WORLD’s Mark Bergin writes this morning that President Obama’s picks on energy and environment betray disregard for the hard lessons of green policy failure in Europe:

But such failure of cap-and-trade initiatives has done little to deter President Barack Obama from moving forward with a green agenda. His selections of Ken Salazar as secretary of the Interior, Steven Chu as secretary of Energy, and Lisa Jackson as director of the Environmental Protection Agency signal a plan to mirror European-like climate policies.

“Everything that you hear about the moderate picks on things like economy and national security, the opposite is the case when it comes to the energy and environment team,” said conservative analyst Ben Lieberman of The Heritage Foundation. “Nobody on the team seems to place much emphasis on affordable energy. In almost every case, it’s environmental concerns that trump economic concerns. . . . This is the one part of the Obama team that I think can be fairly called extreme.”

Read Mark’s report in its entirety here.