Obama focuses on alternative energy, environment
16 December 2008
830 views
No Comment
Insisting on the need to develop new forms of energy, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday chose as his energy secretary a Nobel physics laureate who is a major promoter of alternative fuels.
Obama named Steven Chu, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics who was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, to head the Energy Department.
Chu will work closely with former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner, whom Obama named to a new post that will coordinate White House policy on energy and climate change.
:
Obama also named Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to run the Environmental Protection Agency. He named Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
To round out his energy and environment team, Obama will name Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, a former environmental lawyer, as secretary of the interior, transition aides and Democratic sources said. The Department of the Interior leases public lands for oil and gas drilling.
:
Obama’s choices were applauded by environmentalists who said they showed he was serious about combating global warming and about moving toward more “green” jobs.
Obama’s energy and environment team will also be charged with developing policies to reduce carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
:
Obama, who has begun to lay out plans for a massive recovery plan to stimulate the economy and create about 2.5 million jobs, said many of them should be “green” jobs.
:
Obama has set a goal of making public buildings more efficient, modernizing the electricity grid and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while preserving national resources.
He refused to answer directly a reporter’s question on whether he would reinstate the presidential ban on offshore drilling, which President George W. Bush recently revoked.
:
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Have your say!