By STEPHEN POWER
CHICAGO -- President-elect Barack Obama is pushing to give U.S. energy policy a California-style makeover, choosing for key energy and environmental posts people who advocate more aggressive steps against climate change.
Obama's Advisers
Mr. Obama introduced Monday the people who will advise him on energy and environmental policy, including several figures who either hail from the Golden State or have called for emulating California's policies in the fight against climate change.
"Consistently, California has hit the bar" on environmental policy, "and the rest of the country has followed," Mr. Obama said during the news conference here.
Mr. Obama's picks in the energy and environmental arena signal a sharp break with Bush administration, in contrast with Mr. Obama's choices for some national-security and economic posts, who reflected a tilt toward continuity.
Mr. Obama's nominee for Energy secretary is Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Mr. Chu has praised California's approach to energy conservation, and called for aggressive steps on climate change.
Mr. Obama also named Carol Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration, to be the White House czar coordinating climate policy. Ms. Browner has said publicly that the next president's priority should be to direct the EPA to reconsider the decision by President George W. Bush's current EPA administrator, Stephen Johnson, to deny California a waiver from the Clean Air Act that would have allowed the state to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles.
To head the EPA, Mr. Obama named Lisa Jackson, former head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, who led her state's effort to implement auto greenhouse-gas standards modeled after California's. Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley was nominated to run the president's Council on Environmental Quality.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, appears poised to round out his energy and environmental team by naming Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado as Interior secretary. Mr. Salazar fought the Bush administration's efforts to allow oil-shale development in the West, but has also worked with Republicans on legislation to allow for some increased offshore drilling in exchange for greater spending on low-carbon technology.
To head the EPA, Mr. Obama named Lisa Jackson, former head of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, who led her state's effort to implement auto greenhouse-gas standards modeled after California's. Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley was nominated to run the president's Council on Environmental Quality.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, appears poised to round out his energy and environmental team by naming Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado as Interior secretary. Mr. Salazar fought the Bush administration's efforts to allow oil-shale development in the West, but has also worked with Republicans on legislation to allow for some increased offshore drilling in exchange for greater spending on low-carbon technology.
Mr. Obama's picks add to the growing number of Californians who will influence U.S. energy policy. That group includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has made addressing global warming a priority; Senate Environment Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer; and Rep. Henry Waxman, who last month defeated Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) for the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, after arguing he was better qualified to push climate-change legislation than Mr. Dingell, a longtime ally of his home state's auto makers.
Mr. Chu has held up California's policies on conservation as a model for the rest of the U.S., noting in a speech in Washington earlier this year that the state's real gross domestic product has grown by a factor of two since the early 1970s, even as electricity consumption per person has risen only moderately.
Opponents of California's policies note that the state pays relatively high electricity rates.—Laura Meckler and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this article.
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
Mr. Chu has held up California's policies on conservation as a model for the rest of the U.S., noting in a speech in Washington earlier this year that the state's real gross domestic product has grown by a factor of two since the early 1970s, even as electricity consumption per person has risen only moderately.
Opponents of California's policies note that the state pays relatively high electricity rates.—Laura Meckler and Jonathan Weisman contributed to this article.
Write to Stephen Power at stephen.power@wsj.com
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