One of the first tasks facing President-elect Barack Obama’s energy and environmental team, which he unveiled Monday in Chicago, will be to review the issue of whether to reinstate the moratorium on oil and natural gas development in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Obama said.

“What I said during the campaign was that I was open to the idea of offshore drilling if it was part of a comprehensive package to achieve energy independence,” he told reporters. But “I’m not thrilled with it [the moratorium] simply lapsing as a consequence of inaction without broader thought to how we’re going to achieve energy independence.”

Consequently “what this team will be charged with in part is figuring out how can we arrive at a comprehensive energy strategy that meets the goals of our national security, meets the goals of our economy and meets the goals of preserving our planet for our children.”

Lawmakers let the nearly three-decades-old congressional moratorium on drilling expire on Nov. 1 as part of a stopgap measure to fund the federal government through March 2009 (see Daily GPI, Sept. 30). Earlier in the year, President Bush issued an executive order shelving the parallel presidential ban on drilling in federal offshore areas (see Daily GPI, July 15). The two actions lifted all restrictions on drilling in the OCS.

“The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment,” Obama said. The “problems are rooted in our addiction to foreign oil,” which is eclipsed only by the threat of climate change, he noted.

The names of Obama’s “dream green team” appointees had been public knowledge for days, but Obama made it official Monday in announcing that Nobel laureate physicist Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, had accepted the offer to be energy secretary in his administration (see Daily GPI, Dec. 12). In 1997 Chu shared the Nobe Prize for Physics for developing methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Obama said the selection of Chu should send a signal to all that his administration will value science.

The selection of Chu was welcomed by energy policymakers on Capitol Hill. “I support President-elect Obama’s choice of him, and I look forward to working with Dr. Chu as he takes on the responsibility of secretary of energy at a pivotal time for our nation’s energy policy,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for eight years in the Clinton administration, was tapped as the head of a new White House council overseeing energy and climate policy (see Daily GPI, Dec. 11). Most observers agree that Obama’s creation of this post makes it pretty clear that he wants the White House to have direct control over energy and climate policy.

The American Public Gas Association, which represents municipal gas utilities, lauded the appointments of both Chu and Browner, and said it believed that the “direct use of natural gas is consistent with President-elect Obama’s goals of increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Lisa P. Jackson, currently chief of staff to New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine and former commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, will be the next EPA administrator. She has 20 years experience as an environmental regulator. Ironically, Jackson supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) in the Democratic presidential primaries. In mid-November she was picked by Obama to serve on his energy and environment transition team.

Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor for energy and development in Los Angeles, will lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger praised the selection of Chu and Sutley, who are both Californians. The governor chose to emphasize the two designees’ environmental credentials, although they both come with energy experience as well. Chu’s University of California national lab has done some of the leading renewable and energy efficiency research in the nation, and before taking her role in LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s administration, Sutley was a top energy adviser to former Gov. Gray Davis in the midst of the 2000-01 wholesale energy market crisis.

The President-elect has selected “premier environmentalists to implement policies that will create a better environment for everyone, and is a testament to California’s leadership that members of his energy and environmental team are from this state,” said Schwarzenegger. He reiterated his frequent theme about California promoting the growth of “green technology,” and expressing pride in the work the two designated appointees have done.

The only vacancy on Obama’s energy team is the secretary of the Interior Department. News reports throughout the weekend indicated that Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) is at the top of a short list for the post. Obama said he planned to announce his choice for Interior secretary by the end of the week.

The selection of Salazar could be bad news for producers. In June, he indicated he opposed Bush’s proposal to open all offshore areas to oil and natural gas drilling. Instead, he said the industry should focus on the “vast amounts of federal land, onshore and offshore, [that] are leased to energy companies for development, but remain undeveloped.”

At the time, Salazar recommended that Bush “call on energy companies to develop these areas, and the areas that Congress has opened up over the last three years, rather than proposing to sell off leases in new areas.”

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