Obama names energy team, vows new tack
Hey Frank,President-elect is seen as making departure from current administration. Aim is to develop renewable energy, cap greenhouse gasses and create jobs.
This article is good. I think the Obama team gets it."The scientists at our national labs will have a distinguished peer at the helm," Obama said of Chu.The comment was perhaps a thinly veiled barb at the Bush Administration, which has been criticized for trying to muzzle government scientists.-Anonymous
By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his energy and environment team on Monday, ushering in what's likely to be a dramatic shift in the way the nation tackles the challenges of climate change, energy efficiency and the development of cleaner sources of fuel.
The team -- the subject of speculation for weeks -- includes Nobel-prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as Energy secretary and former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner in a newly created position to coordinate energy and climate policy.
"In the 21st century, we know that the future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked with one challenge - energy," Obama said at a press conference Monday.
The president-elect drew a direct connection between transitioning to new energy sources and emerging from the current economic recession.
"As we face this challenge, we can seize boundless opportunities for our people," Obama said.
The team also includes Lisa Jackson, a former head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, as director of the EPA; and Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor from Los Angles responsible for energy and environmental issues, as head of the Council on Environmental Quality.
Meet the team
The Energy Department: Chu will manage a budget of $24 billion and have a wide range of responsibilities. Chu will oversee the nation's nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons clean-up and will supervise research into both traditional and renewable forms of energy.
"The scientists at our national labs will have a distinguished peer at the helm," Obama said of Chu.
The comment was perhaps a thinly veiled barb at the Bush Administration, which has been criticized for trying to muzzle government scientists.
"His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science," Obama continued. "We will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that facts demand bold action."
Chu has run the Energy Department's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004. The lab, originally a nuclear-research facility, has become one of the government's main research centers for renewable energy.
Chu has been an outspoken advocate of cleaner energy sources and has often warned of the dangers posed by global warming.
"Climate change of that scale will cause enormous resource wars over water, arable land and massive population displacements," an industry newsletter recently quoted Chu as having said this past summer."We're not talking about 10,000 people. We're not talking about 10 million people, we're talking about hundreds of millions to billions of people being flooded out, permanently."
It's unclear what those in the energy industry think of Chu. He is said to be a cautious supporter of nuclear power and generally downbeat on coal.
Climate and energy coordinator: Browner, will direct the efforts of numerous federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Transportation Department, the Interior Department, the Defense Department and the Commerce Department.
Obama's first year in office will likely see action on at least three energy and climate fronts - a stimulus bill that contains major funding for mass transit, utility upgrades, and renewable energy development; a separate energy bill that contains more funding for renewable energy and possibly tighter fuel-efficiency standards; and a bill mandating a reduction in greenhouse gasses.
Browner, a skilled Washington insider, will likely be spearheading the political effort to get these policies enacted.
A lawyer by training, Browner headed the EPA under President Clinton from 1993 to 2000. She gained a reputation for forging compromises between environmental and business interests.
Earlier in her career, Browner worked as a legislative aide to the late Sen. Lawton Chiles of Florida and as an aide to then-Sen. Al Gore.
Since 2001, Browner has worked at the Albright Group, a Washington D.C.-based consultancy set up by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She also sits on the board of the National Audubon Society.
The EPA: Lisa Jackson currently serves as New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine's chief of staff, a post she has held since the beginning of December. Before that she headed the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
Jackson spent 16 years as a staffer at the EPA. She spent much of that time devoted to the agency's Superfund program, cleaning up toxic waste sites.
Council on Environmental Quality: Nancy Sutley currently coordinates energy and environment issues in her job as deputy mayor in Los Angeles. She worked as energy adviser to former California Governor Gray Davis and was an EPA staffer during the Clinton administration, serving under Browner.
"You couldn't ask for a bigger change from what we had over the past eight years," said Karen Wayland, legislative director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Wayland contrasted the level of expertise of this team and its apparent commitment to curbing greenhouse gasses with President Bush's current team, which has been criticized for editing global warming reports so they wouldn't seem as severe.
