CHICAGO: Pledging to end America's "oil  addiction," President-elect Barack Obama has announced key members of his energy team, naming Nobel Prize winning
physicist Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy.
    
Obama also nominated former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Carol Browner to a new post in the White House to coordinate energy and climate policy. 

Besides, he named Lisa Jackson, former head of New Jersey's environmental agency, to serve as his EPA administrator, and Nancy Sutley, the Los Angeles deputy mayor
for energy and environment, to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

Sutley, a prominent supporter of Senator Hillary Clinton's id for the Democratic presidential nomination, is the first igh-ranking gay appointee to the Obama administration.

Introducing his energy team, Obama vowed to "move beyond ur oil addition and create a new hybrid economy." 

"In the 21st century, we know that the future of our conomy and national security is inextricably linked with one challenge: energy," Obama said at a news conference here.
    
"We've seen Washington launch policy after policy, yet our dependence on foreign oil has only grown, even as the world's resources are disappearing," Obama, who will be
sworn-in as the 44th US President on January 20, said.
    
"This time has to be different. This time we cannot fail, nor can we be lulled into complacency simply because the price at the pump has for now gone down from USD 4 a gallon."

Obama called Chu "uniquely suited to be our next secretary of energy" for his work on new and cleaner forms of energy. Chu, who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory in California, won the 1997 Nobel Prize in physics and is highly respected in energy circles, CNN reported.

Energy is one aspect of Obama's goal to create 2.5 million jobs by 2011. The plan aims to put Americans to work updating the country's infrastructure, making public buildings
more energy-efficient and implementing environment-friendly technologies, including alternative energy sources. 

Browner, who was administrator of the EPA in the Clinton administration, was named to be the nation's first "climate czar," working inside the White House on policy issues.
    
"Carol understands that our efforts to create jobs, achieve energy security, and combat climate change demand integration among different agencies, cooperation between
federal, state and local governments and partnership with the private sector," Obama said.

He said that Jackson, as commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection, helped make that state a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing new sources of energy.
    
"Lisa also shares my commitment to restoring the EPA's robust role in protecting our air, our water and abundant natural resources so that our environment is cleaner and our
communities are safer," Obama said.
    
Sutley has been "at the cutting edge" of environmental work on the municipal and regional level, Obama said. She will be "a key player in helping to make our government more efficient in coordinating our efforts to protect our environment at home and around the globe," he added.

During his campaign, Obama had said he would invest USD 150 billion over 10 years in clean energy. He proposed increasing fuel economy standards and requiring that 10 per
cent of electricity in the United States comes from renewable sources by 2012.