Markey climate aide departs for Covington and Burling

Gerry Waldron, the staff director and chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, is returning to the firm Covington and Burling, Committee Chairman Ed Markey’s (D-Mass.) office said Monday.

Waldron – who will again be a partner at the firm – worked for Markey on and off since the early 1980s on telecommunications, energy and other issues. He became staff director and chief counsel to the committee in January 2008.

Replacing Waldron is Michael Goo, who became counsel to the committee last February and has long worked on energy and climate change.

He was climate legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council before joining Markey’s committee. Prior his stint at NRDC he worked for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Goo helped steer the massive global warming bill that Markey and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) sponsored through the House last year.

“His encyclopedic knowledge of climate and energy policy and politics will help turn this legislation into law,” Markey said in a prepared statement. The House narrowly passed the bill last year but climate legislation faces a tough road in the Senate.