Steven Chu for Energy Sec - and Caroline Kennedy for Senate?

Barack Obama unveiled his new environmental team on Monday, including Nobel Prize winning scientist Steven Chu (pictured) as Energy Secretary. Obama had already announced that he aims help relieve America's economic crisis with a massive public works programme, much of which will involve turning America into a more environmentally friendly country, and it is Chu's department that will be largely responsible for seeing through those plans.

Science commentators are particularly pleased with the pick. "At last a genuine scientist will head the agency that funds the majority of physics research in the US," says Bob Park, an expert in Washington's relationship with science and scientists. "The position had usually been filled by political insiders." And with his scientific expertise, Chu "could try to reframe the standoff between climatologists and those non-scientists who genuinely don't understand how science works," says Steve Corneliussen, quoted on The Atlantic.

"He [Obama] has promised to double the budget [of the Department of Energy]," reminds Eli Kintisch for Science magazine, which means "the agency will probably do more and more science, including applied research as well as fundamental physics." And with George Bush out of the picture, Kintisch reckons that Chu will have almost free rein to research and develop sources of alternative energy.

The 60-year-old Chinese-American will need to get Senate on side, and though he is "about the most qualified scientist one can imagine to make the case for putting the E back into DOE," as Kintisch puts it, "the months and years ahead will determine whether he's got the political skills to succeed."

The announcement ends the speculation that self-styled climate guru and former Vice-President Al Gore might take the the top environmental job. Gore met with Obama last week to discuss the incoming President's plans for a new, greener America and told him: "This year coming up is the most important opportunity the world has ever had to make progress in really solving the climate crisis."

Meanwhile in New York, Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old daughter of assassinated President John F Kennedy, has hired Josh Isay, a highly regarded Democratic 'fixer', to help move along her plans to take over Hillary Clinton's seat in the Senate. An unnamed New York Democrat has told Politico's Ben Smith and Glenn Thrush that it is a sensible move for Kennedy: "She doesn't know anybody, and he's the guy to make the introductions and guide her through the process," says the insider, going on to note that hiring Isay is a statement of intent that "scares the shit" out of the other prospective candidates for the seat.

Smith and Thrush say the appointment "signals her seriousness" to sate governor David Paterson whose responsibility it is to find Clinton's replacement and who has reportedly been cool to Kennedy's "week-long whisper campaign".

As Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times reports, "For Ms. Kennedy, an appointment to the Senate would open a historic and exceedingly high-profile chapter to a life largely shielded from public view," as well as ensuring that the Kennedy dynasty continues to make its presence felt in Washington. Her uncle Senator Edward M Kennedy is suffering from terminal brain cancer; on his death, the Senate would be without a Kennedy for the first time in half a century.

FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 16, 2008