Obama's environment choices send a message

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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 résumé. "His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science," Obama said Monday at a Chicago news conference. "We will make decisions based on facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action."

Administration 'will value science,' president-elect says in nominating Nobel laureate for energy chief

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 résumé.

"His appointment should send a signal to all that my administration will value science," Obama said Monday at a Chicago news conference. "We will make decisions based on facts, and we understand that the facts demand bold action."

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Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, headlines a quartet of appointments that also 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 administrator; 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.

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