David Foster

David Foster is currently a Visiting Scholar at MIT and a Distinguished Associate at the Energy Futures Initiative. He previously served as Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz from 2014-2017 on energy, environmental, climate, economic development, workforce development and labor relations issues. During that period, he designed and implemented the creation of the Department of Energy’s annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report and its Jobs Strategy Council, an initiative that linked the department’s technical and financial resources to a wide group of external stakeholders including state and local governments, private sector energy and manufacturing businesses, non-profits, academic institutions, and labor unions. He also led the interagency effort to create the Energy and Advanced Manufacturing Workforce Initiative, which formally linked the Department of Energy with the Departments of Labor, Education, Commerce, Defense, and the National Science Foundation on workforce development issues.

Prior to working at the Department of Energy, Foster served as the founding Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance (BGA), a strategic partnership of 14 of America’s most important unions and environmental organizations with a combined membership of 14.5 million. The BlueGreen Alliance is the country’s foremost labor/environmental advocacy group on climate change policy solutions with a special emphasis on energy intensive industries, job creation, and the interchange between global warming and trade policy. Foster has spoken extensively on the subjects of climate change, economic development and the transition to a low carbon economy around the world, including the United Nations Environment Program Ministerial in Nairobi, Kenya, multiple UNFCCC events, and the German Green Party National Convention. He has testified before the U.S. Congress and Canadian Parliament on the linkage between jobs and climate change solutions.