"It was challenging for me, coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Mobil-Exxon Corporation, to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things but rather just says, "This is what I believe, and you can try to convince me otherwise, but most of the time you're not going to do that."... We did not have a common value system. When the President would say, "Here is what I want to do and here's how I want to do it," and I'd have to say to him, "Mr. President, I understand what you want to do but you can't do it that way. It violates the law. It violates a treaty. He got really frustrated."

“I will be honest with you, it troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues, that they are satisfied with a 128 characters.”

“Should the United States seek so-called energy independence in an elusive effort to insulate this country from the impact of world events on the economy, or should Americans pursue the path of international engagement, seeking ways to better compete within the global market for energy? Like the Council's founders, I believe we must choose the course of greater international engagement ... The central reality is this: The global free market for energy provides the most effective means of achieving U.S. energy security by promoting resource development, enabling diversification, multiplying our supply channels, encouraging efficiency, and spurring innovation.”

“We have long supported a carbon tax as the best policy of those being considered. Replacing the hodge-podge of current, largely ineffective regulations with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would ensure a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the economy. It would allow market forces to drive solutions. It would maximize transparency, reduce administrative complexity, promote global participation and easily adjust to future developments in our understanding of climate science as well as the policy consequences of these actions.”

“​”The places I come from, we don’t deal with that kind of petty nonsense... I’m just not going to be part of this effort to divide this administration​.”