CONGRESS QUESTIONS CHU, JACKSON

Abstract

EVEN BEFORE Barack Obama has been sworn in as the 44th U.S. President, his nominees to head the Department of Energy and EPA have come before separate Senate committees in the first step toward their confirmation. Last week’s hearings offered senators an opportunity to ask questions of the nominees and get a head start on approving them, noted Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Steven Chu, a Nobel Laureate who leads DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, appeared to glide through a Jan. 13 hearing before Bingaman’s committee. The discussion ranged from the parochial to the global. While Chu talked about the transformation of energy production, questions from the 20 senators attending often reflected the transformation’s likely impact on jobs and the cost of energy in their states. Stopping climate change and promoting energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide are clearly Chu’s top priorities. Climate change, he said, ...