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Obama's new energy & environment cabinet members

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dpeilow

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May 23, 2008
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Winchester, UK
Could the Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger become Obama's new energy czar? | Mail Online

Arnold Schwarzenegger has been tipped to become Barack Obama's new energy secretary.

The former movie star is coming to the end of his stint as California governor and could be asked to cross over from the Republican party to serve in Obama's new administration, according to several sources.

So just how much of a damascene conversion has the former Mr "10 Hummers" Schwarzenegger actually had?
 
Arnold could be interesting, I suppose.

This article: Obama’s Secretary of Energy: Who Will Get the Call? : Gas 2.0 mentions Arnold as a possibility, but also Steve Westley:

Westley is currently on the board of Tesla Motors and is a managing partner of the Westley Group, a clean technology company.

If Obama is looking at Schwarzenegger and considering conservatives for the position, I would prefer Anne Korin or James Woolsey.
 
If Obama is looking at Schwarzenegger and considering conservatives for the position, I would prefer Anne Korin or James Woolsey.
I agree. Arnold would be an interesting public figure and advocate, but I'd prefer someone with a more quantitative understanding of the issues. The fact that he's still putting our tax money into hydrogen is a big minus for me.
 
I agree. Arnold would be an interesting public figure and advocate, but I'd prefer someone with a more quantitative understanding of the issues. The fact that he's still putting our tax money into hydrogen is a big minus for me.

Agreed. It would be a high profile choice for the (R) reason and the Celebrity choice.
I'm told Arnold is a good man and really wants to to the right green thing (with no explanation why with all those Hummers*) but that he is simply parroting the green people he has surrounded himself with.

*My take? He and his crowd is into super macho. Weight lifting macho, cigar smoking macho, Hummer driving Macho. The green? Maria? Trying to please the Hollywood elite? Spielberg and Cruise have made billions too but they all still want to be honored with a statue.
 
I'm told Arnold is a good man and really wants to to the right green thing (with no explanation why with all those Hummers*) but that he is simply parroting the green people he has surrounded himself with.

This is what concerns me. If he is prone to simply parroting those around him, what will happen if he ends up in Washington and swarms of lobbyists decend upon him. Business as usual?
 
More on Steve Westly's consideration for Energy Secretary:

Westly 'honored to be considered' for Obama cabinet - Sacramento Business Journal:
“We’re not allowed to lobby, but I’d be honored just to be considered,” said Westly, when asked if he was lobbying for the position. Westly made the comments between sessions at the U.S. China Green Tech Summit in Shanghai this week.

Westly is the CEO of venture capital firm The Westly Group, a clean technology investor on Sand Hill Road whose portfolio includes electric car maker Tesla Motors and biofuels company Amyris Biotechnologies.
 

Yeah, I heard it might be Steve. It's really refreshing to have a actual scientist in that position. While here, the word was that he was a slave driver to his graduate students and that he and Bob Laughlin were about the worst people to have on a Ph.D. committee. Just sayin'.
He would ask really hard questions and was never quite satisfied with your answer. These are probably good things in his new position.
 
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Well I went to a few of his lectures and knew a couple of his grad students, run into him at colloquia, stuff like that. I sorta lost track of him when he returned to Berkeley to become the director of LBL (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory). Scientists don't necessarily make good managers (c.f. the SSC), but the fact that he still has his job at LBL is a good sign. He's a good communicator which is also a plus.

He seems pretty concerned about environmental issues and has directed a good deal of LBL resources (a DOE facility) on transportation energy. I am, however, a little concerned that he seems to have a focus on biofuels (since my preference is towards electricity). I think there was some controversy a while back since LBL was getting some money from BP to do biofuel research. But I am glad to have someone in that position that actually understands the law of conservation of energy (no pun intended) and should be able to make rational decisions based on facts.


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A few of the purist eco sites are concerned about how much Chu adores Biofuels over Electric Transportation. When I think about his credentials compared to Ahnold's thin resume though, it actually does give hope.
 
Doug wrote:
What the New DOE Chief Steven Chu Means for Clean Technology Earth2Tech
from the article:
according to an interview with the Heritage Foundation published yesterday. He backpedaled

( The story Doug posted included a link in "according to an interview with the Heritage Foundation", which was actually a broken URL, but I found the supposed interview through Google. Apparently this isn't actually an interview with Chu, but rather a "conservative think tank" offering up suggestions of things they would like Chu to say if they could put words into his mouth. The earth2tech article acts as if he actually said those things. )


Heritage Foundation: Key Questions for Steven Chu, Nominee for Secretary of Energy
I suspect that the so-called "answers" they offer up are far from what he would actually say or think.

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Morning Bell: Will Chu Let America Power Up? The Foundry
 
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