"We're thrilled to be working with [the new team] next year," she said.
Energy as Stimulus
Obama said moving the nation away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner energy sources is a big part of his plan to jump start the economy.
"We can spark the dynamism of our economy through a long-term investment in renewable energy," he said. "We can create millions of jobs, starting with a 21st- century economic recovery plan that puts Americans to work building wind farms, solar panels, and fuel-efficient cars."
During the campaign Obama vowed to spend $15 billion a year bringing renewable energy technologies to market -- a plan he estimated would create 5 million new jobs in 10 years.
Part of that plan is thought to be enacted through a stimulus bill that he's expected to sign shortly after talking office in January.
The stimulus bill could contain measures to make the nation's building more energy efficient, tax breaks to encourage domestic renewable energy manufacturing, or money to replace the country's aging utility lines.
The other parts may come later in the year, in the form of a new energy bill or greenhouse gas law.
11 comments:
It's good to see a scientist as head of the DOE but I don't think he will be supportive of the NNSA weapon labs. The next 4 to 8 years will be a good time to be working at the DOE energy labs (i.e., LBL). That is where the majority of this new mega-burst of energy funding will be directed.
In particular, both LANL and SNL face some stiff headwinds on the political front, as the news article below demonstrates.
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N.M. faces ‘crippling loss’ of power in new Congress - New Mexico Independent
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newmexicoindependent.com/12232/
nm-faces-crippling-loss-
of-power-in-new-congress
By Jonathan E. Kaplan 12/10/08 3:34 PM
WASHINGTON — New Mexico’s Congressional delegation will lose a combined 52 years of experience when the 110th Congress comes to an end later this month, and Sen.-elect Tom Udall will take an additional 10 years of seniority when he moves to the Senate.
New Mexico will also lose spots on the Senate and House appropriations committees, which determine federal spending levels and earmarks.
All of the state’s representatives in Washington, as well as lobbyists, are aware of the new challenges that the delegation will face as it tries to preserve federal funding for New Mexico’s military installations and national laboratories, while also protecting the state’s energy industry.
...On some policy issues, regional alliances could trump seniority and party affiliation. The Western Caucus, a group of House lawmakers from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and elsewhere, can shift the outcome of legislation if they organize themselves.
But New Mexicans with experience on Capitol Hill are concerned that won’t be enough.
“When it comes to seniority, we’ve been crippled by the amount of power we lost and ability to have an effect on issues important to the state’s future,” Marco Gonzales, an Albuquerque lawyer who worked for Domenici, said.
“That’s a crippling loss of experience and seniority that in the House and Senate translates into power and ability to get things done. That is going to be what’s critical to New Mexico.”
Lobbyists, too, are wary about the effectiveness of such a freshman-heavy delegation.
“Those of us who are familiar with the workings of Congress understand how important seniority is and the relationships that have developed over time are. From that aspect I absolutely have concerns that we’ve lost a lot of stroke, if you will,” said Bob Gallagher, the president of the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, a pressure group that lobbies state and federal lawmakers.
Moreover, the benefits of seniority are not always clear to the naked eye. Nobody knows how many times retiring Sen. Pete Domenici blocked spending cuts to New Mexico’s federal installations, for instance. And, although it was not well-known, retiring Rep. Steve Pearce successfully blocked a fellow Republicans from closing a federal law enforcement training center.
“Not only do I have concerns about the items we know about, it’s the items that we never knew about. Whether [it was] something good for New Mexico or something that was prevented behind the scenes that was bad for New Mexico,” Gallagher added.
...In 2007, the House approved a $400 million spending cut in funding for Los Alamos, but some of the money was restored in the Senate. With three new House members representing New Mexico, the lab’s advocates are more concerned than ever.
In the House and Senate, it is unlikely that freshman lawmakers will get to serve on the Appropriations Committee or two so-called “exclusive” committees in the House, including Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce.
