Today's Political News: PART TWO

This took longer than I thought given the daunting task of bullet point #2, and by the time you read it, probably qualifies as yesterday's news. Oh well.

1) Great news that got swept under the Blagojevich monolith. Obama sat down with Al Gore today. Aides were careful to say that Gore was not in line for a cabinet position. Too bad, because he'd be a hell of an Energy Secretary or EPA head. There are some rumblings that Obama might create a Climate Change Czar (by the way, I hate the term "Czar", this isn't 18th century Russia). I'm not sure why picking Gore for one of the cabinet positions or this new Climate Change position doesn't make a lot of sense to the Obama camp. They've shown they like brand names (Clinton) and Gore is the brand name when it comes to the environment. Plus this would throw a pretty big bone to the progressive wing. Perhaps, as he's intimated before, Gore doesn't want to be in the political eye anymore. But it's not as if the Energy Secretary is at the center of the klieg lights.

2) While we're at it, the Washington Post had a very brief rundown of Obama's Energy Secretary shortlist. Let's expand it to include what we know about each of the candidates:

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D-Kans.)

She was on the shortest of VP short lists. She is a popular 2nd term Democratic governor from the very red state of Kansas. Her environmental credentials center around her battle with the coal industry earlier this year in which she thrice vetoed legislation that would have allowed 2 new 700 MW coal plants to be built. She's called instead for investment in wind power generation in the state. Kansas: Harnessing the power of tornadoes. I like it.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.)

Yes, but will he choose Danny De Vito as his deputy secretary? His environmental credentials include signing the nation's first law on capping greenhouse emissions. He's pushed to reduce greenhouse gas levels in Gullyforny-ah by 25% of 1990 levels. He's a Republican (Although his brand of Republicanism is best defined by the paradoxical car he drives: a Hummer that runs on biofuels) which I think at this point disqualifies him considering all the center-center-right picks and that the token GOPer has already been selected.

Gov. Bill Rittter (D-Colo.)

First term governor of Colorado, in his first year he signed legislation that requires 20% of power generation in the state to come from renewable sources by 2020. So far they are way ahead of schedule after opening a 300 MW wind farm last year.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.)

See the economic team post for her background. Her energy qualifications include retooling a job retraining program to stress the creation of "green" jobs, although this program is new as of September and there is no formal definition of "green" yet. She's traveled to Japan and Germany to learn about alternative energy companies. She's voiced support for a transition of auto-workers to wind turbine manufacturing. To me, she sounds like she is really good at going through the motions, but I'm just not seeing much on her resume that makes me confident in her ability to deliver on these issues. She meets with Obama Wednesday to discuss energy policy making her status as a frontrunner for this position at least reasonable.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M)

5-term Democratic Senator from New Mexico. He has been working on draft legislation for a national "cap and trade" system which probably is waiting to be introduced until the threat of Bush's veto pen is gone. Selecting him would most likely signal that Obama favors this plan over the other main alternative: a carbon tax. From what I understand, most progressives have moved away from the cap and trade system and prefer the carbon tax.

Google's Dan Reicher

Reichar is Director of Climate and Energy Initiatives at Google.org, Google's non-profit arm. Prior to that he was president of a private equity fund that specialized in investing in alternative energy. Reichar advised the Obama campagin on energy issues. He's a lifelong environmentalist. At age 7 he wrote a company to protest the advertising of a parka that was lined with fur from endangered wolverines (I feel like that has to be made up, but it's not). He has experience with the DOE as an asst secretary for a renewable energies program. At one point he was mentioned as the frontrunner for this position and it's not hard to see why, he combines business experience, non-profit experience, government experience, all rooted in a lifelong passion for environmentalism.

Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers

Jim Rogers is chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of North Carolina's own Duke Energy which started way back in 1900 on the banks of the Catawba river. He's an oxymoron, wrapped in a contradiction, inside a paradox. He's a green coal baron. He also favors the cap and trade system due to the use of market forces to tame the emissions beast. I don't really know what to think of this guy, he's colored in so many shades of gray. I guess the best thing you could say about him is that he's got the privelage of seeing both sides of the problem. Megnanious is quick to point out that one of the bad things you can say about him is that Duke Energy has tried to pull a fast one on NC residents.

Former Edison International CEO John Bryson

He was supposedly an environmentalist before he went to work for Edison, setting up a non-profit lobbying firm that advocated for environmentally friendly policy. However, he has substantial ties to pro-nuclear, pro-energy deregulation and at one point anti-renewable causes. The case against him is made effectively here. If even half of that is on-target, then this guy should be DOA for the DOE pick.

Federal Express Chairman Fred Smith

Frat brother of George W. Bush at Yale. Now a Bill Ayers/ Reverend Wright guilt by association world view, would dictate that I stop the blurb now and move on to the next guy, but I'll continue because I'm a loving person. Former national co-chair to the McCain campaign (I'm gritting my teeth). Nearly Bush's defense secretary (really?). And you know him best as the dude that founded FedEx and through his sage portending that we all would want our ginzu knives the very next day, dammit, he made billions. His connection to energy is tenuous. He's the co-chairman of SAFE, Securing America's Future Energy. It's a coalition of non-energy corproations that want to have an input into energy policy. You know, for instance a company that owns 672 jet planes, the largest civil air fleet in the world.

Steve Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

One of these things is not like the other. Chu is a nobel prize winning physicist and director of LBNL, who's early research focused on laser cooling and atom trapping but now works on single biomolecule spectroscopy. He's jointly appointed in Physics and Molecular Biology at Berkeley (and take it from me biophysicists are good people). He has helped develop a private-public partnership called the Energy Biosciences Institute. Funded mostly through BP, this lab aims to develop new sources of energy through bioengineering. The institute opens in 2010. Note to self: might be pretty cool to work there.

Megnanimous contributed significantly to the research of bullet point #2. Her work, along with her general role as muse, is greatly appreciated.

3) Lastly, a men's style note: Just like Hitler ruined the Charlie Chaplin extra-narrow mustache for eternity, so too, Rod Blagojevich has just killed the really-big-toupee and leather jacket look.