#brian deese

[rjzimmerman]

Harris adviser Deese calls for Marshall Plan on clean energy. (Reuters)

Brian Deese, one of my friends from our HIV/AIDS charity work in Africa, is the Institute Innovation Fellow at MIT. He was recently appointed as an economic adviser for Vice President Harris' presidential campaign. Prior to that, he was the 13th director of the National Economic Council for President Biden, and he previously served in several capacities in the administration of President Obama. He also was a key player in negotiating the Paris Climate Accord, working with John Kerry.

His article in Foreign Affairs, which is summarized in this Reuters story, is brilliant. Here's the link to the original article (beware the paywall) entitled, "The Case for Clean Energy Marshall Plan."

Excerpt from this Reuters story:

Brian Deese, an economic adviser for Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, called on Thursday for an economic program to loan allies money to buy U.S. green energy technologies as part of a wider strategy intended to fight climate change.

Deese, who was an economic adviser under President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama, billed it as a new version of the Marshall Plan, a mechanism of grants set up by President Harry Truman and Secretary of State George Marshall, to help Europe recover after World War Two.

"It should be as generous to our allies as it is unapologetically pro-American in its interest," Deese told Reuters.

While Deese is promoting the plan independently of his work as a Harris adviser, it could offer insight into potential policies of her presidency should she win on Nov. 5. The Harris campaign did not immediately comment.

Deese helped shape the Inflation Reduction Act, opens new tab, Biden's landmark legislation that contains billions of dollars to help spur clean energy and fight climate change. He said the IRA and other legislation created one of the biggest opportunities to speed clean energy, but the effort needs a mechanism to bring technologies to allies.

To support the plan, the U.S. should create a Clean Energy Finance Authority, with the ability to issue debt and equity for clean energy projects, Deese said in an article in Foreign Affairs published earlier this week. The plan could be part of a U.S. alternative to China's "Belt and Road" infrastructure initiative and assure U.S. leadership in a period of friction between global powers.

The new U.S. agency could draw on expertise of the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office in assessing the risks and benefits of emerging technologies like advanced nuclear energy, hydrogen power, carbon capture, and geothermal power, Deese said. The LPO issues loan guarantees and low-rate loans to companies with promising technologies that have difficulty getting financing from commercial banks.

To support the plan, Deese also called for tools such as tariffs that favor imports from countries that cut emissions while making steel and other products, and the development of a strategic mineral reserve.

Such reserves would be held by the U.S. and allies to protect against supply chain shortages for the materials key to clean technologies and the domination of critical minerals trade by China.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Deese helped set up a record sale of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help moderate gasoline prices for U.S. drivers. That experience helped him see the importance of developing reserves for minerals, he said.

"My hope is we were moving out of the idea stage and into the opportunity to experiment and then build," such reserves, Deese said.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a Reuters interview in June that the U.S. has been having conversations with allies in the International Energy Agency about collective reserves for critical minerals.

[rjzimmerman]

This is a 23-minute clip from today’s (January 22) White House press briefing, during which Brian Deese, the Director of the National Economic Council, discusses executive actions that President Biden is taking today to enhance financial relief to Americans as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic. I normally don’t post press briefings, particularly when they don’t deal with my primary blog focus areas of the environment and climate, but this is an important topic. And I’m personally engaged in this clip, because Brian is one of my friends. We spent time together in South Africa for charity work. He’s a smart, sincere good man.

[rjzimmerman]

The president-elect Joe Biden picked the former adviser to Barack Obama to be the director of the National Economic Council, according to people familiar with the matter.

