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jeff zients
Podesta Tapped to Replace Kerry as Biden's Top Climate Official
"Podesta needs to take the baton from Kerry and lead the U.S. on a furious sprint to end oil and gas expansion while we still have time to prevent the worst climate catastrophes," said one campaigner.
Jan 31, 2024
Senior White House adviser John Podesta has been tapped to replace outgoing U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
According to the Post, Podesta—who is currently in charge of implementing the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act—will have the title of "senior adviser to the president for international climate policy" and will work out of the White House instead of the State Department, where Kerry was based.
"We need to keep meeting the gravity of this moment, and there is no one better than John Podesta to make sure we do," White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in a statement. "John has—and will continue to be—at the helm of driving the implementation of the most significant climate law in history."
NBC Newsreported that Kerry—a former secretary of state and the 2004 Democratic nominee for president—will shift to supporting President Joe Biden's reelection campaign.
In a statement, Center for Biological Diversity’s Energy Justice program director Jean Su underscored the imperative of building on the limited yet important climate progress achieved by the Biden administration.
"The recent pause on gas exports has positioned Podesta to lead the fossil fuel phaseout and the clean energy expansion we desperately need," Su said. "In his final act as climate envoy, John Kerry agreed to a global transition away from fossil fuels and urged a far more ambitious scale and timeline."
"Podesta needs to take the baton from Kerry and lead the U.S. on a furious sprint to end oil and gas expansion while we still have time to prevent the worst climate catastrophes," she added.
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'Catastrophic Decision': Progressives Rip Choice of Jeff Zients for Chief of Staff
"Zients as a businessman embodies much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch led by a Democratic Party ought to be cracking down on," said one progressive strategist.
Jan 23, 2023
Reports Sunday that President Joe Biden has chosen Jeff Zients to replace outgoing White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain were met with alarm among progressive watchdogs, who pointed to Zients' disastrous tenure as the administration's coronavirus czar as well as his history in the corporate world—where he built a fortune investing in healthcare companies accused of fraud.
Klain, who developed a solid working relationship with progressives in Congress, is expected to depart shortly after Biden's State of the Union address on February 7.
Revolving Door Project executive director Jeff Hauser called the elevation of Zients to White House chief of staff a "catastrophic decision," saying in a statement that "the Biden administration has been at its best when it has been on the attack against corporate excesses that wide majorities of Americans find abhorrent."
"Americans are appalled by profiteering in healthcare—Jeff Zients has become astonishingly rich by profiteering in healthcare," said Hauser. "Americans are aghast at how social media companies have built monopolies and violated privacy laws—Zients served on the Board of Directors of Facebook as it was defending itself against growing attacks from both political parties."
The Revolving Door Project's Daniel Boguslaw and Max Moran wrote for The American Prospect last year that Zients—who was replaced as Covid-19 response coordinator back in April—has "controlled, invested in, and helped oversee" healthcare companies that "were forced to pay tens of millions of dollars to settle allegations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud."
"They have also been accused of surprise-billing practices and even medical malpractice," Boguslaw and Moran noted. "Taken together, an examination of the companies that made Zients rich paints a picture of a man who seized on medical providers as a way to capitalize on the suffering of sick Americans. In the end, it seems to have all paid off."
"The most egregious violation is documented in a 2015 Justice Department settlement announcement," they added. "Portfolio Logic—the investment firm Zients founded with his own money—agreed to pay almost $7 million to resolve allegations of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billing, involving a subsidiary (Pediatric Services of America Healthcare, or PSA) that it purchased in 2007."
"Hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."
Progressives have also been highly critical of Zients' performance in government.
In early 2022, Boguslaw urged the Biden administration to fire Zients over his failure to "provide the materials necessary to improve the U.S. response" to Covid-19 "or the guidance necessary to keep the pandemic under control."
Following news that he would be leaving the coronavirus response post, Public Citizen's Robert Weissman lamented that Zients "refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise."
"And the Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support," Weissman continued. "As a result, the United States and other rich countries failed to expand vaccine supply sufficiently to meet global need. Without adequate supply, efforts to bolster low-income country distribution and delivery systems consequently have lagged and been similarly under-resourced."
