WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration.

The president-elect has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar," and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democratic officials with knowledge of the decisions said yesterday.

Obama plans to name the four to the posts in the coming weeks.

Still unclear is whom Obama will tap for interior secretary.

Officials close to the transition said support for John Berry, the director of the National Zoo and a former assistant secretary at the Interior Department, was growing. But these officials also said Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva and California Rep. Mike Thompson were still in the running.

The Democratic officials who disclosed the selections spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal names that have not been made public.

Among these posts, Browner's stands out because it's a new White House position.

She is expected to coordinate the various agencies that play a role in energy and environmental policy, especially on issues such as climate change that don't fit nicely in the silos of the federal government. Those agencies could include the EPA and the Transportation, Energy and Interior departments.

Six weeks before his Jan. 20 inauguration and little more than a month since his election, Obama has chosen much of his Cabinet and top White House staff. He has only a few key posts left to fill: national intelligence director, the secretaries of housing, labor, education, transportation and agriculture, and the U.S. trade representative.

Obama scheduled a news conference for today in Chicago to name former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle as his secretary of health and human services.

Yesterday, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who has been mentioned as a possible labor secretary, was in Washington meeting with Obama's transition team. Her spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, said that the governor discussed the president-elect's economic stimulus plan.

As for his environmental and natural resources team: