Energy expert Bledsoe launches new venture

Paul Bledsoe, an energy expert with the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and a former Clinton administration official, is leaving the think tank and opening his own consulting and communications firm.

Bledsoe, a familiar presence in Washington, D.C., energy policy and media circles, on Thursday announced the formation of Bledsoe & Associates.

The new company is a “strategic public policy firm specializing in national and global communications on tax and budget policy, energy, natural resources, and climate change, among other issues,” Bledsoe said in announcing the venture.

Current and pending clients include foundations, universities, nongovernmental organizations and research groups, Bledsoe said.

He is a senior adviser to the BPC, formed in 2007 by a quartet of former Senate majority leaders, and will depart in mid-October.

Bledsoe advised the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the White House-created independent panel that probed the 2010 disaster.

From 1998-2000, he served as communications director of the White House Climate Change Task Force, and was an aide to Clinton-era Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt from 1995-1998.

“We are deeply grateful for Paul’s service to BPC since its founding, and wish him all the best in his new endeavors,” said BPC President Jason S. Grumet in a statement.

The BPC announced a new hire Wednesday who is also a familiar name in energy policy circles.

Rosemarie Calabro Tully is moving from Capitol Hill to become the group’s energy press secretary. She had been the press secretary to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), the committee’s chairman, is retiring from the Senate.

“Rosemarie’s knowledge of energy issues will be of enormous value to our Energy Project as it prepares to release several new reports later this year and in early 2013,” said Margot Anderson, executive director of BPC’s Energy Project, in a statement. “We very much look forward to gleaning from the experience Rosemarie gained during her tenure on Capitol Hill.”

Major energy legislation has been derailed on Capitol Hill in recent years and the topic has been a source of more political conflict than collaboration of late, a dynamic the BPC wants to change.

The group will roll out a “major consensus-based report outlining its policy recommendations” early next year, the BPC said.

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