Subject: Cathy Zoi and FERC
From: "Carol Browner" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 12:00:46 -0400

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----- Original Message -----
From: Cathy Zoi <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>; Carol Browner
Sent: Fri Oct 24 11:52:25 2008
Subject: CZ CV-- FERC conversation

John and Carol --  Great to see you both earlier this week at Harvard.  It was an interesting meeting — good from our perspective b/c no one identified any showstoppers with the Repower America vision.  And as mentioned, the public polling on it is very strong.  Onward...

John — During the discussion about the importance of the grid and the historic inability of FERC to get anything truly groundbreaking done, Carol had a thought which I’ve now gnawed on for a day and a half:  perhaps I could help the Obama Administration realize the President’s vision on clean energy by leading the charge on grid modernization from FERC.  Without a much-improved grid — both from an infrastructure and a regulatory perspective -- the vast potential of a clean energy revolution won’t be realized.  Leading this effort will require a combination of technical understanding, regulatory experience, constituency support (particularly green groups on siting issues), and political nous (dealing with state leaders and the Hill) -- and a tolerance for long, anonymous linoleum-tiled corridors (have you guys ever been to FERC?!).  I’m not sure who else you’ve got in mind, and I haven’t been jockeying for Administration posts, but (corny as it sounds) if my skill-set matches the need it would be honor to help President Obama.  

Per Carol’s suggestion, I’ve attached my CV.  There may be other roles for me that would be useful, too, given the need to set clean energy initiatives in motion across the government.  But this isn’t a hard-sell — more an offer if I can provide unique value.  

Request:  I have NOT mentioned to Al that I’m offering to assist.  And I won’t if you all are set with folks already.  BUT, if this becomes a real possibility I would like to be able to speak with him about it before he hears it from elsewhere.  Getting the Alliance’s campaign off the ground and to a place with its current momentum has been successful and challenging.  He and I are both really pleased at the progress.  Passing the baton to someone else at this stage will not be crippling — but it would need to be handled well.  As a board member and longtime colleague of Al’s, Carol understands the dynamics as well as anyone.

Sidenote:  To get into the headspace for the Harvard meeting I picked up Halberstam’s ‘The Best and the Brightest’ (which I’d never read).  It of course highlights the challenges of actually governing — compared to  campaigning or think-tanking.  And how the Kennedy Administration appointees unwittingly oversaw a disastrous escalation of the Vietnam war.  At the risk of sounding like a total pander, what’s heartening about having you guys leading the Obama transition is your deep experience in governing, as well as campaigning and think-tanking.   My own experience as a civil servant manager during the Bush the Elder years (when we brazenly took on the White House and changed the President’s position on signing a climate convention in Rio), and then later in the Clinton-Gore White House, might come in handy in getting the machinery of government moving to leverage the opportunities in clean energy and on climate.   If so, let’s explore some possibilities.

John — Thanks again for the book.  Susha will be thrilled (I left the house before she woke up this morning but left it on her bedside table).

See you guys again soon — good luck with your efforts.  The election feels like a profoundly important historical moment.  Now to make the Administration a profoundly important historical ERA.

Warm wishes,
Cathy