New NOAA chief says science will guide policy

updated 9:39 p.m. ET March 19, 2009

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - The new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will not only be talking the talk on global warming, she will be walking the walk — eight blocks from the Metro station to her office.

Former Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco had planned to rent a small apartment close enough to walk to her offices in the nation's capital, but got sticker shock when she saw the prices — $5,000 for a one-bedroom apartment — enough to finance a large house back home.

So she settled for a little place in the Cleveland Park neighborhood near the Red Line station, walking distance from grocery stores, drug stores and parks, though not the coastal marine ecosystems that have been her lifelong interest.

More aware of carbon footprints
Lubchenco, whom the Senate confirmed for the NOAA job Thursday, has also signed up for the Zipcar car-sharing service to take the place of her Honda Civic hybrid back home in Corvallis.

"I don't see myself as a pioneer in this area, because I know a lot of people who are becoming more and more aware of their own carbon footprints," she said.

One of the first things Lubchenco and her husband, fellow OSU marine biologist Bruce Menge, did for the new apartment was replace the incandescent lights with energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs. She was encouraged by how easy it was to find them in neighborhood stores.

"It used to be the case that it was hard to find compact fluorescents," she said. "Now, in many places that's all you can find. In a relatively short period of time there has been a very rapid transition. It's not fast enough. But it really is happening. Especially when doing the right thing is also saving you money in the long run."

Like President Barack Obama, Lubchenco is an avid Blackberry user. She first received word that Obama wanted her for NOAA in an e-mail received on the device.

After repeatedly telling the transition team they should pick someone else, she agreed to fly to Chicago to meet him, and was won over by "his commitment to making policy based on good science — his commitment to address climate change."

She does not expect to be able to text or talk to the president via Blackberry.

"That is a super-inner circle," she said.

Science, not politics, to guide agency
Echoing Obama's recent remarks on federal funding for stem cell research, Lubchenco said science, not politics, will guide the agency as it confronts global warming, declining fisheries and forecasting natural disasters.

"This is a new era," she said. "Many issues will be seen through a different lens."

NOAA oversees ocean and atmospheric research and the National Weather Service. One of its divisions, NOAA Fisheries Service, oversees the protection and restoration of threatened and endangered marine species such as whales, salmon and sea turtles.

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