President-elect Barack Obama last week named the members of his administration’s environmental and energy team, signaling his strong commitment to face global warming head on and support alternative forms of energy. Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Chu, who currently runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—a hotbed of alternative energy research, will serve as energy secretary. Carol Browner, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Bill Clinton, will take on the role of “Climate Czar” in heading the new White House council on energy and climate. Rounding out the cabinet-level group are Lisa Jackson, former head of New Jersey’s environmental agency, as EPA administrator, and Nancy Sutley, a deputy Los Angeles mayor, as chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Obama told reporters that this team would be focused on moving “beyond our oil addiction and create a new hybrid economy.” In what many take as a jibe at the Bush administration’s preference to honor politics over science, Obama told reporters that Chu’s appointment should send a signal that his administration values science. “We will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that facts demand bold action,” the president-elect added.
Beyond pushing the U.S. to implement a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions, Obama has pledged to spend some $15 billion a year to boost alternative energy and energy conservation, including making public buildings more efficient, modernizing the electricity grid, and protecting and preserving natural resources.
Source: Yahoo News
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