Hope and Fail

Energy secretary ‘naive’ about his job

Energy Secretary Steven Chu is having a tough time getting his head around his new job.

The Nobel laureate doesn’t seem to realize that he is part of the Obama administration and that oil has something to do with energy policy.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Energy Secretary Steven Chu — whose agency has long taken the lead on global oil-market policy — said Thursday he doesn’t know what the Obama administration would urge the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to do at its meeting next month.

“I’m not the administration,” Mr. Chu said during a meeting with reporters Thursday. OPEC members are scheduled to meet March 15 to discuss the possibility of production cuts to respond to slumping prices. “I will be speaking and learning more about this in order to figure out what the U.S. position should be and what the president’s position is,” Mr. Chu said.

Chu leads the administration’s Energy Department. His is the administration. But there’s more:

On Wednesday, when approached by reporters after a speech to a group of utility regulators, Mr. Chu declined to offer an opinion on whether OPEC should cut production, saying the issue was “not in my domain.” He later told reporters on a conference call that his response to the question reflected “more of my naiveté than anything else.”

Oil production is not in his domain? Naiveté indeed.

This doesn’t do much to inspire confidence that the new administration has a grasp on energy policy.