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A new article in today's Washington Post.  Obama's team ready for working 
climate change and millions of green jobs?

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Obama Team Primed to Push Climate Change Agenda 

 
By REUTERS

Published: December 22, 2008 
Filed at 4:01 p.m. ET

Skip to next paragraph  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama's 
new "green dream team" is committed to battling climate change and ready to 
push for big policy reforms, in stark contrast with the Bush administration, 
environmental advocates said on Monday.

"If this team can't advance strong national policy on global warming, then no 
one can," said Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned 
Scientists, referring to Obama's picks for the top energy and environment 
jobs in his administration, which takes office on January 20.

"This caliber of scientists in any administration would be a major headline," 
Knobloch said by telephone on Monday. "But in contrast to the eight years of 
the Bush administration, where political appointees ran roughshod over 
science at a terrible cost to the truth, they stand out even more."

Last week, Obama picked a Nobel physics laureate, Stephen Chu, to head the 
Energy Department; former environmental lawyer and U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar as 
Interior secretary; former New Jersey environment chief Lisa Jackson to head 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los 
Angeles, to run the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

The president-elect tapped Carol Browner, who headed the Clinton 
administration's EPA, to take a new White House position coordinating policy 
on energy, environment and climate change. For White House science adviser, 
Obama chose John Holdren, a Harvard University expert on climate change.

For the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which deals with 
weather and climate among other matters, Obama named Jane Lubchenco, a marine 
biologist who has been sharply critical of that agency for allowing 
overfishing.

5 MILLION GREEN JOBS

"Each one of them is not only experienced and capable ... but also very, very 
committed to doing something on climate," said Tony Kreindler of advocacy 
group Environmental Defense Fund. "They really get the connection between 
climate change and economic growth and how pursuing renewable energy can 
create jobs."

Obama has pledged to create 5 million green jobs and break U.S. dependence on 
foreign oil, investing $150 billion in the next decade to build an energy 
economy that relies on renewable sources such as wind, solar and geothermal 
energy.

"None of this will be easy, because some of the powerful special interests 
and their allies still have their heads in the sand," said Gene Karpinski, 
president of the League of Conservation Voters.

However, Karpinski said that with Obama's "great new green dream team" and 
more members in the U.S. Congress who support action to curb climate change, 
a law to limit greenhouse gas emissions is more likely, as is a global 
agreement to succeed the current phase of the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol.

Even most of those who disagree with Obama on climate change accept the 
qualifications of his appointees, but Myron Ebell of the pro-business 
Competitive Enterprise Institute criticized Holdren and Lubchenco as being 
"on the scientific fringe of global warming alarmism."

Environmental groups have clashed repeatedly with the Bush White House on 
science policy, especially when that was at odds with energy policy.

President George W. Bush vowed to regulate carbon emissions when he 
campaigned for the White House in 2000, but changed course soon after taking 
office in 2001, and for most of his tenure voiced skepticism that cutting 
back on human-generated carbon dioxide emissions would solve the problem.

Under his stewardship, the United States has been alone among major 
industrialized nations in rejecting the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. Bush 
has refused to impose economy-wide limits on carbon emissions, maintaining 
that this would hamper U.S. competition with fast-growing, big-emitting 
economies like China and India.

Bush's Environmental Protection Agency chief has balked at limiting 
climate-warming carbon emissions, even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 
that the agency has the power to do this.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)



--- On Sun, 12/21/08, DSanner106 AT aol.com <DSanner106 AT aol.com> wrote: