OBAMA’S ENERGY TEAM – THE WORK BEFORE THEM

During the Bush administration, headline stories about energy matters often related to the oil and gas industry and may or may not have been the concern of NewEnergyNews. Those days are gone. Whatever the Obama administration’s energy team is concerned with is going to affect New Energy. Even if the story is about Old Energy, it is about something that will affect the President-elect’s ability to fulfill his mandate to create a New Energy economy.

The Obama energy team was officially completed Wednesday when Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado), formerly director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and state attorney general, was nominated to be Secretary of the Interior. A farmer/rancher with a 5-generation Colorado pedigree, Salazar is said to be a conservationist and oil shale opponent but has a shaky position on coal and other environmental issues.

From ClimateScienceWatch: “…[Salazar] voted against increased fuel efficiency standards for the U.S. automobile fleet…voted to allow offshore oil drilling along Florida’s coast…voted against the repeal of tax breaks for Exxon-Mobil…voted to support subsidies to ranchers and other users of public forest and range lands…fought efforts to increase protection for endangered species and the environment in the Farm Bill…”

ClimateScienceWatch talked to an environmental movement leader familiar with Salazar.

Kieran Suckling, executive director, Center for Biological Diversity: “Obama’s choices for Secretary of Energy and his ‘Climate Change Czar’ indicate a determined willingness to take on global warming…That team will be weakened by the addition of Ken Salazar...”

On the other hand, Salazar was endorsed by the head of the Sierra Club.

Carl Pope, Executive Director, Sierra Club: "As a Westerner and a rancher, he understands the value of our public lands, parks, and wildlife and has been a vocal critic of the Bush Administration's reckless efforts to sell-off our public lands to Big Oil and other special interests...Senator Salazar has also been a leading voice in calling for the development of the West's vast solar, wind, and geothermal resources. He will make sure that we create the good-paying green jobs that will fuel our economic recovery without harming the public lands he will be charged with protecting...We are confident that Senator Salazar will work with President-Elect Obama to undo the damage of the Bush years..."

Salazar is clearly Obama’s move back toward the political center, following on the nomination of Steven Chu, Nobel laureate in physics, to head the Department of Energy. Chu was more widely approved for his strong support of New Energy, his fervent concern with global climate change and his opposition to new coal.

While they split Obama supporters, the nominees share the qualities of experience and competence. They will need these qualities. The Obama team faces a long hard road.

Job 1: Figuring out what Job 1 is. Energy, climate, economic and even national security issues are so inextricably woven together that pulling a little thread could unravel a lot.

Dr. Nathan Lewis, professor/solar energy expert, California Institute of Technology: “Energy efficiency cannot be seen as Job 1 and the other stuff Job 2…You’ve got to do them all as Job 1 because they all have to work.”

Example of the conundrum: The fight against global climate change. The Obama team must not only pick the most scientifically valid policy, it must pick one that can get through a Senate where a minority opposes anything that threatens the fossil fuel industries or threatens to drive up power rates.

Anything effective against climate change must almost surely threaten the fossil fuel industries and drive power rates up in the short run. The difficulty of reconciling the contentious minority with scientific effectiveness is surpassed only by the urgency of doing so and getting the U.S. started on mandatory greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) reductions.

The Obama team’s job only begins with the domestic political challenge. It also must confront a world community engaged for years in the fight against global climate change but awaiting committed U.S. participation before resolving its biggest obstacle.

To turn back climate change, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel says atmospheric GhGs must be cut. World leaders, including President-elect Obama, have decided the most accessible method of putting the world to work cutting GhGs is through a cap-and-trade system in which caps are put in place, costs are attached to generating GhGs above the caps, rewards are available for undercutting the caps and the market is left free to find solutions.

The Obama team must first find a way to design a cap-and-trade system that can be effective. Effective is currently being firmly defined as bringing the CO2 concentration back to 350 parts per million (ppm) from its current (and steadily rising) level of 387 ppm. Even if the team's plan then wins approval from the Senate minority, it is not at all certain the governments of emerging nations in Asia and Latin America will be willing to participate, especially amid the current world economic downturn. Yet without their participation, the fight cannot be won.

From 350.org via YouTube

In this way, the fight against climate change is bound up with the struggle to set the U.S. and world economies in motion. The Obama team, therefore, will be thinking about a slate of policy measures that can be part of the economic stimulus plan Congress will take up as soon as the President-elect takes office, if not before.

