Dan Reicher
Template:TOCnestleft Dan W Reicher has over 20 years of experience in business, government and non-governmental organizations focused on energy and environmental technology, policy, finance and law.
Reicher is also a member of General Electric’s Ecomagination Advisory Board, co-chairman of the advisory board of the American Council on Renewable Energy, and a member of the board of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Reicher has also recently been a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Alternatives to Indian Point for Meeting Energy Needs. He also served as an adjunct professor at the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Vermont Law School.[1]
Department of Energy
From 1997-2001, Reicher was Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. As Assistant Secretary, he directed annually more than $1 billion in investments in energy research, development and deployment related to renewable energy, distributed generation and energy efficiency.
Prior to that Reicher was DOE Chief of Staff (1996-97), Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy (Acting) (1995-1996), and Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Secretary (1993-1995).
Reicher joined Google in the late 2000s where he serves as Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives for the company’s venture called Google.org which has been capitalized with $2 billion of Google stock to make investments and advance policy in the areas of climate change and energy, global development, and global health. Prior to his recent position at Google, Mr. Reicher served as President and Co-Founder of New Energy Capital Corp., a New England-based company that develops, invests in, owns and operates renewable energy and distributed generation projects.
Apollo Alliance
Dan Reicher serves on the board of the Apollo Alliance.
"Progressive" Cabinet "nominee"
In September 2008, Chicago based socialist journal In These Times asked its editors and writers to suggest their top progressive choices for a potential Obama Cabinet.[2]
- We asked that contributors weigh ideological and political considerations, with an eye toward recommending people who have both progressive credentials and at least an arguable chance at being appointed in an Obama White House.
- This group of people would represent at once the most progressive, aggressive and practical Cabinet in contemporary history. Of course, it is by no means a definitive list. It is merely one proposal aimed at starting a longer discussion about the very concept of a progressive Cabinet—and why it will be important to a new administration, especially if that administration is serious about change.
Bradford Plumer suggested Dan Reicher for Energy Secretary:
- Climate change and America’s fossil-fuel dependency are two of the biggest challenges an Obama administration will face. Ironically, the job of energy secretary is ill-suited for tackling them. Most of the Energy Department’s $25 billion budget goes toward maintaining the nation’s nuclear-weapons stockpile and handling waste disposal — leaving only a fraction for developing alternative energy sources. It’s tough to direct a clean-energy revolution with that portfolio.
- Still, there’s room for improvement. Under the Bush administration, the department has abandoned many of its successful partnerships to boost efficiency and curb emissions in dirty industries, while prioritizing costly clean-coal and hydrogen fuel-cell boondoggles that have achieved little.
- California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has voiced interest in this position, but a head-cracking superstar like him might be better slotted in a new “climate czar” role. After all, the task of de-carbonizing the U.S. economy will be so titanic that someone will need to coordinate all the different agencies — from agriculture to transportation.
- The Energy Department needs a smart manager who values sound research and understands the importance of efficiency — the cheapest, quickest way to curb our carbon output. Over the past year, Dan Reicher, a former assistant secretary of energy under President Clinton, has been doing just that — as head of Google’s new climate and energy fund, seeding innovative projects across the country, from geothermal research to plug-in hybrids. His recent congressional testimonies have smartly laid out how better federal policy could spur trillions in private investment toward cleaner and more-efficient technologies — just the questions the department should be obsessing over.