Dec. 30--Environmental groups have great expectations for the Obama administration. They see opportunity everywhere for their agenda -- countering climate change, bolstering air and water quality standards, developing renewable energies and more.

Some of Obama's key personnel selections suggest dramatic change. Others indicate a more moderate approach. Today, we examine how Obama's team might shape environmental policy.

There's little question Obama wants a more aggressive, mandated approach to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. His environmental appointments reflect a belief that restrictions are needed throughout the economy to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases.

This is seen in the fact Carol Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration and is a disciple of global warming "prophet" Al Gore, will coordinate energy, environmental and climate change policy from the White House itself.

Lisa Jackson, Obama's pick to run the EPA, is considered a pragmatist but helped institute state global warming restrictions as New Jersey's top environmental officer. Designated White House science adviser John Holdren of Harvard and proposed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco are described by one critic as being "on the scientific fringe of global warming alarmism." The die appears cast.

The question is how far the new administration will go with emissions caps and other mandates, which many agree will have adverse economic side effects, during a recession.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told The Wall Street Journal that federal regulation of carbon dioxide emissions would be "absolutely economically disastrous" for his energy-producing state.

The Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman writes that new EPA emissions rules would impose requirements "that border on the impossible" on any enterprise or activity using fossil fuels. The cost would exceed estimates for proposed cap-and-trade legislation that died in Congress this year, he writes, "reaching well into the trillions of dollars while destroying millions of jobs in the manufacturing sector."

Again, Obama will be pressured to take an aggressive course by the environmental groups that helped elect him. But how far he will go in placing potentially significant drags on the economy is unclear.

In other areas, significant change is likely. Offshore oil drilling championed by Republicans is out. Obama wants to spend billions on renewable energies, believing major job creation will follow. Efforts to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act will end. Although Interior Secretary-designate Ken Salazar of Colorado is a Senate moderate, uses of public lands likely will be curtailed.

On the environment, change clearly is coming. The speed and degree will depend on Obama's tendency to balance ideology with pragmatism.

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