The day after: a few guesses on Obama's energy team

--Energy and environmental issues during the transition will be led by former Secretary of Energy Federico Pena and EPA administrator Carol Browner. Pena served as the DOE chief from 1997 to 1998 and was also transportation secretary from 1993 to 1997. Browner served as the head of EPA during the whole of the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 2001.

--Possible names kicking around to be Secretary of Energy include Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Interesting take on Sebelius from our reporting: "Sebelius....went to war against the coal industry earlier this year, raising her profile on the national stage. In April, she vetoed a bill that would have revived a 1,400-MW coal project in the western part of the state after an intense lobbying effort by the coal industry. She refused to support any legislation that would have allowed the plants to be built without carbon capture and sequestration technology.

--But the head of DOE is actually not the most important position in the new Obama administration for the energy industries. The far more important slot is going to be the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. If the EPA uses its Supreme Court-established authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, the impact such a move could have is almost breathtaking in its scope. Cars and power plants would certainly be impacted, and it would not be a stretch to imagine it could affect fuel choices. That is why the oil industry would certainly shudder at the thought of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being named to the position, a story that was floated today by the site politico.com. This is the same RFK Jr. who said last year that "....Exxon and Southern Company, these villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors." Lovely. His father was often described as "ruthless," but it's hard to imagine RFK uttering statements like this.
An RFK Jr. appointment would certainly seem to not line up with the prediction made by Christine Tezak, senior vice president at the Stanford Group, who told Platts that "hard core environmental advocates will be disappointed" by the pace in Congress as even large Democratic majorities "will get pushed to the center by business interests in their own districts." But they're not actually in conflict. EPA regulation of CO2 could be far-reaching, and it wouldn't even take a vote in Congress to get it done. The precise sweep of EPA's power to regulate CO2 has not been established, but the Supreme Court put a strong wind at its back.

--That statement by Tezak reminds one of Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher Bond's intercession several years ago on behalf of engine maker Briggs & Stratton. The EPA was seeking to regulate lawn mower emissions, and Bond several times sought to thwart those efforts. What's significant is that he did so for the most basic of political reasons: Briggs & Stratton had two large plants in Missouri. Should the EPA attempt to regulate CO2, which will be far more controversial than cleaning up lawn mower engines, look for Democratic Senators to do like Kit Bond and protect interests in their own state. You'll hear a lot of "I'm in favor of regulating carbon dioxide emissions, but........"