I know Brian Deese well. He and I spent a couple of weeks together, along with about 75 others from the US and the UK, trekking in the Cederberg Wilderness Area of South African, back in April 2002, in an event called the "Africa AIDS Trek." Our group had raised about $1.2 million for purposes of providing funds to community organizations and healthcare organizations in South Africa to be used for women and children with HIV/AIDS. After we got back from Africa, Brian and I got together a few times and noodled on ideas such as the development of a microlending program to be used in the smaller communities in Africa to assist women in the development of small business opportunities. Brian is brilliant, personable and caring. He had various positions in the administration of President Obama, including developing and implementing the plan to bail out Chrysler during the Great Recession, and then later in the administration's tenure, working with John Kerry in the development and implementation of the Paris Climate Accord. He has further developed his climate and environmental credentials during his position as Global Head of Sustainable Investing with BlackRock over the past four years. Just knowing that a guy of this caliber and with a progressive mind-set is going to be part of the Joe Biden administration makes me feel really good about the future.

I choose to ignore the criticisms from the progressive wing. They are wrong, and time and Brian’s performance will prove them wrong.

Brian Deese, shown in 2015, will play a lead role in implementing the Biden administration’s economic agenda. PHOTO: JACQUELYN MARTIN/ASSOCIATED PRESS.

Excerpt from this Wall Street Journal article:

President-elect Joe Biden has chosen Brian Deese, a former adviser to Barack Obama, to be the director of the National Economic Council, according to people familiar with the matter.

In his new post, which doesn’t require Senate confirmation, Mr. Deese will play a lead role in implementing Mr. Biden’s economic agenda, with a focus on rebuilding the economy amid a pandemic that has devastated many U.S. businesses and resulted in millions of lost jobs.

Mr. Deese served in multiple senior White House roles during the Obama administration. After working on Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign, he joined Mr. Obama’s National Economic Council, eventually rising to deputy director. He then served as deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. He was later promoted to senior adviser to the president, a position that focused in part on climate change and energy issues. He played a central role in negotiating the international climate-change agreement that was reached in Paris in 2015.

During his White House tenure, he also worked on issues related to the automotive and financial industries, as well as the Supreme Court.

After leaving the White House, Mr. Deese joined BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager, as global head of sustainable investing.

Some progressive groups have raised concerns about Mr. Deese’s role at BlackRock, arguing that Mr. Biden shouldn’t tap individuals with ties to corporations and the financial sector to serve in his administration.

But Mr. Deese’s former colleagues defended him.

“I consider Brian to be one of the smartest climate advocates that I ever had the pleasure to work with,” said former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, who worked alongside Mr. Deese during the Obama administration. “If anybody says he isn’t a climate advocate, I can dispute that.”

[rjzimmerman]

For Biden’s Economic Team, an Early Focus on Climate

In announcing key economic advisers in the White House and the cabinet, the president-elect has emphasized action to boost clean energy and reduce emissions

Excerpt from this story from the New York Times:

The video rollouts of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s pick for Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, and National Economic Council director, Brian Deese, began biographically. But they quickly shifted to focus on an issue that could distinguish Mr. Biden’s core economic team from its predecessors: climate change.

Ms. Yellen promised an agenda to promote “investments that will create jobs and address the tremendous challenge of climate change.” Mr. Biden introduced Mr. Deese by calling him the first N.E.C. director who is a “true expert on climate policy.”

Both were clear signs that, even as Mr. Biden confronts the immediate task of accelerating the pandemic recovery, he has placed the longer-running climate challenge at the center of his administration’s economic priorities.

That climate focus is expected to influence the incoming administration’s initial plans to support the economic recovery. Ms. Yellen, Mr. Deese and Neera Tanden, the nominee to head the White House Office of Management and Budget, are preparing to weave  efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and accelerate clean energy production into the economic stimulus legislation that his team is crafting. It is also expected to play a heavy role in a broader infrastructure initiative that could be one of Mr. Biden’s best hopes for a major bipartisan bill in his first year in office.

Climate is also expected to influence his economic approach more broadly, with his team preparing to use the government’s vast regulatory powers to advance a climate agenda through financial regulations that could further accelerate the deployment of wind and solar energy, electric cars and other initiatives to reduce emissions — an approach that Mr. Biden’s team insists will create jobs.

Those close to Mr. Biden, who has pledged to take a “whole of government” approach to climate change, said he is purposefully putting what scientists believe is the world’s largest looming crisis at the heart of the agencies most responsible for promoting the country’s economic security.