The Senate gave its blessing late Thursday to key members of President Obama's science team, including an Oregon State University ecologist who will be the first woman and first marine scientist to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Senate voted unanimously to confirm Harvard physicist John Holdren as Obama's top science advisor and Oregon State ecologist Jane Lubchenco as administrator of NOAA, an agency that conducts much of the nation's climate-change research, forecasts the weather and regulates commercial fishing.
Lubchenco said she was eager to get started because of pressing burdens on the economy and the environment, including global warming, polluted coastal waters and severely depleted fish populations.
"We really don't have a choice," she said in an interview. "We have to move rapidly ahead because of chronic problems that need immediate solutions."
Lubchenco, 61, will take a leave from her 40-member laboratory at Oregon State to lead the $4.3-billion agency with 12,800 employees.
Her immediate agenda includes pushing for a National Climate Service to coordinate federal research into greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and shifting climatic patterns.
She said the logical home for a climate service is NOAA, because of its experience running the National Weather Service and its deep bench of climate researchers. And she cited increasingly sophisticated models that can help government and businesses make longer-term plans to cope with climate change.
"It's an idea whose time has come," Lubchenco said.
Obama announced Lubchenco's appointment soon after his election, along with other key science advisors including Holdren, who will lead the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy.
By including the new NOAA administrator as part of his core science team, Obama gave a boost to NOAA scientists who have long lamented the agency's low stature in Washington -- and who had complained their findings were altered or suppressed during George W. Bush's presidency.
Lubchenco said Obama has declared it "a new day" for scientists at NOAA and other federal agencies.
"There will be no muzzling or muffling or distortion of science, or delays in science in this administration," Lubchenco said. The best available science will guide policy decisions, she said, and discoveries or updates will be shared "whether they meet our preconceived ideas or meet our agenda."
