Obama's Green Team

Pet mentioned in the Morning Readings that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu has been chosen to be the next Secretary of Energy, but there are a few more appointments mentioned in the article I wanted to highlight.

As Deeky mentioned yesterday, Deputy Major of LA Nancy Sutley, who was a Hillary Clinton supporter and is a lesbian Latina, has been chosen to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Carol Browner, who served as EPA administrator for all eight years of President Bill Clinton's presidency, will "fill a new White House post overseeing energy, environmental and climate policies." She was also the legislative director for Al Gore when he was serving as Senator.

And, last but certainly not least, Lisa Jackson has been selected to head the EPA.

An African American native of New Orleans, Jackson grew up in the Ninth Ward, the poor and largely black neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Jackson's mother, stepfather and godmother fled the city as the 2005 storm approached. A few months later, in her swearing-in speech as New Jersey's environmental chief, Jackson said the devastation wrought by Katrina put her environmental work in a new perspective.

"My family escaped with their lives, but everything else -- their homes and possessions, even the family Bible -- was lost," Jackson said. "We were among the lucky ones."

"The shameful failures of government that the world witnessed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina have given me a special appreciation for the importance of public service," Jackson added.

Blub.

Jackson, currently chief of staff to Democratic New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine and formerly head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, is credited with persuading Corzine to sign the Global Warming Response Act, "an ambitious climate measure that pledges to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050." Just the thought of having someone who wants to use the Environmental Protection Agency to actually protect the environment after eight years of the Bush administration's Orwellian abuse of the agency is making me absurdly happy.

Actually, this whole team makes me absurdly happy.