Obama focuses on alternative energy, environment

By Deborah Charles

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Insisting on the need to develop new forms of energy, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on Monday chose as his energy secretary a Nobel physics laureate who is a major promoter of alternative fuels.

Obama named Steven Chu, the winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics who was an early advocate for finding scientific solutions to climate change, to head the Energy Department.

Chu will work closely with former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner, whom Obama named to a new post that will coordinate White House policy on energy and climate change.

"In the 21st century, we know that the future of our economy and national security is inextricably linked with one challenge: energy," Obama told a news conference. "All of us know the problems that are rooted in our addiction to foreign oil. It constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile regimes and leaves us dependent on unstable regions."

"To control our own destiny, America must develop new forms of energy and new ways of using it. And this is not a challenge for government alone -- it's a challenge for all of us."

Obama also named Lisa Jackson, former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to run the Environmental Protection Agency. He named Nancy Sutley, a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

To round out his energy and environment team, Obama will name Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar, a former environmental lawyer, as secretary of the interior, transition aides and Democratic sources said. The Department of the Interior leases public lands for oil and gas drilling.

Obama said he would officially announce his choice for the Interior department later this week.