Trading Places: A New Low for Biden-Harris Admin’s Revolving Door

EPA official, progressive NGO head swapped jobs

Who works in the Biden-Harris administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)? What about the Department of Energy (DOE)? Which day is it? 

Government watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) does its best to keep up with the revolving door between the Biden-Harris administration and environmental activist groups, but it can be a challenge. 

 For example, PPT documented in 2023 how, prior to joining EPA, Casey Katims worked for Washington Governor and U.S. Climate Alliance (USCA) co-founder Jay Inslee. USCA reportedly has ties to left-wing Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund. After a brief stint at EPA – during which Katims kept disturbingly close relations with USCA – he joined the group as its executive director.

But here’s a fun fact: his predecessor in that job, Julie Cerqueira, left USCA to join DOE. So USCA leaders just cycled in and out of the administration. Not that it made a lot of difference, given the access Cerqueira already had. According to DOE documents obtained by PPT, Cerqueira was coordinating regular meetings with officials (including Katims, of course) across several agencies and NGO activists. Emails show her asking for times and topics for “subsequent calls.” In other emails Cerqueira discussed department priorities and areas for alignment with a high-ranking career official at DOE, and asked him to circulate ideas among DOE staff.

Cerqueira had quite a bit of pull inside the administration when she was outside. We can now assume that Katims has the same amount of pull as she had, especially with Cerqueira on the inside. But the people don’t vote for government by outside special interest. President Biden and VP Harris seemed to understand that when they promised “the most ethical administration in history.”

“As these documents clearly show, there’s little daylight between the Biden-Harris administration and powerful activist organizations,” said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain. “They share information, they share people and, as we saw with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, they can share billions in taxpayer money. The revolving door they share and so easily pass in and out of certainly contributes to the rapidly evaporating trust of the American people.”

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