and ages backward. “He is the equivalent of at least a decade, if not two, beyond his biological years.”
2020-11-23 US should encourage China’s rise, Biden national security pick Jake Sullivan says “We need to strike a middle course – one that encourages China’s rise in a manner consistent with an open, fair, rules-based, regional order,” Sullivan said. “This will require care and prudence and strategic foresight, and maybe even more basically it will require sustained attention. It may not have escaped your notice that these are not in ample supply in Washington right now.”
During the same lecture, Sullivan said China policy needs to be about more than just bilateral ties, “it needs to be about our ties to the region that create an environment more conducive to a peaceful and positive sum Chinese rise,” he said.
Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser between 2013 and 2014, and Hillary Clinton’s top foreign policy adviser in 2016, Sullivan is a very smart guy and a dedicated patriot. Still, I believe his selection will be received favorably in Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing for all the wrong reasons (North Korea is a curve ball). That may seem like an unfair jab at the 43 year-old, but based on his record and the present national security priorities of each of those governments, it’s not an unfair one. After all, Sullivan was a key architect of the Obama administration’s too-deferential foreign policy structures. Which is to say, its willingness to play softball in the 2013-2015 nuclear negotiations which culminated with the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, its appeasement of China, and its failure to counter exponential increases in Russian aggression.
For all of his idiotic praise of Vladimir Putin, President Trump has presided over a strengthened NATO, the delivery of lethal arms to Ukraine (which Obama opposed), and the authorization of more aggressive intelligence operations against Moscow.
Sullivan has a less auspicious record towards Vladimir’s crew. For all the Democratic Party talking points that Trump is Putin’s pet, in an August 2016 interview with the New Yorker, Sullivan offered absurdly optimistic tones on how the U.S. could compromise with Moscow. He said this even as he noted that the Russians were interfering with the 2016 election. Why no call to shutdown the GRU’s mainframes? Or expel the Russian ambassador? Or at least leave some reciprocal gifts in the D.C. apartments of Russian intelligence officers?
Psaki and Deese discussed the president’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid proposal. The package includes $400 billion for efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 and increase vaccine distribution; over $1 trillion to assist families needing direct financial support; and $440 billion in emergency funds for cash-poor small businesses and communities. The White House’s plan, which Mr. Biden said he plans to send to Congress soon, includes additional $1,400 direct payments to millions of Americans, on top of the $600 payments approved in December under the previous Congress.
Deese said “decisive action” is needed to prevent further financial fallout from the pandemic. “We’re at a precarious moment for the virus and the economy,” he warned. “Without decisive action, we risk falling into a very serious economic hole, even more serious than the crisis we find ourselves in.”
Psaki, a veteran of Democratic campaigns and administrations, will be the face of the all-female senior White House communications team as Biden settles into his presidency.
Psaki, who was raised in Connecticut, has worked for Democrats in Washington since at least 2004, when she served in John Kerry’s presidential campaign.
From there, she moved onto both of President Obama’s campaigns and served as the top State Department spokesperson during his second term. By the end of Obama’s time in office, she had graduated to be his communications director starting in 2014.
She did not work for Biden’s 2020 campaign, and instead worked as a CNN political commentator and private public relations adviser, according to the report.
2020-11-30 Inside the unlikely return of Jen Psaki Psaki’s ascension to the top spokesperson’s role — one that she wanted and for which she was twice a runner-up for in the Obama administration — fits with the president-elect’s pattern of turning to experienced Washington operatives to fill the top positions in his administration. And it signals Biden’s intention to run a White House free of the kind of briefing-room drama that defined his predecessor’s tenure, from Sean Spicer’s claims about the size of Trump’s inauguration crowd to Kayleigh McEnany’s misleading statements about the pandemic.
Ultimately, Psaki beat out other top contenders for the role, including Symone Sanders and Karine Jean-Pierre, because of her strong rapport with the former vice president combined with her expertise on economic and foreign policy issues and her experience conducting high-profile press briefings, multiple people familiar with the selection said.
