Gibbs demurs on replacement for White House climate adviser

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined to say Wednesday whether Carol Browner, the departing White House energy and climate adviser, will be replaced.

Gibbs, in a briefing, answered a question on the topic by instead touting the administration’s energy agenda.

“I don’t know exactly what the structure of her office is going to look like, but I can assure you that regardless of the staffing inside the White House, first and foremost the president is committed to continuing our important investments in the innovation around clean energy manufacturing and in addressing the long-term problems and the continual increase in our dependence on energy sources in other places in the world,” Gibbs said aboard Air Force One en route to President Obama’s appearance in Wisconsin.

Obama’s State of the Union speech Tuesday laid out his energy agenda.

It includes a call for bipartisan cooperation on a plan to derive 80 percent of U.S. electric power from “clean” sources — renewables, natural gas, nuclear power and coal plants that trap carbon (which is not yet a commercial technology) — by 2035.

“I think it’s important to understand that the President rolled out an extremely robust energy agenda last night — cutting oil subsidies or subsidies to oil companies to invest in clean energy and research and development, and an energy standard that doubles the amount of our electricity produced by renewable energy or clean energy by 2035,” Gibbs said.