President-elect Obama has chosen a strong energy and environment team, one that clearly demonstrates his commitment to addressing the major environmental challenge of our time, global warming. This strong team understands the science underlying global warming, that it is human-caused, and that we must dramatically shift our patterns of energy consumption and development to address it.

As they move forward to confront global warming by working to significantly reduce greenhouse gas pollution, it is also important that they simultaneously address the adverse impacts of global warming on wildlife and natural ecosystems. President-elect Obama’s team will need to act on these threats in a decisive manner, including providing dedicated resources from the sale of emissions allowances. Defenders of Wildlife has provided these and other recommendations in our report “Beyond Cutting Emissions: Protecting Wildlife and Ecosystems in a Warming World.”

President-Elect Obama is to be commended for these selections, as each designee brings extensive experience, strong credentials and a real-life perspective to their appointed positions. Importantly, the incoming President has signaled his intention to make energy issues a priority, and these nominations underscore that goal.

With the broad scope of challenges that confront our energy future, Steven Chu, Lisa Jackson, Carol Browner, and Nancy Sutley will be pragmatic and realistic about what is achievable in what time frame. Ms Browner, Ms Jackson and Ms Sutley each have extensive experience at the local, State and federal levels, so they understand the need for cooperation and coordination at all ranks of government.

The creation of an “energy czar” speaks to an important concern that we are glad Mr. Obama seems aware of: The need for someone to take a 30,000-foot view of the obstacles we face. This is especially notable because, as NARUC’s new President Frederick Butler of New Jersey has mentioned, many of us view our roles and responsibilities from the floors of our silos. If we are going to resolve our significant energy challenges, we must expand the dialogue and include as many voices as possible.

We are confident that Mr. Obama’s energy nominations will put us on a pragmatic path and that all voices will be heard.

President-elect Barack Obama reiterated his clean energy priorities just last week, promising to repower America and redesign how we use energy – to create jobs as we preserve our planet. Now he’s put in place an experienced team that can get the job done.

With this team, President-elect Obama has demonstrated his commitment to change the course of America's energy policy; underscored by the appointment of Carol Browner to head a new council coordinating White House policy on energy, climate, and environment. Having served with her on the board of the Alliance for Climate Protection, I can tell you Carol Browner is an outstanding choice who can make up for eight years of lost opportunity by lending her proven leadership to usher in a new era of climate and energy initiatives.

Especially in light of New Jersey’s leadership on strong targets for carbon emission cuts, Lisa Jackson is exactly what this country and its precious environment needs in an EPA administrator: a practical, smart and dedicated individual who has a track record of moving sound environmental and conservation policies forward that benefit us all. We applaud the new administration's commitment to restoring protections for America's wetlands, streams, and floodplains. This will be of particular importance as global warming continues to impact the resiliency of the natural resources a strong economy depends on.

Steven Chu's selection as energy secretary shows the White House will no longer be a battleground in the war on science. Instead, a Nobel laureate who’s been a strong and powerful voice on the urgent need to confront global warming will lead our national energy policy. And if there's anyone who knows climate change must be dealt with on every level - by nations, states, and localities - it's Nancy Sutley, who's handled environmental issues from each of those perspectives.

For eight years, we’ve dealt with an administration that has discounted scientific findings when they prove inconvenient, perilously ignored the threat of global warming, employed stalling tactics to delay or ignore the enforcement of important environmental laws, written regulations with polluters in mind, and sold America’s most precious assets—our public lands, clean air, and waters—to the highest bidders. The appointments of Steven Chu as Energy secretary, Lisa Jackson as EPA administrator, Carol Browner as White House “energy and climate czar,” and Nancy Sutley as chair of the Council on Environmental Quality signify a huge change from the past eight years in how America approaches energy and environment policy, and I couldn’t be happier with President-elect Obama’s selections. Similarly, the president-elect’s reported choice of Colorado Senator Ken Salazar as Secretary of the Interior is a major step forward.

Senator Salazar, who as Interior Secretary will be the chief caretaker of millions of acres of public lands, is known for his long commitment to protecting natural resources and his work to balance energy development and land conservation. Land, water, and people were strong themes throughout his campaign for the Senate, and he has been a champion for protecting Colorado’s Roan Plateau from oil and gas drilling, and for opposing the development of oil shale on fragile Western lands. We’re confident that he will continue this commitment in his new role.

The first wave of environmental appointments shows that the President-Elect both gets it and means it. He understands that to jump start the American economy he needs to repower America -- and he means what he said, both during his campaign and after, about creating a new American clean energy future.

Energy has always suffered from being siloed and compartmentalized at the federal level. States and cities that do a good job of energy innovation have in common that they all have a single policy focus. New York, for example, moved from laggard to leader when Mayor Bloomberg created a central policy focus. Now, by giving Carol Browner, Bill Clinton;s most tenacious environmental advocate, this key role, President-elect Obama has sounded the starting gun for a new, clean energy economy and clean energy jobs.

But will and commitment are not enough. The appointment of Steve Chu to the least desirable cabinet job in the President's control -- Secretary of Energy -- sends a resounding signal to scientists all over the government (and America) that respect for knowledge is back.

Lisa Jackson 's appointment at EPA reinforced that message -- she brings both scientific and regulatory expertise to an Agency which recently got the worst grades in the federal government for scientific integrity.

And Nancy Sutley brings to CEQ -- the Agency which serves as the overall traffic-cop and honesty in keeping the books secretariat for the White House -- experience in one of the few states, California, whose analytic rigor has always led Washington's.

This is a formidable change team.

If the business as usual crowd was looking for the President-elect to blink, they, like the black panther, Bagheera, in Kipling's "The Jungle Book" have blinked first.

These are individuals who will restore scientific integrity to the federal government, protect public health and defend our country’s natural resources. With these critical selections, President-elect Obama is putting words into action that he will move toward clean energy solutions, take on global warming and jump-start the economy.

Dr. Steven Chu will bring immediate change to the Department of Energy with his strong support of increasing energy efficiency, developing new technology and pursuing alternative energy sources. It’s not every day that we’ve had a Nobel Prize winner in such a senior government position. On top of that, he has a proven track record of working in the private and public sectors on global warming reduction and other key energy issues. He is an excellent choice.

Carol Browner is the strong, capable person we need at the helm of our energy and environment issues. By creating this new position, President-elect Obama has reinforced his position that clean energy and climate protection are keys to spurring economic recovery while safeguarding the planet. Brown has many years of experience and expertise in addressing energy and the environmental at state and federal levels, and in the private sector.

Lisa Jackson has been a strong advocate for the enforcement of environmental laws and is recognized for her success in managing a large state’s environmental and public health initiatives. Picking her to head the EPA signals the new administration’s commitment to take on environmental challenges and protect public health, and shows the rest of the world that the United States will be a leader on global warming.

Nancy Sutley is an expert on climate, energy and air policies and brings extensive political skills to the table. She knows how to translate policy into action on the ground. In particular, Sutley has a developed a thorough understanding of regulatory and market issues that are essential for reducing global warming pollution. In the Clinton administration, the state of California and the city of Los Angeles, Sutley has been a champion of clean air and public health policies.