President-elect Barack Obama has selected a veteran team of regulators and administrators to fill his administration’s top energy and environmental posts. Environmental and industry groups expect the team, announced on Dec. 15, to be more focused on climate change and renewable energy than the Bush administration. They believe the designees will be sympathetic to boosting funds for programs like Environmental Protection Agency water-infrastructure aid, but overall budget pressures may work against that.
For energy secretary, Obama tapped Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and heads the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection, is Obama’s pick to lead EPA.