It appears to me that President Obama has made another excellent choice for his administration for advancing the cause of clean tech and living up to the responsibility of fighting the climate crisis. He has named John Bryson, a founder of the seminal environmental organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, as the new Secretary of Commerce. Bryson is another big gun who will advance the smart, green program that is essential for us in the 21st Century, as Lisa Jackson and Gina McCarthy at EPA have been doing, along with Steven Chu at Energy, John Holdren and Nancy Sutley at the White House, Ken Salazar at Interior, Tom Vilsack at Agriculture, Ray Mabus at DOD, Ray LaHood at Transportation, and even Hillary Clinton at State, who I think has been, by and large, pushing a sustainable development agenda, quietly but effectively.
Bryson replaces Gary Locke who is going to China to be the new ambassador. Commerce is the parent of the key federal agency for climate science, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), headed by the climate warrior, Jane Lubchenco. Beyond NOAA, there are all the business development and trade functions at Commerce. As clean tech continues to grow and become an essential component of international business, Commerce will be able to help shape that growth. The Secretary, obviously, is going to be the linchpin in those efforts.
Bryson is not only a treehugger – not by a long shot. He is a top corporate honcho, having been the chief executive of Southern California Edison, one of the nation’s largest utilities. He has been and is on a number of big corporate and non-profit boards, and is also a member of the U.N. Secretary-General’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) which wrote the report, Energy for a Sustainable Future. The White House said: “Bryson brings a wealth of experience to this role and understands what it takes for America to succeed in a 21st century global economy.”
Very importantly, The Economist noted that there were “two cheers from business for the new commerce secretary.” The US Chamber of Commerce even lauded the nomination!
Meanwhile, if the Republican chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources is holding hearings for “Identifying Roadblocks to Wind and Solar Energy on Public Lands and Waters” with key players from the solar and wind industries testifying, then we might, finally, be forging a new kind of consensus on Capitol Hill for making renewables and clean tech a priority.