Climate Changers: White House Aide Phil Schiliro
Part of a series profiling key players in environmental politics. Read more>> Who he is: Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs What does that title mean? When senators or representatives want to relay a message to the president, they call Phil. When the president wants to relay a message to Congress, he calls Phil. Essentially, Schiliro’s a go-between, but a really, really important one. Green cred: Schiliro attended Hofstra University and Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. As a congressional and executive branch staffer for his entire working life, he has handled many different issues, green or otherwise. He spent more than two decades working for Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat with a strong environmental record. Because his job is to push his boss’ agenda, not his own, Schiliro is rarely able to express his personal opinions publicly. Still, looking closely, we can find some environmental rumblings. In 1974, while he was a senior in high school on Long Island, Schiliro rallied students from his environmental studies class to stop a local company from polluting a stream behind his parents’ house. Two decades later, when he ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in Long Island, he drew attention to links between breast cancer and pollution. In the coming months, he will help Obama usher a climate change bill through Congress. How he gets things done: Schiliro’s role can range from good-humored encouragement to persistent lobbying, depending on the occasion and whom he’s working with. When Waxman, his longtime boss, was set to chair a hearing on an earlier version of the climate bill, Schiliro emailed him with the message: "Words for the day: patience and good humor." On another occasion, when Obama was searching for a Republican to support the health care reform bill, Schiliro staked out an elevator in the Capitol Building at midnight, waiting to buttonhole Republican Olympia Snowe as she returned from a late-night Senate vote. Schiliro usually finds a way to get what his bosses need out of people — although the climate bill could be one of his toughest challenges yet. What’s it like to grab a sandwich with him? Phil makes you feel like the only person in his universe for that 45 minutes. While many high-level government staffers enjoy talking about themselves — their importance, their knowledge, their annoyances — Phil turns the tables and asks about you. Soon you’re 20 minutes into a conversation about your own deepest hopes and dreams. How’d he do that? You suddenly remember all the questions you wanted to ask him. Then he makes a joke, deflects the attention away from himself, and launches you into another 20 minutes about your hopes and dreams. (Full disclosure: the writer did indeed share a sandwich with Schiliro while reporting for a different publication.) He’ll often use the same approach with lawmakers. Once he knows what they hope to achieve, he finds ways to accomplish those goals while also advancing the administration’s agenda. Why he’s effective: People in Washington call him quiet and even-keeled, but also tough and persuasive, with a tendency toward self-deprecating wit. "A born diplomat," says Waxman. On Capitol Hill, he is seen as the good-cop counterpart to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s bad cop. Schiliro often serves as the voice of the White House at closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill, explaining the president’s intentions, gathering supporters, and answering questions. Where to find him: Schiliro is the unidentified aide in the background of most photos taken of important people in Washington. OK, maybe not most photos, but a helluva lot of them. Just this May, as Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was ushered around Capitol Hill, for example, Schiliro was there .
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Climate Changers: U.S. Senator John Kerry
Part of a series profiling key players in environmental politics. Read more>> Who he is: Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat Green cred: What is it about defeated Democratic presidential candidates and climate change? First Al Gore and now John Kerry have taken up the mantle of Earth’s defender (although both were interested in the issue before running for president, too — Gore even wrote a book on ecology as a U.S. senator). But unlike Gore, who produced a blockbuster documentary and picked up a Nobel Prize after leaving office, Kerry is taking a behind-the-scenes approach. He has become the Senate’s point person on the climate and energy bill unveiled last week . Since last fall, he has directed backroom negotiations between Democrats and a few Republicans on proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions. How he rolls: Kerry held a dinner party at his upscale Georgetown home in March, bringing together top administration officials to kick start development of the climate bill. In attendance were EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, White House climate czar Carol Browner and other top brass. The idea — to forgo the institutional corridors of Capitol Hill for something more elegant and perhaps more productive — was vintage Kerry. Senators with humbler digs couldn’t have done it. Why he’s in charge: Environmental issues are the usual domain of Senator Barbara Boxer, chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. But that committee is unabashedly partisan. Late last year, after Republicans boycotted a key committee meeting on the climate bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deputized Kerry to honcho the negotiations, hoping he would bring a softer touch and entice at least one Republican to the table. It worked at first with South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham , who partnered with Kerry on developing the legislation, until Graham said that Reid’s own decisions about Senate business caused him to leave the table. His big tent strategy: In crafting new legislation, Kerry has solicited input from business groups such as the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers, representatives of some of the most fossil fuel intensive industries. That big-tent approach has angered some environmentalists but also earned him more credibility with business-friendly Republicans, who — while they may not sign on to the bill — have at least said positive things about the approach Kerry took, setting a different tone than beset the recent health care debate, for instance. Warming up to Teresa: It might be a stretch to say that global warming brought Kerry together with his second wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, but it didn’t hurt. The two first met at an Earth Day rally in 1990. Two years later, after her first husband, Senator John Heinz, was killed in an airplane crash, the two met again at the 1992 U.N. environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro. They were married in 1995. Heinz Kerry is a noted environmental advocate in her own right, directing a portion of the Heinz family fortune (think ketchup) to support environmental causes.
