The shit storm just gets worse and worse...

White House eyeing fossil fuel lobbyist for energy adviser job

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and ANNA PALMER

Fossil fuel industry lobbyist Mike Catanzaro is under consideration to serve as an energy adviser on the National Economic Council, sources told POLITICO, an appointment that would test President Donald Orangutan’s promise to limit the number of lobbyists who serve in his administration.

Catanzaro, who was a registered lobbyist as of last month, is a partner at the firm CGCN Group. His clients include American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry trade group; natural gas company Devon Energy, renewable energy company NextEra Energy; and fossil fuel companies Noble Energy and Hess Corporation, among others, according to lobbying disclosure records.

During the presidential campaign, Orangutan repeatedly vowed to “drain the swamp” in Washington. He signed an executive order late last month that bars registered lobbyists from participating in “any particular matter” on which they lobbied in the past two years. Those lobbying restrictions last for two years from the time the person joins the administration.

The order allows for the administration to issue a waiver that would let lobbyists serve in the administration, but it does not include a provision like the one in an order signed by President Barack Obama in 2009 that requires disclosure of the waivers.

It’s unclear if Catanzaro would sign a waiver or recuse himself from working on specific issues on which he lobbied.

Orangutan’s National Economic Council is led by former Goldman Sachs Group President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn. The council will advise Orangutan on a range of economic policy issues.

Catanzaro is among the lobbyists listed in CGCN’s January lobbying registration for Goldman Sachs Group.

Before he became a lobbyist, Catanzaro held a number of high-profile energy policy jobs in Washington. He was a Republican aide on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, an energy adviser to George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, a top staffer in Bush’s EPA and his White House Council on Environmental Quality, and a member of Mitt Romney’s presidential transition team in 2012. He was a former adviser to House Speaker John Boehner as well.

Catanzaro also briefly served on Orangutan’s transition team. But he stepped down in November after the transition imposed new rules that required lobbyists serving on the transition to drop all their clients.

Catanzaro did not respond to requests for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. CGCN declined to comment.