Tag: Dept. Of Energy

From the moment the federal stimulus package was first proposed, crank-celebrity "free market" enthusiasts have been whipping up their fans by crying "socialism" as often as possible -- demonstrating how little cranks understand both free markets and socialism. I'd write it off as merely tilting at windmills, except that tilting at windmills sounds too reality-based given the prominence renewable energy is playing in the country's recovery and reinvestment plan.

Wednesday's news that U.S. Rep. John Salazar has won a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu is the Obama administration's pick to head the Department of Energy narrows the possibility Colorado will be sending anyone into the next cabinet. Don't count Coloradans out, however, as the unfolding Illinois governor scandal might dislodge a Chicago schools superintendent from contention as education secretary, smoothing the way for Denver Superintendent Michael Bennet's nomination.

Are there any prominent Colorado Democrats not under consideration for Obama administration appointments these days? The state might not have been "ground zero" for the presidential election — Ohio, Virginia and Florida took over that role after Colorado started leaning solidly Blue in mid-October — but to hear the chattering class chatter, the state has lately become an epicenter for second-tier cabinet picks.

The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, now called the Department of Energy, was experimenting with ways to use atomic energy in a "friendly" way back...