Obama aide: White House working ‘directly’ with Reid on energy agenda

The top White House energy official said Wednesday that the administration is directly engaged with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as he prepares to try to advance energy legislation this fall.

Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, said the goal involves measures with bipartisan support that fit President Obama’s agenda of creating jobs and investment in “clean energy” while curbing oil reliance.

“We are working directly with Reid to identify those options, those policies that have bipartisan support,” Zichal told reporters on a conference call.

Her comments came shortly after Reid, on a separate call with reporters, said Democrats would make energy a “signature” issue in the jobs agenda they’re vowing to push after the August recess.

Reid offered almost no details, and Zichal didn’t provide any at all on what measures might surface.

But in late May, Zichal said provisions spurring deployment of electric vehicles could form the foundation of bipartisan energy legislation that can gain traction on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, she spoke to reporters to promote Obama’s Thursday trip to a Johnson Controls advanced battery factory in Holland, Mich.

In 2009, the company won a $299 million Energy Department grant — funded by stimulus legislation — to support a project to expand manufacturing of batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles.

Obama’s trip comes on the heels of new fuel-efficiency standards announced in late July for cars and light trucks, and separate rules for heavy-duty vehicles rolled out this week.

Zichal said the standards, taken together, represent the “largest single step our nation has ever taken” to reduce reliance on oil, and noted Obama’s pledge to curb oil imports by one-third over the next decade.