ABOVE: Jeff Marootian. Photo via Washington Blade.
The White House announced on July 21 that President Biden has nominated gay White House Special Assistant Jeffrey Marootian to become Assistant U.S. Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, a position that requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Marootian has served since January 2021 as White House Special Assistant to the President for Climate and Science Personnel at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.
Prior to joining the Biden White House staff, Marootian served from 2017 to 2021 as one of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s openly gay Cabinet members in the position of director of the D.C. Department of Transportation, where he piloted sustainable transportation technologies, oversaw the effort to electrify the city’s Circulator bus fleet, and led the city’s early adoption of the Transportation and Climate Initiative. Marootian oversaw the modernization of hundreds of miles of roads and sidewalks and advanced critical infrastructure projects, such as the reconstruction of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge and expansion of dedicated bus and bike lanes.
Following Biden’s election as president in November 2020 Marootian served on the Biden presidential transition team addressing transportation related issues.
He also served in the administration of President Barack Obama as a White House staff member and later as Assistant Secretary for Administration at the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“Jeff Marootian has spent the last year and a helping to build our team at the Department of Energy, and I am pleased that President Biden has now nominated him to serve as our new Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy,” said U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a statement released last week.
“Throughout his impressive career in public service, Jeff has directed big teams executing challenging missions, making him a natural fit to lead the Department’s largest applied energy office,” Granholm said.
“His experience developing and implementing sustainable transportation policy at the federal and local level will be particularly invaluable in our ongoing effort to decarbonize America’s transportation sector and meet our bold clean energy goals,” she said.
He previously served as director of LGBTQ+ Outreach and led the DNC’s organizing effort to engage LGBTQ+ voters during the 2012 election cycle.
He has served with the D.C. MPD as Manager for Community Partnerships. Marootian was an adjunct professor at the graduate level at the Trachtenberg School for Public Policy and Public Administration. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Human Services and Social Justice from George Washington University and his master’s also from GWU.
(Peter Rosenstein contributed to this report.)
