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 Michelle Billig Patron, who served as special assistant on energy
to President Barack Obama and as a senior director at the National
Security Council since April 2013, left the White House about two
weeks ago, the sources said. She had worked previously at PIRA
Energy Group, the Department of Energy and the U.S. Embassy in
Beijing.
It was not clear why Patron left the position. The White House and
Patron did not immediately respond to questions about her leaving.
The move came as the Obama administration prepares for some of its
most important energy and environmental policy decisions. Those
include rules to cut carbon emissions from power plants, global
climate talks in Paris later this year that seek to put both rich
and poor countries on a path to fight global warming and whether to
bow to pressure to ease the 40-year ban on domestic oil exports.
In addition, many lawmakers in Congress are eager to tap the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve to fund highway projects and a new drugs
program.
Patron had been a proponent of changing the role of the U.S. SPR
from simply being a replacement for lost U.S. oil imports during
times of strife in energy-producing regions to a resource to calm
global petroleum supply disruptions, even if U.S. imports were not
slashed.
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Before Patron left, Paul Bodnar returned to the NSC as senior
director for energy and climate change. Bodnar, who started his new
role in May, was at the NSC in a similar, but less-senior role, for
more than a year before leaving in January. He previously served as
counselor to U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern at the State Department.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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