"Brittany Kelm’s departure from the White House to lead the Washington office of a Houston oil company has raised questions about the close proximity between a government official and the interests of a private corporation."
"People milling around before a press conference in Santa Barbara, California, in early June might have mistaken Brittany Kelm, a White House staffer, for an oil company representative.
During the tour of oil facilities run by Sable Offshore Corp., a company that owns an offshore pipeline which the Trump administration had recently helped to get oil flowing through, Kelm sported a Sable-branded cap and a Sable-branded shirt with her name embroidered on it, according to a photograph she posted to LinkedIn.
“We’ve unleashed California’s offshore oil production!” Kelm, a senior energy adviser for the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council, wrote in the post.
Less than three months later, Kelm would announce her departure from her job at the council to take over Sable’s Washington policy office. The move, even by Washington’s normally swampy standards, threatens to erode the lines between public officials and the industries they interact with, according to experts and former government ethics officials.
More specifically, it gives rise to questions about how the company’s new lead at its Washington office will represent its interests while abiding by ethics requirements."
Ian M. Stevenson, James Bikales, and Scott Waldman report for E&E News August 21, 2026.
