Obama Signals Radical Break With Bush on Us Environmental Policy

Barack Obama, who has spent much of the time since his election closeted with his advisers in Chicago, sent a strong signal today that he intends to make a decisive break with George Bush on environmental policy once he moves into the White House

The move was part of a carefully coded series of messages from Obama meant to reassure America and the world about the shape of his administration, which does not assume power until January 20.

Also today, Obama appointed Madeleine Albright, who served as Bill Clinton's secretary of state, and Jim Leach, a former Republican member of Congress from Iowa who endorsed his campaign, to meet international delegations visiting Washington for the G20 summit.

Obama will not attend the summit, and aides have repeatedly noted that Bush remains president until January 20.

But while Obama and Joe Biden, the vice president-elect, have remained elusive since the election, the Democrat has delivered a number of messages intended to heighten anticipation of the changes to come once his administration is installed.

In one such signal, the president-elect sent Jason Grumet, a policy adviser who has been mentioned as a possible energy post, to an environmental conference in Washington to offer reassurances that there would be swift movement on climate change legislation.

"The whole transition team felt it important to be here," Grumet said. "I think it is going to be a very very busy 2009, and I think we are going to need all of you to be on top of your game."

However, Grumet did not offer policy specifics, and his optimism was in contrast to others at the conference, organised by the consulting group Point Carbon and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

Jeff Bingaman, the New Mexico senator who chairs the Senate's energy and national resources committee and another possibility for a post in the administration, said it was highly unlikely that Obama would be able to sign into law cap and trade legislation next year.

"I think the reality is that it may take more than a year to get it all done," he said, pointing to final passage in 2010.

Other experts expressed skepticism about brokering a new global agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at Copenhagen at the end of next year.

Grumet's brief appearance was widely seen as a signal that Obama, who campaigned for nearly two years warning of a "planet in peril" was serious about following through on a 30-point environmental agenda that called for creating green jobs, cutting US oil consumption and moving to renewable sources of energy,

It marked the second time in 24 hours that Obama has tried to reassure America and the world that the incoming administration wants to make a radical departure from Bush's policy on the environment.

Obama has said repeatedly that the global economic crisis remains his top priority, but John Podesta, part of the troika that is overseeing the transition, moved to offer reassurances on Tuesday that environment remains at the top of the Democrats' agenda.

"I anticipate him moving very aggressively and very rapidly on the whole question of transforming the energy platform in the United States from high carbon energy to low carbon energy," he said.

The hiatus between elections and inauguration has led to intense speculation about possible cabinet appointments and policy breaks with the Bush White House.

Today, the Washington Post reported that Obama intended to replace the two top intelligence officials in the early days of his administration. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, and General Michael Hayden, the CIA chief are both associated with the Bush administration's most controversial policies, including monitoring the email and phone calls of US citizens without court oversight.

Some of the Obama camp's efforts to stoke anticipation have been countered with caution - and at times frustration. Today, Bingaman warned that Obama urgently needed to appoint his cabinet secretaries. "The idea that the transition team develops policies and then gets new people in place ... that is not the way I have seen it in Washington," he said.

In another development yesterday, the supreme court rejected environmental protections for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals that had been imposed on US Navy sonar training exercises off southern California.

The restrictions had been brought by environmental groups which argued that the intense sounds waves from the submarine exercises could hurt or even kill some 37 species including sea lions and endangered blue whales by interfering with their ability to communicate and navigate.