President-elect Barack Obama on Monday named an energy and environment team that signals his determination to address global warming quickly and develop alternative forms of energy. Obama selected a Nobel Prize-winning physicist to be his energy secretary and chose a former top federal environmental regulator to coordinate his energy and environmental policies. Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for physics and now directs the government's Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory in California, will head the Energy Department. He is a leading advocate of reducing greenhouse gases by developing new energy sources. Chu will work closely with Carol Browner, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who Obama said will coordinate White House policy on energy and climate change among the various federal agencies. The president-elect also named Lisa Jackson, the chief of staff for New Jersey's governor, to lead the EPA and Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Obama's energy and environmental team will play a major role in his goal of reviving the U.S. economy by increasing renewable energy use and creating millions of “green” jobs that will ease U.S. reliance on foreign oil.
