03-03-2001
POLITICS: The Insiders
Ever hear of a guy named Gary Claxton? No? Then perhaps you'd recognize
him by his most recent job title: deputy assistant secretary of Health and
Human Services for health policy in the office of the assistant secretary
for planning and evaluation.
Still doesn't ring any bells?
Okay, let's try a different tack. Ever worry about just who can have
access to your medical records? Then it may interest you to know that it
was largely up to this 44-year-old former political science major and law
school escapee, holed up in an office in the behemoth Hubert Humphrey
Building, to devise medical-privacy standards intended to be the law of
the land. So sensitive are the rules that the Bush Administration-lobbied
by business interests-has just decided to delay and review them.
And that was only one of dozens of deeply sensitive policy matters he was
charged with handling in the Clinton Administration. "It was the best
health job in the government," says Claxton, now ensconced at the
Institute for Health Care Research and Policy at Georgetown
University.
Now that Bush has made his top White House and Cabinet picks, most
Americans, no doubt, believe that his team is in place. After all, from
here on out, whenever the Administration makes headlines around the
country, it will likely be over the mugs of Bush or his
Secretaries.
Political insiders, of course, know that it takes a lot more than a few
towers to make a power grid. Indeed, at this moment, from Austin to Akron,
and from Anchorage to Atlanta, Bush Administration wanna-bes-be they lofty
academics or lowly former campaign grunts, friends or fund-raisers for the
man in the Oval Office-are running grubby index fingers down the 334 pages
of the "Plum Book," the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee's
indispensable listing of the 6,722 government jobs that the new
Administration gets to fill, and are mentally decorating their new
offices.
But even the Plum Book can't tell you just how power emanates outward from
the West Wing. In fact, says Paul Light, of the Brookings Institution,
government has acquired so many new layers of political appointees over
the decades that "power has been diffused, and so has
accountability." Back in 1960, for example, there were only 78 jobs
carrying the title of deputy assistant secretary, said Light. By 1998,
there were 484 such slots.
The people who actually convert philosophy into policy and practices often
have comically long titles and aren't at the top of the pay or prestige
scales. Many of them will never brief the President directly, and only a
few of them will experience the pomp and glitter of a state dinner. But
"why would you want that?" asks Claxton, scorn saturating his
voice. "I don't give a damn about that." Most, like Claxton,
will spend four years turning pale under out-of-the-way fluorescent
fixtures. A few will suddenly find themselves blinking into television
klieg lights because of, say, a run on the Turkish lira, or maybe an
airline strike.
But visibility can be a mixed bag. Elizabeth Moler, who ran the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission during the Clinton Administration, remembers
being surprised to learn, on meeting her counterpart from England, that
the woman was dogged by the tabloids, her garbage sifted through, her
children taunted at school. "FERC has been a very obscure
place," she says. That obscurity, however, may have vanished when the
lights flickered out in Silicon Valley earlier this year.
And there are important reasons for the President to hope that his
lesser-ranking appointees keep a low profile: He may accomplish more by
issuing byzantine rule changes and advisory letters-or by having his
appointees simply sit on the bureaucracy's initiatives-than he ever could
by clapping the shoulders of Democrats and liberal Republicans on Capitol
Hill. What follows is a look at a dozen or so of the sub-Cabinet-level
transformers who will be critical to the wiring of the Bush
Administration.
At the Pentagon's Heart
Comptroller, Department of Defense
Among the Washington power elite, the Pentagon comptroller rarely makes
headlines, and his comings and goings are little noted on the society
pages. Few could pick him out at a Georgetown cocktail party. Yet, as the
chief financial officer for the Defense Department, comptroller-designee
Dov S. Zakheim will have direct influence over programs and policies that
are worth hundreds of billions of dollars and affect tens of thousands of
lives. Congressional aides, senior representatives of the armed services,
defense-industry executives, and numerous Washington insiders will all
bring their problems to his office for the same reason that Willie Sutton
robbed banks: because that's where the money is.
"The job of comptroller is so central to Defense Department
operations, because the lifeblood of the Pentagon is money, and people
know that you are the person responsible for pumping oxygenated blood
throughout the system on a daily basis," said John Hamre, who rose
from comptroller to the Pentagon's No. 2 job-deputy secretary of
Defense-during the Clinton Administration. "The comptroller's office
is also a key linchpin connecting the Pentagon and Congress, because
increasingly over the last 20 years, Congress gives direction to the
Defense Department by controlling how it spends money." And because
the comptroller is the Pentagon's money juggler, his is a uniquely
important job: It's the comptroller who has a key role in presenting
choices to a new President striving to fulfill a campaign promise to
strengthen, reform, and transform the military-all while not spending much
more money.
