Obama Picks Nobel Winner as Energy Secretary and Considers Other Key Players in the Global Warming Fight for Key Positions

by Damozel | The implications, The Washington Post suggests, are clear:  "Obama plans to make a strong push for measures to combat global warming and programs to support energy innovation."  (WaPo)  All of his picks and potential selections are tried and tested warriors in the fight against global warming and for green technologies.  

According to The New York Times;

The officials said Mr. Obama would name Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his energy secretary, and Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, as head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Mr. Obama also appears ready to name Carol M. Browner, the E.P.A. administrator under President Bill Clinton, as the top White House official on climate and energy policy and Lisa P. Jackson, who until recently was New Jersey’s commissioner of environmental protection, as the head of the E.P.A....

If named to the White House climate post, Ms. Browner, an acolyte of former Vice President Al Gore, will have forceful support in the new Congress, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, who will be the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who is returning as chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Opposing their efforts will be many Republicans and some Democrats, as well as manufacturers, utilities, oil companies and coal producers who will bear the brunt of the costs of any steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the main culprit in global warming.

Yglesias says:

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu seems to me to be a great choice for Energy Secretary. First, he’s brilliant and has brilliant credentials.Second, he’s got the sound views.... Chu should be a force for good.

Chu's credentials are impressive and he has received high praise from those who know his work.

Colleagues who know Chu best say “he’s not a manager, he’s a leader.” In an interview with the Wonk Room, David Roland-Holst, an economist at the Center for Energy, Resources and Economic Sustainability at UC Berkeley, described Chu as a “very distinguished researcher” and “an extremely effective manager of cutting edge technology initiatives.” (Think Progress)

See Boing Boing's excellent piece on the nobel-winning "energy nerd."  Heh.  As they say, there's a great photo included in it.

The Wall Street Journal says, and the sting is in the tail:

Officials familiar with the selections say Mr. Chu is likely to focus his attention on the Energy Department's core missions: basic science, nuclear weapons and cleaning up a nuclear-weapons manufacturing complex contaminated since the Cold War. Ms. Browner will coordinate renewable energy and energy efficiency policy from the White House, two areas that will feature prominently in a half-trillion-dollar economic-stimulus plan the new president hopes to sign into law as soon as he is inaugurated.

Mr. Chu bring sterling credentials as a scientist to a job that often has gone to former politicians. As an Asian-American, he also brings more ethnic diversity. He would inherit an agency that, despite its name, has little power to set energy policy, compared with agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates air quality, and the Transportation Department, which sets automobile fuel-efficiency standards. (emphasis added)

I was going to say, "Thank God our energy policy is no longer in the hands of the oil companies and Dick Cheney." 

I think I'll say it anyway:  whatever Chu's powers, Obama's other picks make it clear that that show is over.

For example:  the Wonk room has a piece up on Carol Browner, the aforesaid Gore "acolyte."

Browner, 52, has continued her leadership on energy and the environment since leaving the EPA. A principal at the Albright Group consulting firm and chair of the National Audubon Society, Browner is a director at the Center for American Progress, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, and the National Brownfields Association. She is a top adviser on Obama’s transition team, overseeing energy policy and meeting with environmental leaders.

Browner’s view that higher standards build economic growth has proven to be true. A study of California’s green economy found that its “energy-efficiency policies created nearly 1.5 million jobs from 1977 to 2007″ and grew the economy by $45 billion without any growth in per-capita electricity use. Writing in favor of strong global warming standards, Hank Ryan, chair of the California Small Business Association, explains that energy regulations have given “California small businesses a competitive edge over their counterparts in other states because while they’re wasting money on inefficiency, we’re spending it on employees, building a better product, advertising, and capital improvements.

Ms. Jackson had been the head of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection since 2006, but in October, Gov. Jon S. Corzine announced that she would become his chief of staff starting this month. She has a master’s degree in chemical engineering from Princeton and spent 16 years at the federal E.P.A. as a top enforcement officer in Washington and New York.

She has led the Obama transition team at E.P.A. and knows the agency inside and out, according to associates.

S. William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents state environmental bodies, said Ms. Jackson was among the most respected state environmental officials. (NYT)

The Washington Post says:

An African American native of New Orleans, Jackson grew up in the Ninth Ward, the poor and largely black neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Jackson's mother, stepfather and godmother fled the city as the 2005 storm approached. A few months later, in her swearing-in speech as New Jersey's environmental chief, Jackson said the devastation wrought by Katrina put her environmental work in a new perspective....

"My family escaped with their lives, but everything else -- their homes and possessions, even the family Bible -- was lost," Jackson said. "We were among the lucky ones."

"The shameful failures of government that the world witnessed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have given me a special appreciation for the importance of public service," Jackson added. "Those failures have galvanized my commitment to working tirelessly to protect the health and safety of the people of New Jersey and to enhancing our quality of life."

Environmentalists in New Jersey describe Jackson as a pragmatic but consistent ally who has pushed Corzine to adopt a greener stance during his time in office. In the summer of 2007, Corzine signed the Global Warming Response Act, an ambitious climate measure that pledges to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. (WaPo)

Those who know her value her administrative skills, crucial at a time when Bush's policies have left the EPA in disarray. (WaPo)

Memeorandum has more here.

RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS

• Blagofest Part 2: The Identity of "Candidate Number 5" & Speculation as to the Identity of the Identity-as-yet-unconfirmed Candidates
• Blagofest Part 1: Aggro and "Suspicion by Association" for Obama & Others Whose Names Blagojevich Mentioned
• A Crucial Jon Stewart Interview with Mike Huckabee
• FBI Invistigating Money Scandal Connected to Norm Coleman
• New York Times Admits that Figure for Autoworker Salaries is Wrong
• Illinois Gov. Blagovich Arrested After Trying to Sell Obama's Senate Seat

Comments

[Adam]

And I've beaten people in Trivial Pursuit who've beaten him in Trivial Pursuit. Sweet.

Seriously, though, I'm happy to have somebody in the post who understands the science backwards and forwards.