Obama Announces Energy-Environment Team Members

Citing “the great challenges of this defining moment,” President-elect Barack Obama has announced the names of his administration’s energy and environment team.  Key members include Secretary of Energy designee, Steven Chu, who is the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at University of California, Berkeley.  Dr. Chu won the Nobel prize for physics in 1997.  Lisa Jackson, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, has been selected to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  She also has experience managing the Superfund Program in the New York regional office of the EPA under President Bill Clinton.

 

Nancy Sutley, the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the City of Los Angeles, has been chosen to be the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.  Heather Zichal has been named the Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change designee.  She currently serves as the co-chair for the Energy and Environment Policy Team for the Obama Transition Team.

 

For Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change or “Energy Czar”, Obama has selected Carol Browner, former Administrator of the EPA and current Principal of The Albright Group LLC, where she provides strategic counsel in the critical areas of environmental protection, climate change, and energy conservation and security.

 

As President-Elect Obama said in his announcement on the Obama-Biden Transition Team Web site, change.gov, “In the next few years, the choices that we make will help determine the kind of country – and world – that we will leave to our children and grandchildren.  All of us know the problems rooted in our addiction to foreign oil – it constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile regimes, and leaves us dependent on unstable regions.  These urgent dangers are eclipsed only by the long-term threat of climate change, which – unless we act – will lead to drought and famine abroad, devastating weather patterns and terrible storms on our shores, and the disappearance of our coastline at home.”

 

Obama said, “The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment.  They are leading experts and accomplished managers, and they are ready to reform government and help transform our economy so that our people are more prosperous, our nation is more secure, and our planet is protected.”

 

As part of his commitment to energy and environmental issues, President-elect Obama has selected fifth-generation rancher and Colorado Senator, Ken Salazar, to be the next Secretary of the Interior, and former Governor of Iowa, Tom Visack, to be the next Secretary of Agriculture.  Visack is known for early leadership in developing biofuels.

 

In announcing their nominations, President-elect Barack Obama made clear he considers both Secretaries-designate to be key members of his energy and environment team.  "It’s time for a new kind of leadership in Washington that’s committed to using our lands in a responsible way to benefit all our families," President-elect Obama said.  “That is the kind of leadership embodied by Ken Salazar and Tom Vilsack.” (Quoted from change.gov.)

 

Obama Cabinet nominees Steven Chu (Energy) , Ken Salazar (Interior) and Tom Vilsack (Agriculture) were confirmed by the United States Senate on  January 21, 2009.