“She is an ideal choice for them for a job that’s really hard to fill,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a former communications director in the Obama White House. “It’s hard to find someone that has credibility, the press likes, will mesh well with the White House staff and can speak about foreign policy and national security issues with a lot of credibility.”
More recently, Bedingfield worked for Biden as his deputy campaign manager and communications director during the 2020 presidential election.
Outside of politics, Bedingfield was the chief spokeswoman and vice president of corporate communications at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the vice president of communications at Monumental Sports & Entertainment.
Bedingfield said in an interview with 19th News published Thursday. “Trump gathered so many followers and generated so many clicks by putting forth this really divisive, often hate-filled shock content. So, we were never going to try to out-do him in that, that’s not true to who President Biden is.”
2021-01-20 Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s Communications Director: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know Kate Bedingfield Represented John Edwards During the 2008 Primary Before Joining the Obama Administration. Bedingfield Left Politics to Represent the Film Industry in 2011. Biden Hired Bedingfield as His Communications Director in 2015 But She Returned to the Private Sector After the 2016 Election. Bedingfield Managed Biden’s Messaging Strategy Primarily From Home & Says Her Two Children Often Interrupted Zoom Calls With Biden. Bedingfield Has Been Married to Husband David Kieve Since 2013 & She Grew Up in an Atlanta Suburb
Todd started the new position Wednesday, Jan. 20, according to an email she sent to colleagues that was seen by Bloomberg. She didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
Brown described Todd as having done “unrelenting work” on the trade deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that went into effect in July. The agreement won Democratic support after changes for Mexico’s labor system demanded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and engineered by her chief trade lawyer Katherine Tai, now President Joe Biden’s intended nominee for USTR. Todd worked closely with Tai on those changes.
“She believes in the dignity of work and will serve honorably as USTR Katherine Tai‘s chief of staff,” Brown said. “For too long, our trade policies have prioritized corporate interests at the expense of American workers. As the Biden-Harris administration works to pursue a trade policy to level the playing field and put workers first, I am encouraged to know Nora will be at the center of those efforts.”
One of the most exciting things about this slate of “climate Cabinet” nominees is the experience and success in state-level climate leadership it will bring to the federal government. After all, for the past half-decade and longer, states have been laying a roadmap for bold, nationwide climate action.1 Many of these nominees have served in or at the top of state government, including in Michigan, North Carolina, and New York. Others hail from states that have recently made great strides in clean energy such as New Mexico. All of them can now put lessons from their states’ leadership to work toward advancing federal policy and supporting ambitious climate action at all levels of government.
In December, Electrek reported that President-elect Joe Biden named the NRDC’s Gina McCarthy domestic climate czar. McCarthy and her deputy, Ali Zaidi, will coordinate action across multiple federal agencies and Congress. Here’s a brief background on six of Biden’s latest appointments to McCarthy’s climate team [via E&E], and more hires will follow.
David Hayes, special assistant to the president for climate policy: Executive director for New York University’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, where he helped state attorneys general fight the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks. Deputy interior secretary during the Obama and Clinton administrations.
Cecilia Martinez, senior director for environmental justice, the White House Council on Environmental Quality: Served on Biden’s climate engagement advisory council since the general election campaign. Co-founder and executive director of the Minneapolis-based Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, and has worked as a research professor at the University of Delaware.
Maggie Thomas, chief of staff, the Office of Domestic Climate Policy: First served as deputy climate director for Governor Jay Inslee’s (D-WA) presidential campaign, and then as Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) climate policy adviser. Political director at Evergreen Action. She was on the Interior Department agency review team and was a policy volunteer during the campaign. She is a NextGen America alumna.
Sonia Aggarwal, senior adviser, climate policy and innovation: Cofounder of the think tank Energy Innovation, where she led policy and analytical programs. The firm helped the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis create its report of policy recommendations. Aggarwal managed global research at the ClimateWorks Foundation.
