President-elect Barack Obama is expected to pick Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley as chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Washington sources said Wednesday.

He also is to name soon a special advisor to oversee energy and climate policy in the White House. The front-runner for the post is former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner under the Clinton administration, a Capitol Hill aide told NGI. Browner was closely involved in the Obama campaign.

And leading the pack for secretary of the Department of Energy is Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, reported the Associated Press, citing senior Democratic aides. However, CNN reported late Wednesday that Steven Chu, who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California, has been chosen by Obama as energy secretary. This could not be confirmed.

Granholm was elected the state’s first female governor in 2003 and was reelected in 2006. Some political observers had expected her to be appointed Labor Department secretary under an Obama administration. The governor is scheduled to meet with the Obama transition team during her visit to Washington, DC to discuss a bailout for Michigan’s automakers.

Sutley currently is deputy mayor for energy and development for Los Angeles. She previously served on the California State Water Resources Control Board and as former Gov. Gray Davis’ energy advisor during the state’s rolling blackouts of 2000-2001. She also was special assistant to then-EPA Administrator Browner.

“Advocates of responsibly developing America’s abundant homegrown energy reserves had hoped the new president would use the CEQ appointment to send a signal to the country and the world that securing our nation’s energy future will be a top priority of his administration. The apparent selection of Ms. Sutley for this important post does not appear to meet this mandate, though we remain hopeful that her tenure during this critical time will prove to be a successful one,” said Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research.

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