1. Heather Renee Zichal was born on February 8,1976 and is an American executive, consultant, and political advisor who specializes in climate change and environmental policy.
24 Facts About Heather Zichal
1. 2.
Heather Zichal then served as the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change in the Barack Obama administration starting in 2009.
3.
Heather Zichal has served on several company boards and councils, including that of Cheniere Energy, a liquified natural gas company, and was The Nature Conservancy's vice president for corporate engagement.
4.
Heather Zichal's father worked as a family physician and her mother as a hospital administrator.
5.
Heather Zichal attended Cook College at Rutgers University, where she studied environmental policy and graduated in 1999.
6.
Heather Zichal held the same position for Representative Frank Pallone from 2001 to 2002.
7.
Heather Zichal then was a legislative assistant and later director for US Senator John Kerry from 2002 to 2008.
8.
Heather Zichal worked as an assistant for the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
9.
Heather Zichal served as a top advisor on energy and environmental issues to the 2004 Kerry presidential campaign and the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.
10.
Heather Zichal had first met Obama when he was lost in one of the Senate buildings and asked her for directions.
11.
Heather Zichal was part of the administration response to the 2010 BP oil spill and supervised later modifications of safety standards for offshore oil and natural gas extraction.
12.
When Browner left the White House in March 2011, Heather Zichal took over the general responsibilities of coordinating the administration's energy and climate policy, now operating from within the US Domestic Policy Council.
13.
Heather Zichal's job involved outreach activities towards the energy industry and environmentalists as well as dealing with Congress.
14.
The White House subsequently gave credit to Heather Zichal for putting into place policy changes that would lead to a doubling of wind and solar power generation.
15.
Heather Zichal was the architect of a June 2013 plan to reduce greenhouse gases resulting from the nation's power plants by having the Environmental Protection Agency issue revised standards for carbon emissions from new and existing plants.
16.
In October 2013, Heather Zichal announced that she would soon be stepping down from her post.
17.
Heather Zichal was given the chance to accept other positions within the administration, but declined.
18.
Heather Zichal was one of the last of Obama's 2008 campaign advisors to still be in the administration; she had been high valued inside the administration and by one report Obama had personally urged her to stay.
19.
Heather Zichal subsequently became an independent energy consultant, working at her own firm called Heather Zichal Inc In January 2015 she was named a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.
20.
Heather Zichal served on the board of Cheniere Energy, a liquified natural gas company, from 2014 to 2018, as well as the board of Spanish multinational-owned Abengoa Bioenergy.
21.
Heather Zichal joined the board of non-profit Solar Foundation and Naturevest, the conservation investing organization within the Nature Conservancy.
22.
Heather Zichal remained active in the public debate over climate change and energy policy.
23.
The Biden administration's environmental policy placed an emphasis on developing wind power, such as a goal announced in October 2021 to have seven major offshore wind farms operating off US coasts by 2030; Heather Zichal said that goal was "ambitious but achievable" and a vital part of any plan to achieve complete carbon pollution-free electricity generation by 2035.
24.
Heather Zichal said that to leave the association was the most difficult decision of her career, but that she had accomplished a lot with it.