Jahi Wise, senior adviser, climate policy and finance: policy volunteer on the Biden campaign. Policy director, the Coalition for Green Capital, a clean energy accelerator, where he led the push to create a national climate bank. He formerly worked for BlocPower, which aims to cut building emissions.
Jeff Marootian, special assistant to the president for climate and science agency personnel, working within the Presidential Personnel Office: Director of the District of Columbia’s Transportation Department. Served on the agency review team for the US Department of Transportation (DOT). Previously the DOT’s liaison to the Obama White House, assistant secretary for administration and chief sustainability officer.
2021-01-20 Gina McCarthy outlines Biden’s first climate actions Joe Biden will spend his first hours as president trying to obliterate much of the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda, restore public land protections and reestablish the United States as a global leader on climate change policy.
Biden will sit in the Oval Office later today and sign a sweeping executive order to rejoin the Paris Agreement and undo President Trump’s rollback of greenhouse gas policies, said Gina McCarthy, Biden’s national climate adviser. “We know rejoining [Paris] won’t be enough, but along with strong domestic action, which this executive order kicks off, it is going to be an important step for the United States to regain and strengthen its leadership opportunities,” McCarthy told reporters late yesterday.
The process of rejoining the Paris Agreement will begin today with a letter to the United Nations requesting U.S. membership. It will take 30 days for the U.S. to formally reenter the nonbinding global agreement to reduce emissions. The administration will also rescind the permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, McCarthy said. The line transports crude from the western Canadian province of Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas and to other oil facilities in Oklahoma.
2021-01-17 Flint Activists Remember How Gina McCarthy, Biden’s Pick for Climate Policy, Failed Their City On Thursday, nine people, including former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, were charged over the crisis. Nick Lyon, Snyder’s health director, and Dr. Eden Wells, Snyder’s chief medical executive, were charged with involuntary manslaughter. Snyder was charged with two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect of duty. But the failure to help the people of Flint reached from the city level all the way to the top of the federal government. In 2014, the city switched water sources to the Flint River to save costs. The water was not treated to reduce corrosion, causing the water to be contaminated with lead. At the same time, bacteria in the water was blamed for an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease.
McCarthy is preparing to lead a new office of domestic climate policy at the White House, a position that does not require approval from Congress. She wrote in a blog post that she thinks the U.S. should aim for 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and a carbon-neutral economy by 2050.
20120-12-16 Former mayor says Biden appointee Gina McCarthy failed Flint during water crisis Former Mayor Karen Weaver, who dealt directly with Gina McCarthy during the Flint water crisis, says she is disappointed that the former head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been tapped to lead President-elect Joe Biden’s massive, coordinated domestic campaign to slow climate change.
During congressional testimony in March 2017, McCarthy said that the EPA waited too long to make its voice heard as levels of lead, bacteria and chlorination byproducts rose in Flint water in 2014 and 2015. “In hindsight, we should not have been so trusting of the state for so long,” she said at the time. “We missed the opportunity to quickly get EPA’s concerns on the radar screen. That, I regret.”
While the former Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has taken the brunt of criticism for its oversight of Flint water, McCarthy’s EPA was also under fire for the agency’s passive role as it unfolded, and former Region 5 Director Susan Hedman resigned amidst mounting outrage over the crisis.
2020-12-15 Biden to name Gina McCarthy to top domestic climate job President-elect Joe Biden will name Gina McCarthy as his White House climate czar, a source familiar with the decision tells CNN, making the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency his top domestic climate coordinator.McCarthy, who currently serves as the head of the Natural Resources Defense Council, will lead Biden’s newly formed Office of Domestic Climate Policy, a source said. McCarthy served as the administrator of the EPA from 2013 to 2017 under President Barack Obama.The source added that Ali Zaidi, currently New York’s deputy secretary of energy and environment, will serve as White House deputy climate coordinator. Zaidi served in different climate-focused roles in the Office of Management and Budget and on the White House Domestic Policy Council during the Obama administration.The move is the latest example of Biden’s prioritization of the climate crisis.
