Dr. Robert Zubrin for Secretary of Energy?

Aspiring to incorporate dissenting views into his administration, perhaps President-elect Barack Obama should appoint Dr. Robert Zubrin as his Secretary of Energy. An aerospace engineer, head of the Mars Society, and author of the Martian science fiction novel First Landing (2001), Zubrin mapped out a national energy plan in his book Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil (2007).

In “Obama’s Energy Plan a Mix of Bad and Good,” a blog post from early October 2008, Zubrin saw “some steps forward, but also a crazy carbon reduction scheme” in the Presidential candidate’s energy plan. No word yet on whether President-elect Obama will revise his energy plan to appease Zubrin.

Apparently, other possibilities for Obama’s energy czar include:

• Jeff Bingaman, Senator from Montana

• Jed Clampett, television character

• Nancy Floyd, Founder and Managing Director of venture capital firm Nth Power

• Al Gore, former Vice President

• Edward Markey, Representative of Massachusetts

• Ernest J. Moniz, physicist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Janet Napolitano, Governor of Arizona

• Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives at Google.org

• Edward Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania

• Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California

• Kathleen Sebelius, Governor of Kansas

• Philip R. Sharp, President of Resources for the Future

• John Wellinghoff, member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission