‘All Hands on Deck’ For Obama’s New Energy Team
With his inauguration little more than a month away, President-elect Obama recently announced his new “green dream team.”
“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,” said Obama in his speech Tuesday. “Those are the resources we must harness to move beyond our oil addiction and create a new, hybrid economy.”
Obama hopes that through new innovations in domestic industry, the U.S.’ economic downturn can be reversed, as well as national security improved. “We can spark the dynamism of our economy through long term investments in renewable energy that will give life to new businesses and industries, with good jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced,” he said.
Who They Are
We’re probably going to be hearing a lot more from these four, so here’s a quick rundown of who they are and what they’ll be doing for the next four years:
- Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu - A Nobel Prize-winning physicist who has been working to develop new and cleaner energy, recently leading the Berkeley National Laboratory in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies. He will be leading the Department of Energy in continuing these pursuits. “His appointment should send a signal to all that my Administration will value science, we will make decisions based on the facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action,” said Obama.
- Energy and Climate Policy Coordinator, White House, Carol Browner - “Carol understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies; cooperation between federal, state and local governments; and partnership with the private sector,” said Obama. Browner is the longest-serving administrator of the U.S. EPA and will work to implement new energy policies.
- Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson – “Lisa also shares my commitment to restoring the EPA’s robust role in protecting our air, water and abundant natural resources so that our environment is cleaner and our communities are safer,” said Obama. Jackson recently served as Commissioner of New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection, helping New Jersey reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop new sources of energy, and she will use her experience to continue this effort at the EPA.
- Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley - Sutley most recently worked as the Deputy Mayor for Energy and the Environment in Los Angeles. According to Obama, Sutley will “bring this unique experience to Washington, and be a key player in helping to make our government more efficient, and coordinating our efforts to protect our environment at home and around the globe.”
Later this week, Obama will be announcing his Secretary of the Interior, who will complete the team.
Kevin
posted on December 18th, 2008 at 11:18 am
EPA Whistleblower Illegally Fired While Carol Browner- Energy Czar Soars Through Transition
Time magazine reported that Carol M. Browner’s nomination Monday for the newly-created Energy Czar position, raises embarrassing questions in the Environmental Protection Agency’s employee relations history due to Ms. Browner’s loss in Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner on charges of discriminating against employees based on sex and race, as well as retaliating against whistleblowers and denying them their civil rights. The announcement was 2 weeks ago just as the successful plaintiff in the case, Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, was illegally fired by the present EPA Administrator, one of Ms. Browner’s former assistant administrators.
Time quotes Coleman-Adebayo as saying Administrator Browner “…wasn’t at all sympathetic to complaints about civil rights abuses. We were treated like Negroes, to use a polite term. We were put in our place.” Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, a former EPA employee whose complaints of a “racially toxic” environment there led to the signing of the Notification and Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination and Retaliation Act of 2001. (TIME, February 23, 2001)
“It is very disturbing to me on the heels of my being illegally fired,” said Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, “not fired for cause, not fired for performance issues, but because of health concerns that the very woman I prevailed against in court is being elevated to a White House decision-level positionwhat message does this send to others in the Federal government who are considering exposing corruption or discrimination? Should government managers take comfort in the fact that employees can prevail against them in Federal court, Congress can unanimously condemn their leadership and pass a law to stop them, and they still may be tapped for a high level position? How tragic.”
Coleman-Adebayo is referred to in Time’s reporting as the woman with “a streak of Rosa Parks,” for her staunch refusal to look the other way on criminal activities in an international mining operation in South Africa. When she reported retaliation, discrimination and the denial of her civil rights to then-Administrator Browner, Browner refused to intervene. Before Coleman-Adebayo faced a federal jury, she was the target of death threats. A jury verdict found in Coleman-Adebayo’s favor, awarding her the largest-ever cash judgement against the Agency. Ms. Browner never took any action against those the case exposed for wrong doing; even after Congress order her to do so. It wasn’t until Browner’s successor, Christine Todd Whitmanin her first act as EPA Administratorannounced that the verdict in Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner would not be contested, that the agency accepted responsibility in this historic case.
Congress, outraged at the deplorable conditions inside EPA, by unanimous votes in both chambers passed the No FEAR Act, the first civil rights law of the 21st century, with provisions to protect whistleblowers from retaliation and discrimination. The law mandates that the lessons in Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner be required of all Federal employees every 2 years, to help break down the racial barriers exposed in the lawsuit. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo is widely considered to be among but a few standard bearers for the national whistleblower and civil rights movement. Her firing raises troubling questions as to whether this pattern of retaliation will stop under the Obama administration. Whistleblowers around the country are following this case to see if EPA Administrator-designate Lisa Jackson is going to break from the Bush treatment of whistleblowers and reinstate Dr. Coleman-Adebayo.
Tina Gadson
posted on February 22nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
For an alternative view on Dr. Coleman-Adebayo, please see the comments following the article at this link:
http://aaenvironment.blogspot.com/2008/11/dr-marsha-coleman-adebayo-carol-browner.html