(UnitedVoice.com) – John Podesta is a name many people learned during the 2016 presidential campaign. He served as Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and his emails were hacked and dumped by WikiLeaks. They showed the inner workings of the campaign and became a major story for weeks. Now, he’s back in the spotlight. This time, it appears he has landed a new job.
On January 31, the White House confirmed Podesta will succeed John Kerry as the US special climate envoy. Previous reporting indicated he was going to move to the State Department to take on a new role (he’s currently a senior adviser on clean energy), but instead, he will remain at the White House.
Podesta has a lot of experience with climate policy. During former President Barack Obama’s administration, he played a key role in negotiating the 2015 climate agreement. In the 1990s, he helped former President Bill Clinton implement environmental policies. Currently, he is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the President’s Inflation Reduction Act.
He will now be tasked with the job of pushing President Joe Biden’s climate policy around the world. Kerry regularly met with foreign officials to negotiate deals that would tackle climate change. However, the 80-year-old recently decided that he wanted to retire. His departure from the administration comes at a critical time for the president.
As Biden serves the final year of his first term in office, he’s under pressure to make as many deals as he can to implement his agenda. He will have to prove to the American people that he is using the authority they gave him to do what they want. It’s harder than ever for him to show results to the Left when he has a Republican-controlled House and a closely split Senate. Former President Donald Trump has said he will undo as many of Biden’s policies as he can if he wins the White House in November.
Podesta spoke to The Washington Post and vowed to “keep up the momentum that has been built up through [Kerry’s] efforts.”
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