As first reported by Axios on Saturday, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry is stepping down, supposedly to assist Democrats— particularly President Joe Biden— with the 2024 general election. Kerry is, reportedly, working with White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients on transitioning out of government service in the coming weeks.
Kerry is still headed for Davos, Switzerland, where he will attend the World Economic Forum, which takes place later this week. He is expected to leave the climate post some time between late February and April.
Kerry has been the SPEC since Biden took office in 2021. The loser of the 2004 presidential race, Kerry had previously been a senator for Massachusetts and served as secretary of state under President Barack Obama.
“I think given this is an election year and Congress is frozen, I’m stepping down, but I’m not leaving the issue — I will work on it from other vantage points,” Kerry said.
Perhaps getting out of government service will offer Kerry the opportunity to be even more surreptitious in his dealings on behalf of the so-called climate crisis.
Kerry has been under scrutiny for his inscrutable success at keeping the names of those who work for him in the SPEC office out of the press. Although in charge of an office with at least a $4.3 million payroll, little is known about who works with Kerry outside of deputies Rick Duke and Sue Biniaz, whose names appear on the department’s website.
Recently, in response to a FOIA request from the Boston Herald, Kerry’s office provided the salaries of those who work for the SPEC but redacted the names of those “policy analysts.”
The secretive behavior led James Comer (R-Ky.), the head of the House Oversight Committee, to send a letter to Kerry’s supposed boss, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, requesting documents and communications between Kerry and his office, the State Department, and far-left climate groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Comer is seeking information regarding any possible role those groups played in Kerry’s recent announcement that the U.S. is joining with 56 other nations in an organized coal phase-out, the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA). The 56 nations have a goal to reduce coal-power generation from 36 percent to 4 percent by 2030.
“Documents produced to the Committee also reveal the SPEC office and the State Department consult leftist environmental groups on the coal infrastructure of foreign countries,” read Comer’s letter. “These exchanges raise concerns as to what information Envoy Kerry and the SPEC office are providing to organizations like the NRDC in exchange for this information.”
One group that has led the pressure against Kerry to release the names of staffers, most of whom are pulling down six-figure government salaries, is Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT). The group hopes that Kerry’s departure will signal a new era of transparency in the SPEC’s office.
“John Kerry’s decision to step down from his role as the Biden Administration’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate presents an opportunity to improve both transparency and Constitutional governance,” said PPT Director Michael Chamberlain in a statement. “Despite heading an extremely powerful office in the State Department and lacking Senate confirmation, Mr. Kerry’s chain of command bypassed the Secretary of State and went directly to the President. His office was also infamous for attempts to avoid the transparency the American public expects.”
So, the question must be asked: Is Kerry legitimately leaving to assist Biden and the Democrats in the coming election, or is he simply getting out before the scrutiny of his leadership of the SPEC office becomes too intense? Maybe Kerry sees the coming end of his secretive SPEC club and he’s getting out while the getting is good.