By most accounts, Zakheim is a good fit for the post, in terms of both
personal temperament and experience. He was deputy defense undersecretary
for planning and resources during the Reagan Administration, where he
earned a reputation as an able troubleshooter. One of the toughest
challenges for Zakheim-an American Orthodox Jew-was leading the Pentagon's
campaign to kill Israel's Lavi fighter jet program, which was being funded
largely with U.S. military aid. In the process, Zakheim displayed a talent
for personal persuasion, knowledge of Pentagon inner workings and the
defense industry, and skill in international diplomacy. Since leaving the
Pentagon, Zakheim has served on a couple of Pentagon task forces, and was
chief executive officer of SPC International, a defense technology
firm.
"I think Dov Zakheim is extremely well suited for the comptroller
job," said Loren Thompson, a longtime defense consultant and the
chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a conservative think
tank in Arlington, Va. "He has a combination of intellect and a
congenial character that makes him both respected and likable, which is
important in the Pentagon bureaucracy. And, perhaps from all the time he
has spent in Israel, Zakheim seems to have a genuine conviction that
behind all the bureaucratic processes, this business is really about
America's survival."
One of Zakheim's greatest initial challenges in the Pentagon will be
getting his arms around a convoluted financial management system that
still cannot accurately account for billions of dollars in defense
disbursements and inventory on any given day. That explains why the
comptroller's job also has a downside, said Gordon Adams, director of
Security Policy Studies at George Washington University, who served at the
Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton Administration.
"Because the comptroller is responsible for all the fiscal sinews of
the Pentagon," Adams said, "he is the first person they will
call when a `waste, fraud, and abuse' story makes the news."
The Medicare Maven
Administrator, Health Care Financing Administration
President Bush's plans to revamp Medicare could take years to run the
legislative gauntlet. But he could sidestep Congress by implementing some
of his ideas through the regulatory process-in particular, through the
Health Care Financing Administration.
HCFA, which is a branch of the Health and Human Services Department, runs
the Medicare program for the elderly and oversees the federal-state
Medicaid program for the poor. By promulgating-or dismantling-regulations,
the head of HCFA may be able to spur more participation by private managed
care health plans in both programs. Providing additional managed care
options for Medicare and Medicaid recipients is a key part of Bush's
health care platform; currently, more than 80 percent of seniors still use
Medicare's traditional fee-for-service program.
"Democrats had their foot on the brake on Medicare+Choice," the
HMO part of Medicare, a health care lobbyist said. "They clearly
didn't like private health plans." A Republican-led HCFA, to the
contrary, could promote Medicare HMOs by cutting back on regulations,
better publicizing managed care options, and asking Congress for more
money for Medicare HMOs.
Managed care executives cite burdensome administrative regulations as a
main reason why HMOs have fled Medicare and are beginning to leave
Medicaid. And the executives are hopeful that the new HCFA chief, who has
yet to be chosen, will lighten the load. "We're hearing an attention
to the administrative issues here, which is very encouraging," said
Karen Ignagni, president of the American Association of Health Plans,
which represents managed care health plans.
HCFA could test Medicare reform concepts through demonstration projects,
said Gail Wilensky, a former HCFA administrator who chairs the Medicare
Payment Advisory Commission, which advises Congress on Medicare policy.
HCFA could also create demonstrations to test prescription drug coverage
proposals and competitive bidding arrangements, she said.
Medicaid, too, has the potential to undergo huge change under a new HCFA
chief. In particular, HCFA could give states more latitude to structure
Medicaid rules to their liking. Ron Pollack, executive director of
Families USA, a consumer advocacy group, says he fears the result could be
a Medicaid with fewer benefits and higher costs for participants. At
worst, it could mean an end to Medicaid's entitlement status, he said.
"HCFA will play a crucial role in granting or not granting
waivers," Pollack said. "For states that don't want to follow
the law that exists, there are waivers."
For example, he said, North Carolina placed a cap on enrollment in its
Children's Health Insurance Program. States can't do that for Medicaid,
because it's an entitlement program. Not without a waiver, that is.
"There are potentially huge consequences," according to
Pollack.
Pollack says that no one should underestimate HCFA's power. "They can
achieve through the back door what they couldn't get through the front
door."
