Obama: My Administration Will Value Science instead of Evangelical
dogma !
http://www.truthout.org/121608EA
With a Nobel physicist and a former EPA chief on board, some expect
Obama's White House to break from what they see as the Bush
administration's record of overlooking science in favor of politics.
Washington - With the nomination of Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Steven Chu for Energy secretary, President-elect Barack Obama made
sure no one missed the message in the resume.
"His appointment should send a signal to all that my
administration will value science," Obama said during a Chicago news
conference Monday. "We will make decisions based on facts, and we
understand that the facts demand bold action."
Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
headlines a quartet of appointments that includes former
Environmental
Protection Agency chief Carol Browner as a coordinator of energy and
climate policy, former New Jersey environmental protection
commissioner Lisa Jackson as EPA director, and Los Angeles Deputy
Mayor Nancy Sutley to run the White House Council on Environmental
Quality.
With this team, some environmentalists and former federal
research
scientists expect Obama's White House to break from what they view as
the Bush administration's record of overlooking science in favor of
politics.
"It's such an incredible contrast, compared to the years of
darkness under the current administration, to see a scientist in such
a position of authority and influence in the Cabinet," said Alan
Nogee, who directs the Clean Energy Program for the Union of
Concerned
Scientists, which has accused the administration of silencing and
overruling scientists in policy-making. "It's night and day."
Critics - including Nogee's organization and former EPA
Administrator Christie Todd Whitman - have complained about the
influence of industry lobbyists and ideologues on Bush administration
decision-making.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman of Beverly Hills is among the Democrats who
repeatedly have accused top Bush officials, including Vice President
Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove, with pressing federal
agencies to take positions that put them at odds with their own
scientists on energy, global warming and stem cell research.
The critics say many high-ranking scientists have fled federal
jobs or have been forced from advisory panels in an effort to tilt
agency decision-making to be more favorable to corporate interests
or,
in at least one case, to help secure reelection of Republicans.
In 2001, Waxman issued a 40-page report accusing the
administration of having "manipulated the scientific process and
distorted or suppressed scientific findings." In 2004, 60 prominent
scientists accused the administration of "misrepresenting and
suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes."
In 2006, the top climate scientist at NASA, James Hansen, said
the
Bush administration tried to gag him from speaking publicly after he
gave an academic lecture calling for prompt reductions in greenhouse
gases.
On Monday, the Interior Department's inspector general issued a
report detailing how one administrator intervened in at least 13
decisions under the Endangered Species Act. The official's "zeal to
advance her agenda has caused considerable harm to the integrity" of
the Endangered Species Act program, the report said, "as well as
potential harm to individual species. Her heavy-handedness has cast
doubt on nearly every ESA decision issued during her tenure."
Jeremy Symons, former climate policy adviser at the EPA, was so
shaken after representing the EPA on Cheney's Energy Task Force in
2001 that he left government to become a vice president at the
National Wildlife Federation.
"There was no interest in considering the scientific evidence of
the impact our energy policy would have on the environment," Symons
said in an interview on Monday. "When science was brought up for
discussion, it was dismissed as not important to developing the
energy
plan."
Obama stressed the importance of energy and climate policy to the
nation's economy and security on Monday - though he declined to say
when he plans to grant a waiver for California to begin regulating
greenhouse gas emissions.
Chu, who won his Nobel Prize for developing methods to trap atoms
with lasers, has oriented the Berkeley lab to focus on renewable
energy and climate change. On Monday he stressed the Energy
Department's role in supporting scientists, public and private, and
innovations that he said "can transform the entire landscape of
energy
demand and supply."
His appointment has won wide praise across industries and party
lines. Current Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement
that
Chu "understands the significance of our energy and environmental
challenges, and more importantly, understands the technical solutions
necessary to address them.... I hold him in the highest regard."
A leading energy lobbyist said he was "cautiously optimistic"
about Chu and his fellow appointees. "I hope they do welcome science
first," said Scott Segal of Bracewell and Giuliani in Washington.
"But
that means being clear about it when the technology isn't ready to
solve climate issues. Good science cuts both ways. It also cuts
against unrealistic policy proposals that could endanger the U.S.
economy."
Environmental groups lauded the appointees for their commitment
to
alternative fuels and fighting global warming. They welcomed them as
symbols of science ascendant.
"I'm quite sure we'll have policy disputes with the Obama
administration," said Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist at Oceana,
a
nonprofit organization dedicated to ocean protection. "But we expect
that the facts of the case, whatever the issue is, will be out there
more. We expect more transparency. We expect scientists to be able to
speak more."
Reid Detchon, executive director of the nonpartisan Energy Future
Coalition, which advocates for renewable energy, said he expected Chu
to be the first in a succession of "first-rate scientists" to advise
Obama and help restore what he calls eight years of damage to the
"scientific apparatus" of the federal government.
"What political appointments can do," Detchon said, "political
appointments can undo."
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