Day 36 - naming environment teams
Updated on 16 December 2008
Monday 15 December 2008: Barack Obama picks a Nobel prize winner as his energy secretary.
Steven Chu, who shared the Nobel prize for physics in 1997, will be tasked with finding alternatives to fossil fuels.
"His appointment should send a signal to all that my Administration will value science," Obama said at another of his press conferences. "We will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action."
He also named Lisa Jackson as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Nancy Sutley as Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Carol Browner to a new post coordinating energy and climate policy.
"The future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked to one challenge: energy," Obama said. "The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment."
"They are leading experts and accomplished managers, and they are ready to reform government and help transform our economy so that our people are more prosperous, our nation is more secure, and our planet is protected.
"This is not a challenge for government alone - it is a challenge for all of us. The pursuit of a new energy economy requires a sustained, all-hands-on-deck effort because the foundation of our energy independence is right here, in America."
