Building 44

Federal agencies and the Obama transition | FULL COVERAGE »

Video

Obama Names Four to Senior Posts

Swiftly completing his Cabinet, President-elect Barack Obama named four officials to oversee transportation, labor, trade and small business policy in his new administration but warned that economic recovery may take years.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

On climate change, will the policy push be overseen more by Steven Chu, the nuclear physicist nominated to be energy secretary, or by Carol M. Browner, a close confidant of Al Gore's who served as head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bill Clinton and who will serve in the new role of White House energy czar? Where will this leave Obama's EPA administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, and his head of the Council on Environmental Quality, Nancy Sutley?

Looming over everything is the question of how much authority over domestic policy will be exerted by the economic team, most notably Obama's strong-willed chief economic adviser, former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who will be leading a new economic advisory board.

Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he expects that Browner will take the lead on climate change, while Chu and other highly regarded scientists named to the administration will have plenty of say in debates with economic advisers. "It seems clear . . . that [Obama] understands that even a strong team needs a strong epicenter within the White House," he said of Browner. Chu's nomination, he added, appeared to "elevate science in the deliberations so it's an additional heavyweight player in the economic discussions."

The Cabinet nominees are a fairly diverse lot. There are five women, if one includes Jackson and Susan E. Rice, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, whose positions Obama considers Cabinet-rank. (Also named yesterday to head the sub-Cabinet Small Business Administration was Karen Mills, a Maine businesswoman.) There are three Hispanics, four African Americans and two Republicans -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Ray LaHood, a retiring Illinois congressman who was named yesterday to be secretary of transportation.

If there is a lack of diversity, it is in regional makeup. The only nominees with Southern roots are former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, named yesterday as trade representative, and Jackson, who grew up in New Orleans before settling in New Jersey. North Carolina political consultant Gary Pearce played this down, saying it may simply reflect a lack of candidates -- many Southern Democratic leaders were not avid Obama backers, and one obvious prospect, former North Carolina senator John Edwards, has been tarnished by scandal.

Perhaps more notable is the heavy representation of nominees from big cities or metro areas, a list that includes Kirk, Duncan, Solis, HUD pick Shaun Donovan and attorney general nominee Eric H. Holder Jr.

John Norquist, a former Milwaukee mayor and head of the Congress for the New Urbanism, said the prevalence of big-city nominees, along with the Chicago roots of Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, suggest that the country's big metro areas will be getting far more consideration. "You've got urban people in real positions of power, and I'm impressed with that," he said.

Light, at NYU, said the list is also notable for the number of people who have experience in the field to which they will be assigned, suggesting that Obama, for all his reverence for academic credentials, also holds in high regard individuals who, like him, entered the fray of public office. "There's a lot of street-level knowledge in this Cabinet," Light said. "It reflects a team-oriented approach: If you can shoot and make it, you're particularly valuable. This is a strong Cabinet in terms of actually handling the ball."

There are some exceptions, Light said, perhaps as a result of the pressures Obama felt to increase the Cabinet's diversity and reward supporters. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, one of three Hispanic nominees, is not the most obvious fit for the Commerce Department, Light argued, and LaHood is not a noted authority on transportation.

Advocates who have hoped that Obama will undertake a major overhaul of transportation policy, with more emphasis on transit and rail, have expressed some disappointment about LaHood. While he has been a stronger supporter of Amtrak than many Republicans, he hails from the small city of Peoria, Ill., and so has had limited engagement with urban transit matters.

"He hasn't been one of the great, dashing figures in Congress on these issues," said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, an advocacy and planning group in the New York City area. "Among advocates there is disappointment, because the hope was we were going to get someone who was really going to be a leader in the field. . . . But obviously this is someone we can work with, and we'll do what we can."

Among many advocacy groups, the hope is that Obama's intentions will become clearer when he appoints the deputy secretaries and other high-level personnel who will implement many policies -- a group that will in all likelihood represent a sharp break from those it will be replacing in the Bush administration.

Until then, said Wehner, the former Bush aide, it will be hard to discern all the outlines of the Obama agenda. "They're smart, they're well-educated, they're the upper crust, but the question is, do the parts make a whole, or is the whole less than the sum of the parts?" he said of the incoming team. "As I said somewhere recently, I'd buy somebody a dinner at Le Cirque if someone could define what Obamaism is as a political philosophy. If you don't have a political North Star, you can lose your way, and I'm not sure if these people have it."