Obama Said to Pick Nobel Laureate Chu to Head Energy Department

By Kim Chipman and Jim Efstathiou Jr.

Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Nobel laureate Steve Chu is Barack Obama’s choice to head the Department of Energy as the president-elect rounds out his energy and environmental team, a person close to the transition said.

The president-elect will name Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as the country’s 12th energy secretary. The announcement, along with other key energy and environmental posts, will be made next week, Democratic aides said.

Obama aims to complete his Cabinet appointments by the end of next week before he leaves for vacation. He will name former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle to head the Department of Health and Human Services tomorrow in Chicago, Democratic officials said. Obama says the current economic turmoil makes it more urgent to overhaul the country’s energy sector and health- care system.

“He’s seeking a vision that addresses the urgency of the economic collapse by also ensuring that the long term future of healthcare and energy is met,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor relations professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Obama’s environmental team will include Lisa Jackson, former commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and current chief of staff to New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to the person close to the transition.

Environmental Council

Nancy Sutley, an energy official for the city of Los Angeles, is Obama’s choice to head his White House Council on Environmental Quality, according to one Democratic aide.

Obama is likely to tap Carol Browner to fill a newly created position that is intended to coordinate policy on energy, the environment and climate change. Browner was EPA administrator under former President Bill Clinton and is an adviser on Obama’s transition.

Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, wasted no time yesterday in criticizing Browner, who headed the EPA from 1993 to 2001, making her the longest-serving administrator in the agency’s history.

“She is a proud liberal who has long advocated an environmentalist agenda that would drive up energy costs on families and put thousands of Americans out of jobs,” said Inhofe, who has previously called the idea that humans are contributing to global warming a “hoax.”

Critics

Republicans aren’t the only ones expressing opposition to Obama’s choices on the environment. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a non-profit alliance of local, state and federal employees, said Jackson’s record in New Jersey should “disqualify” her from running the EPA. They contend Jackson’s policies were swayed by political considerations.

Jackson, who would be the first black person to head the EPA, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. She previously worked under Browner at the EPA and also is a member of Obama’s transition team.

In picking Chu, winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics, to head the energy department, Obama is signaling he will fulfill his pledge to put an emphasis on science when crafting energy policies aimed at transforming the U.S. economy into one fueled primarily by low-carbon power sources.

“He certainly needs somebody who can focus on the science and energy policies and I can’t think of a better guy than Steve,” said Mike Lubell, a physics professor at the City College of New York, who has known Chu for 30 years.

Climate Emphasis

Since taking over as director of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in August 2004, Chu has pushed the scientists there to focus on climate change and on developing new carbon-neutral sources of energy, said Robert J. Birgeneau, the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.

“He has been relentless about addressing the technical challenges of renewable energy in a deep way,” said Birgeneau, who has known Chu for three decades since the two men worked at Bell Laboratories in the 1970s.

Lynn Yarris, a spokeswoman for Chu, declined to comment.

Chu played a leading role in Berkeley being selected by BP Plc as the home of a $500 million research program to develop a new generation of renewable fuels. Berkeley Labs is funded by the Energy Department.

It’s not the first time a Nobel Prize winner has been named part of a president’s administration. Former Vice President and 1925 Nobel Peace Prize winner Charles Dawes was named Ambassador to Great Britain in 1929.

Health-Care Policy

Obama’s pick of Daschle, 61, to head HHS was reported last month. He was an adviser to Obama during the presidential campaign and leads his transition team’s health-care policy review. The former Senate Democratic leader was involved in health-care issues in the Senate and after he lost his bid for re-election in 2004. His book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis,” calls for an independent agency similar to the Federal Reserve Board to oversee the U.S. health system.

Daschle was the Senate Democratic leader from 1994 to 2004. Since 2007, he has been an adviser to the law firm of Alston & Bird LLP. Although Daschle isn’t a registered lobbyist, his firm was paid $5.8 million between January and September to represent companies and associations before Congress and the executive branch, with 60 percent of that money coming from the health industry.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net; Kim Chipman in Chicago at kchipman@bloomberg.net.