The United States looks to replace the deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the second-in-command role in the agency that is usually reserved for a U.S. representative, POLITICO’s E&E News reported on Thursday, quoting former U.S. officials and energy industry insiders familiar with the plan.
American Mary Burce Warlick is currently the Deputy Executive Director of the IEA. Warlick is a retired career diplomat and former U.S. Ambassador to Serbia. Warlick has held a variety of senior leadership positions at the U.S. Department of State, National Security Council, Department of Defense, and represented the U.S. on the IEA Governing Board, before becoming deputy executive director in 2021.
The U.S. has been putting pressure on the Paris-based agency as the Trump Administration and many Republicans in Congress are not happy with the IEA’s pivot in recent years to promoting the energy transition at the expense of the still-needed fossil fuels.
The U.S. Administration is looking to push changes from the inside—that’s why replacing Warlick has been considered in recent months, according to POLITICO’s E&E News’ sources.
“They’re going to get someone they trust and that person is going to fight from the inside out,” a Republican energy lobbyist with close ties to the U.S. Department of Energy told POLITICO.
The tension between the Trump Administration and the IEA has escalated in recent months.
A House committee last month approved a bill that the U.S. withdraw its funding to the IEA as the Republican lawmakers consider that the agency has strayed from its mission to safeguard energy security and has been pushing green energy policies instead.
Earlier in July, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the United States could abandon the IEA if the organization, created in the aftermath of the 1970s Arab oil embargo, doesn’t return to forecasting energy demand without strongly promoting green energy.
“We will do one of two things: we will reform the way the IEA operates or we will withdraw,” Wright told Bloomberg in an interview in the middle of July.
“My strong preference is to reform it,” Secretary Wright added.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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