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White House energy adviser Brittany Kelm left her post championing Sable Offshore's pipeline restart to become the company's Washington policy chief

Brittany Kelm, senior energy adviser at the White House's National Energy Dominance Council, left the administration on August 14, 2026, and joined Sable Offshore Corp. — the oil company whose restart of an offshore California pipeline she had personally advocated for and publicly promoted while in government — as vice president of policy and commercial the following week. She had toured Sable's facilities in company-branded gear and posted about the restart on LinkedIn while still a White House official, and Trump administration officials including Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had publicly credited her work for keeping the project alive.

Jurisdiction
Federal
Location
Washington, D.C.

Abuses documented

Actors

  • Brittany Kelm (Senior Energy Adviser, National Energy Dominance Council)

Brittany Kelm, a senior energy adviser at the White House's National Energy Dominance Council, left the administration on August 14, 2026, and the following week became vice president of policy and commercial at Sable Offshore Corp. — the same oil company whose restart of an offshore California pipeline she had spent months publicly championing while in government. In June 2026, during the Trump administration's push to restart Sable's Santa Ynez Unit pipeline system, idle since a 2015 spill and held up by California regulators, Kelm toured the company's Santa Barbara facilities wearing Sable-branded clothing and posted to LinkedIn: "We've unleashed California's offshore oil production!"

Trump administration officials publicly credited Kelm's work advancing Sable's interests throughout the restart fight. National Energy Dominance Council executive director Jarrod Agen wrote on LinkedIn that "Brittany Kelm never gave up on Sable Offshore Corp.," and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the council, said in a statement that her work "unlocked production in California." The restart itself proceeded over the objection of California regulators, who had kept the pipeline closed since the 2015 Refugio spill, and California's attorney general sued over the administration's use of Defense Production Act authority to compel it.

Ethics experts said Kelm's move from advocating for Sable inside government to leading the company's Washington office raises serious concerns under federal revolving-door law, which imposes a lifetime ban on former officials lobbying on matters they were "personally and substantially" involved in and a one-year ban on contacting their former agency. Davina Hurt of Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics said the distance between Kelm's public responsibilities and her new private employment was dangerously thin, calling it a matter with "red flashing lights." The Trump administration currently operates without a formal ethics pledge governing revolving-door conduct, having rescinded a Biden-era ethics order without replacing it; only underlying criminal statutes still apply. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Kelm did not work on "official" matters with Sable while negotiating her new job and would not touch "ongoing official matters" between the company and the administration going forward, calling suggestions of a conflict "irresponsible."

Why we recorded this

Public office is supposed to be held in trust for the public, not used as a stepping stone into the industry an official was advocating for while in government. Kelm spent months publicly championing Sable Offshore's pipeline restart in her official capacity, wearing company-branded gear and crediting herself with "unleashing" its production on the White House's own platform, then left the administration to run that same company's Washington policy office roughly a week later. This archive records the move because when an official's advocacy for a specific private company while in office converts directly into a paid leadership role at that company, it is the official personally profiting from the position she held, regardless of whether any individual official act violated a specific rule.

Sources

  1. A White House official helped an oil company advance its projects. Now she'll lead its DC office. — E&E News (POLITICO) primary accessed August 21, 2026
  2. 'Red flashing lights': White House official waltzes into oil industry amid ethics uproar — Raw Story secondary accessed August 21, 2026

See also