Will Pete Rouse Push for Climate Legislation? By Jonathan Hiskes, Grist, 10/1/10. "Rahm Emanuel gets blamed for the president's hands-off approach to energy legislation… [As the President's new chief of staff], Pete Rouse is stepping into the powerful role (at least through the end of the year) after an influential career as chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), then to Sen. Barack Obama, then as senior advisor to President Obama… Rouse is another insider/pragmatist. He's built a career on working within the limits of Washington, running Daschle's office for 19 years, then helping acclimate Obama to the halls of Congress. His record suggests he'll support the White House's continued deference to Congress in writing energy bills. But he knows his energy and climate policy. Rouse's time in Daschle's office put him in the scrum of key energy battles of the '90s...
"He put the freshman Sen. Obama in touch with experts on biofuels and energy security to help him get up to speed. And he cares about the stuff, according to Eric Washburn, who worked with him as Daschle's legislative director for 10 years. 'Pete's a pretty progressive guy in his heart,' said Washburn, who now lobbies for solar, nuclear, and gas companies. 'He feels pretty strongly about not just environmental stuff and climate change, but health care too. The thing that distinguishes Pete is that he's, more than anything, a political pragmatist.'... Using the filibuster to prevent EPA-neutering amendments could keep Obama out of difficult situations. Rouse's intimate knowledge of Congress would be an asset in that fight. 'He knows the Senate probably better than anyone in the White House, including the president,' said Daniel J. Weiss of the center-left Center for American Progress Action Fund. 'He's a very, very smart and politically savvy person ... If there is an opening, Pete Rouse can help find it and take advantage of it.'"
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