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Climate Changers: U.S. Senator John Kerry
Climate Changers: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
Part of a series profiling key players in environmental politics. Read more>> Who he is: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack Green cred: Farmers and environmentalists don’t always see eye-to-eye — think toxic pesticides, fertilizers, and genetically modified crops, just to name a few agricultural practices that cause controversy. Tom Vilsack is trying to serve as something of a conflict resolution negotiator. A former governor of Iowa, Vilsack is hoping to bridge the divide between farming and environmentalism — both care immensely about the quality of the land — and promote a clean energy future for everyone. "They really do need to talk to you," Vilsack told the board of the Natural Resources Defense Council in March. "And you need to talk to them." When he took over the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) last year, Vilsack said production agriculture, the colossal, industrialized operations that have taken over farming, "is part of the problem, and it can and needs to be part of the solution. … This department will help wean big growers from fossil fuels." Why he has skeptics: Some in the green movement decried Vilsack’s nomination, noting that he was an advocate of genetically modified crops and controversial biofuels. Influential food author Michael Pollan told NPR in 2008, "It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is agribusiness as usual." However, just over a year later, Pollan now says Vilsack has surprised him. He appointed reform-minded Kathleen Merrigan as his top deputy. He has emphasized local agriculture through the Know Your Farmer program. And he took a jackhammer to a stretch of pavement outside of USDA headquarters with the aim of creating a community garden. Pollan told OnEarth that he sees all of this as "very hopeful stuff, and (he’s) saying many of the right things." But he cautions that Vilsack has also thrown important appointments to proponents of chemical agriculture and biotechnology. "My sense is he’s pursuing a big-tent strategy." What he’s done: Last December, the USDA teamed with 56,000 dairy farmers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. (Cows’ burps and flatulence emit methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases — a 2006 United Nations report said the world’s rapidly growing herds of livestock are more polluting than cars.) The USDA also plans to spend an additional $90 million over the next four years to fund climate change research to advance hardier food systems that require less carbon to maintain. And Vilsack helped restore the nationwide Roadless Rule, which protects large tracts of the national forest system (which fall under the control of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency of the USDA) from road building, a ban that will help species more easily migrate as climate change causes shifts in habitat. He has also been one of the administration’s strongest voices in favor of climate legislation and the potential of biofuels. Humble beginnings: Placed in a Catholic orphanage days after his birth in Pittsburgh in 1950, he was called "Kenneth" until Bud and Dolly Vilsack, a real estate agent and a homemaker, adopted him, naming him "Thomas." How he got into politics: Vilsack was working as a lawyer at his father-in-law’s firm in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, when the mayor of the town was shot and killed by a disgruntled resident during a city council meeting. Vilsack ran for the unexpected opening and won. Most improbable victory: When Vilsack ran for governor in 1998, a Democrat hadn’t been elected to that position in more than 30 years. The GOP held the state House and the state Senate, as well. Iowa was well managed, running a budget surplus, with unemployment down to 3 percent. Why would voters want a change? Vilsack championed education and business incentives to make Iowa "the Silicon Valley of food." On election night, he was watching the movie All the President’s Men when then-Vice President Al Gore called with the news that Vilsack had come from 20 points behind to win.
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Climate Changers: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack