CAROL BROWNER

• Was named Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change by Barack Obama in 2009
• Former Legislative Director for Senator Al Gore
• Former head the Environmental Protection Agency under President Bill Clinton
• Served as a “commissioner” of the Socialist International
• Has said that global warming is “the greatest challenge ever faced” by the human race

Carol M. Browner was born in December 1955 in Miami, Florida. Both her parents were professors at Miami Dade Community College. In 1977 Browner received a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Florida, and two years later she earned a J.D. degree from the University of Florida College of Law.

In 1980 and 1981, Browner was General Counsel for the Florida House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations. In 1983 she became associate director of the Ralph Nader-founded group Citizen Action in Washington, DC.

From 1986 to 1988, Browner served as chief legislative assistant to Democrat Senator Lawton Chiles of Florida; in this position, she worked to ban offshore oil-drilling near the Florida Keys. In 1989 she became legal counsel for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

From 1988 to 1991, Browner was Legislative Director for Senator Al Gore. From 1991-93, she was Florida’s Secretary of Environmental Regulation.

After the 1992 presidential election, Browner served as transition director for Vice President-elect Gore. In December 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton named Browner as his choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); she was confirmed by the Senate on January 21, 1993.

In 1995 Browner used her position at the EPA to lobby more than 100 grassroots environmental groups to oppose the Republican-led Congress, faxing out documents condemning the GOP’s regulatory initiatives. In a rare show of political unity, Republicans and Democrats alike impugned Browner, accusing her of violating the Anti-Lobbying Act. A stinging letter to Browner from a bipartisan subcommittee of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee stated: “The concerted EPA actions appear to fit the definition of prohibited grass-roots lobbying ... The prima facie case is strong that some EPA officials may have violated the criminal law.”

Browner headed the EPA throughout both terms of the Clinton presidency, making her the longest-serving Administrator in the agency’s history.

Bestselling author and political analyst Michelle Malkin reports that Browner, on her final day as Clinton EPA chief in 2001, ordered a computer technician to delete all her computer files, in direct violation of a federal judge's order requiring the agency to preserve those files. When questioned about her actions, Browner claimed that her computer had contained no work-related material, and that she had merely purged the hard drive of such innocuous items as computer games -- as a courtesy to incoming staffers of the Bush administration.[1]

It was later learned that three additional high-ranking EPA officials had also violated the court order and erased their hard drives. Because of this, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth held the EPA in contempt of court.[2]

According to Manhattan Institute scholar Max Schulz, Browner "was the driving force behind the federal government's effort to force General Electric Co. to spend $490 million to dredge New York's Hudson River to rid it of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that -- because they were buried under layers of silt -- posed no environmental harm." Some of Browner's employees ultimately faced criminal charges for falsifying evidence and tampering with lab results.[3]

After her EPA tenure, Browner became a founding member of the Albright Group, a "global strategy" organization headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In 2006 Browner and her husband, Tom Downey, lobbied on behalf of Dubai Ports World, a United Arab Emirate-owned company, in its quest to take operational control of six major U.S. ports. They met with New York Senator Charles Schumer in an effort to minimize congressional opposition to the deal. Ultimately the deal fell apart.[4]

Browner also served as a “commissioner” of the Socialist International (SI), the umbrella group for 170 “social democratic, socialist and labor parties” in 55 countries. SI's “organizing document” cites capitalism as the cause of "devastating crises," "mass unemployment," "imperialist expansion," and "colonial exploitation" worldwide. Browner worked on SI's Commission for a Sustainable World Society, which contends that "the developed world must reduce consumption and commit to binding and punitive limits on greenhouse gas emissions."

During the 2008 presidential primaries, Browner avidly supported Hillary Rodham Clinton's bid for the Democratic Party nomination. After Clinton was defeated in the primaries by Barack Obama, Browner campaigned for Obama in several battleground states and at League of Conservation Voters events.

Browner, who has said that global warming is “the greatest challenge ever faced,” calls herself a “strong backer” of “utility decoupling.” Under “decoupling” policies, utility companies will be required to provide less energy, while the government guarantees the companies steady or increased profits through “taxpayer subsidies” and “voluntary” conservation measures. As author Kathy Shaidle puts it:

“In other words, taxpayers will be given grim Carter-era exhortations to put on sweaters rather than turn up the thermostat and be forced to pick up the tab for utility companies’ reduced earnings, while getting less energy in return.”

From December 2003 to January 2009, Browner served as Chair of the National Audubon Society. She is currently a Board member of the Alliance for Climate Protection (an organization founded by Al Gore in 2006); APX, Inc. (which specialzes in environmental commodities markets); the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress; and the League of Conservation Voters.

On January 22, 2009, President Obama named Browner as his choice for the post of Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, popularly known as "Environment Czar."

In her book Culture of Corruption, Michelle Malkin writes:

"By February 2009, [Browner] had already announced radical plans to declare carbon-dioxide emissions a danger to the public -- a move that could potentially subject not just power and chemical plants, refineries, and vehicles, but also schools, hospitals, and any other emitters of carbon dioxide to costly new regulations and litigation.[5]

Following the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 2010, the White House commissioned the Secretary of the Interior, Kenneth Salazar, to issue a safety report as well as recommendations vis a vis future offshore oil drilling. A panel of seven outside advisors assisted Salazar in preparing this report, the final draft of which was sent directly to Carol Browner's office before being forwarded to President Obama. Browner’s staff promptly edited the Salazar document to imply, falsely, that the outside advisors had recommended a drilling moratorium. The tailored draft was then given to the President, who subsequently announced a moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

NOTES:
[1] Michelle Malkin, Culture of Corruption (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2009), p. 144.
[2] Ibid., p. 145.
[3] Ibid., pp. 145-146.
[4] Ibid., p. 146.
[5] Ibid., p. 143.