During his time as pandemic response coordinator, Zients was far and away the wealthiest member of Biden's cabinet, disclosing assets worth at least $89.3 million and as much as $442.8 million.
Citing the Revolving Door Project's work, progressive strategist Murshed Zaheed said Sunday that "Zients as a businessman embodies much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch led by a Democratic Party ought to be cracking down on."
But the Biden White House doesn't appear remotely concerned about Zients' corporate past.
With Biden expected to launch a bid for reelection in the coming weeks, The New York Timesreported that "the president could lean on" Zients to "help run the government while other advisers focus on the politics of winning a second term."
Hauser said Sunday that "hopefully Zients will prove us wrong—but unless that unlikely and fortuitous surprise occurs, Biden will need a quick hook."
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'The World Paid the Price': Biden's Outgoing Covid Czar Rebuked Over Failures
"The Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support."
Mar 17, 2022
Progressives on Thursday welcomed the announcement that Jeffrey Zients will step down as White House Covid-19 czar, with the head of a leading consumer advocacy group accusing him of failing the world by refusing to "challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control" over lifesaving vaccines.
"Zients refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise."
The New York Timesreports Zients, a former corporate executive and director of the National Economic Council, will be replaced next month as White House coronavirus coordinator by Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and a practicing internist.
Zients has been the target of numerous protests by activists, some of whom called for his termination over his lack of scientific and medical experience, his record as a private equity executive, and his failure to take on Big Pharma during the pandemic.
"Jeff Zients failed and the world paid the price," Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday.
\u201cWIN! After months of campaigning, thousands of petition signatures and two vigils at US COVID Coordinator's Zients house. https://t.co/1GN8RKo58q\u201d— Justice Is Global (@Justice Is Global) 1647525708
Johanna Kichton of People's Action--whose Justice is Global project staged multiple demonstrations against Zients--said that he:
- Dissuaded governors from issuing mask mandates during the current Covid-19 surge;
- Killed the White House's own [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] regulation that would have provided paid quarantine and isolation for most U.S. workers;
- Failed to address massive shortages of affordable rapid tests and KN95 [masks]; and
- Led the White House's insufficient approach towards addressing inequitable vaccine access globally by prioritizing corporate handouts and donations.
"All of these policies directly led to the current omicron surge and hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths and infections, in the U.S. and around the world," said Kichton.
\u201cZients promoted a vision of the US govt that looks the other way while the vulnerable are swamped by Covid, doing one thing (vaccines) more or less right for 65% of Americans. The white and rich, as always, served first and most carefully.\n\nLet's hope @ashishkjha does better.\u201d— Zackary Berger (@Zackary Berger) 1647539393
Public Citizen's Weissman said that "despite promises that the U.S. would be a 'vaccine arsenal' for the world, the United States and rich countries refused to share vaccine technology with developing countries and failed to deliver sufficient vaccines."
"The vaccination rate among low-income countries is 14%--about one-sixth the rate in rich nations," he added. "And even those data disguise the extent to which people in poorer countries are receiving less efficacious vaccines."
Weissman continued:
Zients refused to pay appropriate attention to global solutions to the global pandemic, because of political concerns or otherwise. And the Zients-led Covid response refused to challenge Big Pharma's monopoly control, in the U.S. and globally, over technologies that relied crucially on public support. As a result, the United States and other rich countries failed to expand vaccine supply sufficient to meet global need.
"Responsibility for this failure is widely shared among nations, but the United States has a singular leadership role in global health; it has unique capacities and thus responsibilities, and a special duty to lead the world's response," he added. "Under the leadership of Covid coordinator Jeff Zients, the United States failed."
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) on Thursday called Jha "an excellent choice" and a "highly qualified public health advocate who will lead with reason and compassion."
Weissman said that Jha "will face major challenges as he takes the helm of the U.S. Covid response, including a misguided perception that the 'pandemic is behind us.'"
"As a seasoned public health expert and advocate, we look to Dr. Jha to lead the White House effort to fight the worldwide pandemic with far more vision and ambition than his predecessor," he added.
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