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Steven Chu, director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, speaks after being introduced as Obama's Energy Secretary - Source: Reuters -
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US President-elect Barack Obama chose a Nobel physics laureate
to be his energy secretary and picked a former top federal
environmental regulator to co-ordinate his energy and environmental
policies.
Steven Chu, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics and now directs
the government's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in
California, will head the Energy Department.
Chu will work closely with Carol Browner, former head of the
Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton, who Obama said
will coordinate White House policy on energy and climate change
among various federal agencies.
Obama also named Lisa Jackson, 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
quest to revive the US economy by boosting renewable energy use and
creating millions of green jobs that will ease America's reliance
to foreign oil.
"All of us know the problems that are rooted in our addiction to
foreign oil. It constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile
regimes and leaves us dependent on unstable regions," Obama said a
news conference in Chicago where he introduced his new cabinet
picks.
"To control our own destiny, America must develop new forms of
energy and new ways of using it," he said.
Obama pointed out that over the last three decades other US
presidents have pledged to make America less dependent on foreign
energy supplies.
"This time has to be different. This time we cannot fail, nor can
we be lulled into complacency simply because the price at the pump
has for now gone down from $4 a gallon," he said.
Obama's energy and environment team will also be charged with
developing policies to reduce carbon emissions blamed for global
warming.
In a meeting last week with former Vice President Al Gore, Obama
said attacking global climate change was a matter of urgency that
would create jobs.
Obama hopes addressing climate change can create jobs that will
help pull the US economy out of a deepening recession.
He has begun to lay out plans for a massive recovery plan to
stimulate the economy and create about 2.5 million jobs - a portion
of them so-called green jobs.
Browner, a principal at global strategy firm The Albright Group
LLC, was the longest-serving administrator of the EPA.
Chu would be the first Asian-American to lead the energy
department.
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