Obama names energy, environment team

In announcing his energy and environmental team, President-elect Obama stressed that those areas will be critical to turning around the economy.

Obama, speaking at a press conference in Chicago on Monday, announced that Nobel Prize physicist Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, is his nominee to lead the Department of Energy. Carol Browner, who led the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration, was tapped for the newly created role of energy czar.

{mosads}Lisa Jackson, a former Clinton aide at the EPA, has been chosen to head that department for Obama, and Nancy Sutley will serve as chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

“In the 21st century, we know that the future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked to one challenge: energy,” Obama said. “The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment.”

The president-elect announced that energy independence, addressing climate change and creating jobs in the process are central to both his energy and environmental policies.

In a dig at the Bush administration, Obama said his selections for these posts should send a signal that “my administration will value science.”

“We’ve heard president after president promise to chart a new course. We’ve heard Congress talk about energy independence, only to pull up short in the face of opposition from special interests,” Obama said. “We’ve seen Washington launch policy after policy. Yet our dependence on foreign oil has only grown, even as the world’s resources are disappearing. This time must be different.”

Obama said all positions announced, and his pick to head the Interior Department which will be announced separately this week, will be critical to his goal of creating 2.5 million jobs with investment in things like wind farms and fuel-efficient cars.

He was asked when in his term Americans should expect to see the economy improving, to which the president-elect warned that he doesn’t “have a crystal ball.”

Obama did, however, say he thinks he has a plan that can turn things around, beginning with the proposed financial rescue package.

The president-elect also repeated his defense in Monday’s press conference that nobody on his transition team had any “inappropriate” contact with recently arrested Illinois Gov. Rod Blagoevich about who the governor might appoint to fill Obama’s Senate seat.

Obama was asked specifically about reports that incoming Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel supplied a list of acceptable names to Blagoevich, but Obama asked for patience, saying he did not want to interfere with the ongoing investigation of the “appalling set of circumstances.”