Obama Creates an Energy Policy Troika

By Ucilia Wang

Three women will set out to reverse U.S. environmental policies that have caused a lot of heartburn for many greentech advocates in the past eight years.

Carol Browner, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Sutley have emerged as president-elect Barack Obama's choices for helping him boost greentech growth, create jobs and fight global warming.

Browner, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration, will take a White House post to coordinate energy, environment and climate change policies across federal agencies, reported The Washington Post.

Browner served as Al Gore's legislative director when Gore was a U.S. senator.

Lisa Jackson, who headed the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, will become the chief of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles for energy and environment, will head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The names of these new appointees surfaced Wednesday night as reports began to circulate that Steve Chu, the head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will become the new energy secretary (see Green Light post).

Not surprisingly, greentech companies are quite pleased with the selections.

"The new team shows how serious the Obama administration is to focus on renewable energy," said Julie Blunden, vice president of public policy at SunPower Corp., a solar panel maker in San Jose, Calif.

Obama hasn't officially announced the appointments. He also has yet to name his choice to head the Department of the Interior. The department's responsibilities include overseeing solar power plant development, wind farm building, mining and other activities by private companies on vast tracks of federal lands, especially in western United States (see BLM Lifts Moratorium on Public Lands for Solar).

Selecting Chu to head the U.S. Department of Energy will bring a renewed focus on greentech research. Chu, who won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1997, has been a champion of renewable energy research since he became the director of Berkeley Lab in California.

Chu's bio on the lab's Website says his ambition is to guide "Berkeley Lab on a new mission to become the world leader in alternative and renewable energy research, particularly the development of carbon-neutral sources of energy."

At the lab, he launched Helios, an initiative to use solar energy in developing transportation fuels. Helios scientists work on developing chemical converters and nanomaterials, for example, for producing biofuels.

Chu co-spearheaded the effort that won the Berkeley Lab a piece of the $500 million funding from BP in 2007 to set up the Energy Biosciences Institute, which aims to develop and commercialize biofuel and other technologies.

He also is a vocal advocate for energy efficiency research, which looks for ways to conserve energy use in data centers and buildings.

"He understands technology, and he knows how to lead a desperately needed wholesale change in a way we think about powering our country," said Andrew Beebe, managing director of Suntech Energy Solutions, a solar power plant developer in San Rafael, Calif. and part of Suntech Power Holdings, a Chinese solar panel maker.

"This was a choice – in line with what now seems to be the norm for this incoming administration – that was simply based on the ‘the best person for the job,' and not on who helped the most or which constituency needs placating," Beebe added.

Jeff St. John contributed to this story

Comments

[Ferdinand E...:]

Well what do you know. I had planned to write some shot-caller in Washington and suggest my good self as Energy Secretary, but it appears that I am too late. Of course, to my way of thinking, if the Energy Secretary is a renewable energy fanatic then there might still be a place for me somewhere in Washington, sooner or later, because I can't think of anything more absurd than to base US energy policy on a sub-optimal expansion of renewable energy, while downplaying nuclear energy and 'up- playing' energy independence - assuming that there is such a thing, which may not be the case..

I wonder what is going on in California these days. I remember a conference that I attended in which an up-market California physicist came up with some looney-tune ideas about electric deregulation. Of course, going back a few centuries, the weather at Fort Ord wasn't so bad.

2008 Dec 12 09:27 AM

[fran:]

FRED BANKS--

at the moment in CA., all eyes and effort spent searching for any spare change[ CENTS]. there is no money for more frivolous action--at least until TARP $ get assigned to state bailout[CA will be first, since tyey're biggest state and they have nancy, henry, barbara all dressed in "green".]

as to WASHINTON, DC-- any "new renewable directions" will take more time than i have remaining in life; i shall not worry. i leave my estate heavily invested in all "dirty, nasty" non-renewables assets which should stay solvent and grow for some years forward[including NUKE STUFF however categorized].

the process will be enjoyable to watch while i can.

did you catch my reference to 12/11/08 articl by bryce? energytribune.com

sorry that you were passed over by BHO. but if chosen, whence your articles in print?
On Dec 12 09:27 AM Fred Banks wrote:

> Well what do you know. I had planned to write some shot-caller in
> Washington and suggest my good self as Energy Secretary, but it appears
> that I am too late. Of course, to my way of thinking, if the Energy
> Secretary is a renewable energy fanatic then there might still be
> a place for me somewhere in Washington, sooner or later, because
> I can't think of anything more absurd than to base US energy policy
> on a sub-optimal expansion of renewable energy, while downplaying
> nuclear energy and 'up- playing' energy independence - assuming that
> there is such a thing, which may not be the case..
>
> I wonder what is going on in California these days. I remember a
> conference that I attended in which an up-market California physicist
> came up with some looney-tune ideas about electric deregulation.
> Of course, going back a few centuries, the weather at Fort Ord wasn't
> so bad.

2008 Dec 12 12:21 PM

[Ferdinand E...:]

Thanks fran, I wondered who sent me that article. It will be useful if I remember to save it. Anyway, as I pointed out somewhere, these three women are NOT an energy team. They know as much about energy economics as I do about brain surgery. However, I want to be optimistic, and not just because I am a democrat. The reason is that I think Obama is smart enough to detect when he has made a mistake, and where this issue is concerned to find a winning team, At least I hope that he is smart enough, because I don't see much of a future with what he's going with thus far - energy wise.

2008 Dec 12 03:50 PM

[Ferdinand E...:]

Not too many comments on the above. I wonder if energy commentators in general are afraid of offending the new Troika. But I'm not afraid. A special edition of Newsweek contains three articles on 'energy', none of which would have a place in my classroom, even if I were intoxicated. The lovliest of these three is written by Fred Krupp, president of the environmental defense fund, who wants to put a value on carbon emissions. Interesting idea - and upon returning from working in Switzerland in l971, I read an article in a Swedish newspaper with exactly the same proposal,That was when, after a few minutes of deep thought, I concluded that even interesting ideas can be dumber than stupid.

2008 Dec 13 10:19 AM