QUESTIONS PLEASE

Posted at 7:03 A.M. ET:

We will apparently have a Nobel laureate as secretary of energy.  Ain't that grand? 

No.

I'm sure that the nominee, Steven Chu, is a fine man, and he certainly is a celebrated scientist.  But I think some real questions need to be asked about this man, nominated to a critical position:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who is President-elect Barack Obama's choice for energy secretary, has been a vocal advocate for more research into alternative energy, arguing that a shift away from fossil fuels is essential to combat global warming.

Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change.

If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.

An increasing number of scientists is questioning the entire premise behind the global warming scare.  Apparently, they will now be shut out by the glitter of a Nobel laureate who has made up his mind.  This is the time for real inquiry and debate about global warming, not blind acceptance of a party line.  Another Nobel laureate said just recently that he had become a skeptic. 

Chu frequently has used the bully pulpit in a campaign against global warming and the need for alternative energy and greater energy efficiency. During a lecture last summer in Washington he bemoaned the fact that people too often prefer to spend $1,000 on a granite kitchen counter top instead of improving their home's energy efficiency.

Another one who wants to tell us how to live.  If I were questioning this man, before a vote to confirm him, I'd want to know just what "alternative" energy sources he's talking about, why he's convinced they'll work, and how much good they'll do.  I'd also want to find out something basic:  How much does Chu know about the subjects he speaks about?  Winning a Nobel prize in physics doesn't make you an authority on everything scientific.

A few years ago he was one of six Nobel Prize-winning scientists who expressed their concern about global warming by sitting against and climbing into a massive tree on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley for a photograph that appeared in a special environmental issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

Oh boy.  A performance artist.

Despite his broad scientific credentials, Chu has little experience inside Washington or in what occupies much of the Energy Department's business -- maintaining the nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons and weapons research. Nor has he had much involvement in nuclear energy.

We are the only nuclear power that has not modernized its atomic weapons.  I've written about this before.  And now we have a man with no background in nuclear energy or weaponry.  This is great for our security.  Let him go back to the tree and learn.

Chu as energy secretary would head a department with a $25 billion budget and 14,000 employees and more than 193,000 contract workers. Two-thirds of its budget involves activities related to nuclear weapons research and maintenance.

You can be sure the elites will welcome this nomination.  Why, it's another example of Obama's superior intellect.  But why do I sense a disaster here? 

As they say in the personnel business, this just doesn't look like "a good fit."  But that Nobel prize will be waved, people will be reluctant to take on a minority, and Chu will get his department.

What will the people get?

December 11, 2008.