“I’d be very surprised if any of the freshmen get on the exclusive committees,” Rep.-elect Martin Heinrich said.
The Energy Department: Chu will manage a budget of $24 billion and have a wide range of responsibilities. Chu will oversee the nation's nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons clean-up and will supervise research into both traditional and renewable forms of energy.
"The scientists at our national labs will have a distinguished peer at the helm," Obama said of Chu.
...
Climate and energy coordinator: Browner, will direct the efforts of numerous federal agencies, including the Department of Energy, the EPA, the Transportation Department, the Interior Department, the Defense Department and the Commerce Department.
Anyone else unclear on who's in charge of what?
Gov. Bill Richardson spent today traveling on the first run of the Railrunner train between ABQ and Santa Fe. I suppose it was a good day for him to get out of town...
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Grand Jury Probes Richardson Donor’s New Mexico Financing Fee (Bloomberg News)
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- A federal grand jury is investigating how a company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama, on bond deals that threaten to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, did similar work in New Mexico after making contributions to Governor Bill Richardson’s political action committees.
The grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into Beverly Hills, California-based CDR Financial Products Inc., which received almost $1.5 million in fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 after donating $100,000 to Richardson’s efforts to register Hispanic and American Indian voters and pay for expenses at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, people familiar with the matter said.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked current and former officials from the state agency if any staff members in the governor’s office influenced CDR’s hiring, said the people, who declined to be identified because the proceedings are secret. Richardson, who is President-elect Barack Obama’s designate for Commerce Secretary, has a staff of at least 30 people.
I heard from an ex-lab employee now in the Pentagon that there's a strong rumor going around that DefSec Bob Gates is quietly pushing hard for Obama to move NNSA to DOD. Gates doesn't think the triangle - DOE/DOE(NNSA)/Congress - is still the most effective way to manage nuke weapons complex. He's more comfortable with DOD fighting its own battles for programs, and wants to cutout a layer of middle management (DOE) from the equation. The feeling is the new Sec of Energy Dr Chu - who is only interested in "real" energy research and basic science - won't cry that much if NNSA and its weapons programs go to DOD. Chu coming from LBNL knows very well the headache and distraction that the weapons complex has been to past Sec of Energy. He also doesn't want this legacy on his desk that's already full with Obama's daunting agenda for an energy independent future.
This divorce is not a done deal, and it will painful to some "special interest" groups. However, if Gates wants it and Chu's okay with it, with Domenici gone don't expect the new Congress to put up much of a fight if Obama gets convinced by Gates it a good idea.
I think 7:06 AM is on the right track with this rumor. Dr. Chu is all about alternative energy research. He comes from an open LBL style culture and doesn't wish to be bogged down with classified programs and the vast problems of the declining NNSA weapons complex.
Odds are increasing that NNSA will be moved over to the DOD side of the house. Big changes are in store for both LANL and LLNL if this happens.
It's early to speculate, but what would be the pros and cons to work life at LANL if it was under DOD command?
Learn how to salute with no backtalk.
Of the eleven previous holders of the Secretary of Energy job, their professional backgrounds before DOE could be grouped as; 4 were political/governmental, 4 were legal/lawyers, 2 were business executives, and 1 was senior military commander. Dr. Chu is the first real scientist to head DOE. I doubt he'll do any worst than the non-scientist that came before him.
Dr. Chu is an interesting pick to head DOE. Unfortunately, he won't be overseeing either LANL or LLNL for very long.
Big changes are coming for the nuclear weapons complex. If you thought the switch from UC to LANS was a big jolt, then just wait until you see Act II.
A crippling loss of 52 years of experience that has brought us to the brink of economic collapse and global climate cataclysm? Is that the kind of loss in vision and political influence we should be mourning?
I agree. Not only is Dr. Chu a brilliant scientist, he actually uses his brain to think beyond the obvious. That means he probably recognizes our institutional addiction to nuclear weapons funding at the expense of all else. So don't break out the bubbly just yet.
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