LBJ in the Arena: An Energy Agenda for 2021 and Beyond

Dr. Varun Rai, LBJ School associate dean for research and director of the UT Austin Energy Institute, will moderate a conversation and panel with Mary Streett, bp senior vice president, and Dr. Joshua Busby and Dr. Aldo Flores-Quiroga, members of the LBJ School faculty. The discussion will highlight low-carbon efforts in the U.S. and abroad; the roles of private, nonprofit and public actors; and what's ahead for climate and energy policy in the Biden administration.

Panelists:

• Mary Streett
  
  Mary Streett serves as bp America's senior vice president of communication & advocacy. She leads a team of advocates from across the Americas, including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago and the United States. Streett joined bp in April 2014 to serve as vice president and head of U.S. government affairs. In this role, she oversaw federal, state and local government relations and played a central role in bp's strategic planning. Prior to joining bp, Streett served as vice president of federal government affairs at Exelon, one of the nation's leading consumer electricity and gas providers.

• Dr. Varun Rai
  Varun Rai is the LBJ School Associate Dean for research and director of the UT Austin Energy Institute. His interdisciplinary research at the interface of energy systems, behavioral sciences, complex systems and public policy focuses on enabling a broad diffusion of sustainable energy technologies globally. Dr. Rai has published numerous journal articles, including in Applied Energy, Energy Policy, Energy Research & Social Science, Environmental Research Letters, Global Environmental Change, Nature Climate Change and PLOS ONE.
  
   
• Dr. Aldo Flores-Quiroga
  Aldo Flores-Quiroga is former deputy secretary of energy for hydrocarbons at Mexico's Ministry of Energy (2016–18), where he led a team of more than 180 government officials to implement the historic opening of Mexico's hydrocarbons sector. He launched an oil exploration strategy and production auctions, helped liberalize Mexico's markets for refined products and natural gas, helped create strategic inventories for gasoline, diesel and natural gas, and negotiated Mexico's role in the unprecedented OPEC-Non OPEC pact to stabilize oil markets.
  
   
• Dr. Josh Busby
  Joshua Busby is a distinguished scholar at the Strauss Center, nonresident fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and a senior research fellow at the Center for Climate & Security. He has published widely on climate change, global health, transnational advocacy movements and U.S. foreign policy for various think tanks and academic journals, including International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies and Perspectives on Politics. His first book, Moral Movements and Foreign Policy, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. His second book, AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations, with co-author Ethan Kapstein, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013 and won the 2014 Don K. Price Award (the American Political Science Association's award for the best book on science, technology and environmental politics).

Event Partner: Energy Institute at UT Austin

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