Shovel ready: The energy team must decide what part of the available funds will be dedicated to building infrastructure and what part to subsidizing technology. Congress and the President agree stimulative impact depends on how quickly the money goes to work, inclining the team to emphasize shovel ready programs. But the projects that will constitute the New Energy infrastructure of the the 21st century may not be shovel ready.

Paul Bledsoe, (bipartisan) National Commission on Energy Policy: “In policy terms, I think there are big questions about what priority will be given to direct public infrastructure spending versus tax-based incentives versus environmental markets versus direct regulation…There is still a very profound debate on all of that.”

The biggest burden for working out the scientific, idealogical and political details will reportedly fall on Carol Browner, who will coordinate energy and climate policy for the White House. Browner ran the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Clinton. Her EPA aide Lisa Jackson has been nominated by Obama to head his EPA. Her EPA aide Nancy Sutley has been nominated to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Their established ability to work together could be crucial.

3 things to watch for:

(1) Decision making. Obama’s greatest genius has been in making choices that precisely walk the line between pragmatism and idealism. He knew when to stand up, as in the choice to give the speech about his relationship with Reverend Wright, and when to wait for events to unfold, as at the moments of the Russian invasion of Georgia and the sudden financial meltdown. This ability will be tested.

(2) Pleasing enough of the people. As with his nominations of Salazar and Chu (and his more recent pick of Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural benediction), Obama has the genius shared by all great leaders to move from the idealogical end of his constituency to its paragmatic end. To succeed, he must find a way to continue doing this without allowing his mandate to crumble.

(3) Implementation. The reason Barack Obama is President of the United States is because he ran one of the most effective, innovative campaigns in political history. He chose people well and he enabled them to perform well. He has once again chosen a team. How they perform will once again be determinative.

Finally: The deals will be made in the Senate in the coming year. Speaker Pelosi holds most of the cards in the House. In the Senate, Majority Leader Reid must prevent the Obama agenda from being stopped cold by that recalcitrant minority and its filibuster power.

From CBS via YouTube.

Hard Task for New Team on Energy and Climate
John M. Border and Andrew C. Revkin, December 16, 2008 (NY Times)

WHO
Steven Chu, nominee, Secretary of Energy; Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo), nominee, Secretary of the Interior; Lisa D. Jackson, nominee, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Nancy Sutley, nominee, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality ; Carol Browner, appointee, White House energy and climate policy coordinator

WHAT
The political, economic, diplomatic and scientific challenges are many for the Obama energy and environmental team because the Obama mandate is nothing less than moving the U.S. to a New Energy Economy and assuming leadership in the world’s fight against global climate change.

There have been a lot of bills written and, so far, little legislation on climate change. (click to enlarge)

WHEN
- When introducing his team, the President-elect acknowledged many previous promises to make the U.S. energy independent, all of which have come to virtually nothing.
- The Salazar nomination has not been officially announced but has been leaked.
- Chu won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1997.
- The Obama showdown with the world on the climate change fight will come at the UN summit scheduled for December 2009, but much telling preparatory work will go on during the year.
- The urgency of cutting GhGs: Once they are emitted, they stay in the atmosphere adding to global climate change for thousands of years.

WHERE
- The world is watching.
- The U.S. cap-and-trade system will be part of climate change legislation that Congress will take up after it handles the economic stimulus package.
- The December 2009 climate change summit will be in Copenhagen, Denmark.
- The urgency of a global emissions reduction agreement is the result of a rapid rise in GhGs from China, India and nations with emerging economies.

WHY
- Professor Lewis of Cal Tech describes the proper strategy as requiring 3 goals: (1) Increased efficiencies, (2) Increased New Energy, and (3) Increased scientific breakthroughs.
- Nobel laureate Chu is presently head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs ands a big favorite with the scientific community.
- The ideological, regional self-interested rivalries that stopped climate change legislation in the Senate during the 110th Congress will be present in the 111th Congress.
- During the election campaign, the President-elect promised to make New Energy legislation his highest priority but his electorate knows he must now first deal with the economy.
- The Obama campaign platform called for an investment of $150 billion over 5 years to create 5 million green collar jobs. He also pledged to put 1 million plug-in hybrid electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, introduce legislation to require all U.S. utilities to obtain 10% of their power from New Energy sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025 and legislation to put the nation on a path to cut GhGs 805 by 2050.

click for more on the 350 ppm movement

QUOTES
- President-elect Obama, introducing his team: “This time must be different…This will be a leading priority of my presidency and a defining test of our time. We cannot accept complacency, nor accept any more broken promises.”
- Tom Kuhn, president, Edison Electric Institute: “There will be major costs…It’s a question of trying to mitigate the costs as much as possible.”