One possible candidate for the HCFA post is Tom Scully, president of the
Federation of American Hospitals, the trade association that represents
for-profit hospitals. Scully, who was the lead health care adviser at OMB
under former President Bush, is politically savvy and well connected to
key members of Congress-both Republicans and Democrats. Another possible
candidate is Bobby Jindal, who was the staff director for the Bipartisan
Commission on the Future of Medicare in 1998.
Workplace Watchdog
Assistant Secretary of Labor, OSHA
When the person selected to become assistant secretary of Labor for the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration reports to work for the
first time, he or she will find the OSHA office in a special
spot-"the basement of hell," jokes Pat Cleary, vice president of
human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
"I can't imagine a harder job. You've got people like me, on both
sides of the aisle, sniping at you, no matter what you do."
Directing the agency that regulates and enforces workplace safety is
difficult because it requires striking a balance between the highly
competitive interests of business and of organized labor. Pat Tyson, who
served as OSHA's acting assistant secretary during the Reagan years,
agrees that the post is not for the fainthearted. "If I had everyone
a little mad at me, then I'd think I probably made the right
decision," he said. "It's just that kind of job."
During a Republican Administration, expect a lot more of the criticism to
come from the labor camp. Peg Seminario, the AFL-CIO's director of health
and safety, fears that the Bush Administration's new assistant secretary
will have a more pro-business slant than the Clinton Administration's
Charles Jeffress did. "We're worried, based on past history,"
she said. "Reagan was so bad across the board on workplace safety and
regulations."
One hot button will be ergonomics, which is the study of equipment design
intended to reduce worker fatigue and discomfort. In November, during the
final weeks of the Clinton Administration, OSHA issued standards
compelling most employers to install equipment to reduce injuries caused
by repetitive motions. The standards went into effect in January. OSHA
maintains that its ergonomics rules will prevent on-the-job injuries, but
businesses complain that compliance will cost them billions of dollars.
Tyson points out that Congress, the courts, and the Bush White House could
all strike down OSHA's new rules. Still, he says, the issue-in one way or
another-will likely end up in the new assistant secretary's lap.
Cleary, whose group represents manufacturers, believes that the new
assistant secretary can help shift OSHA's focus from enforcement of
workplace safety rules to compliance on these issues. "They spend
three times as much on `Gotcha' than `Here, let me help you with this,'
" he said. "OSHA still has a cop on every street
corner."
Global Coordinator
Deputy National Security Advisor
Integrating America's global economic policies with more-traditional
foreign policy (especially national security concerns) has become an
increasingly weighty challenge for Washington policy-makers. More and more
of the international messes that land on the White House doorstep-such as
the 1997 Asian financial crisis-involve both economic and strategic
considerations.
Many Wall Street analysts and trade luminaries fret that the Bush
Administration isn't up to the challenge. Enter the many-titled Gary R.
Edson. As the new deputy assistant to the President for international
economic affairs and a deputy national security adviser, he has the
considerable challenge of trying to make sure that important, although
sometimes subtle, offshore economic problems get the attention they
deserve.
Toward the same end, the Clinton Administration created the National
Economic Council to help coordinate domestic and international economic
policy-making. The Bushies have decided that Edson, as their international
economic policy maven, will sit on the National Security Council, where he
will serve as a deputy both to Larry Lindsey, the assistant to the
President for economic policy, and to Condoleezza Rice, the national
security adviser. Edson will also be the lead U.S. coordinator for the
annual summits of the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
Bush Administration officials contend that, regardless of where Edson
sits, economic issues will not play second fiddle to foreign policy
concerns. "We have no obligation to adopt the Clinton template for
organizing the White House around these issues," said Joshua Bolten,
White House deputy chief of staff for policy. In any event, Edson couldn't
have better credentials. He was chief of staff and general counsel to U.S.
Trade Representative Carla A. Hills in the elder Bush's Administration,
and was a senior aide to Deputy Secretary of State Kenneth W. Dam during
President Reagan's first term.
Along the way, he has established close ties with people who are now key
players in George W.'s Administration. "You can't overestimate
personal relationships, because you need to integrate personalities to
integrate policies," said Daniel Tarullo, a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center who had many of Edson's responsibilities in the
Clinton White House.
And, in the end, Tarullo adds, "the real question will be: What is
the attitude of the people at the top? Do they genuinely understand that
economics has its own integrity?" It will take a significant
international financial red alert-possibly the meltdown under way in
Turkey, or an internal White House debate over economic sanctions against
Iraq or China-to answer that question and to measure Edson's
influence.
Focusing on Bias
Chairman, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Civil rights activists and affirmative action opponents may be riveted on
who will lead the high-profile Civil Rights Division at the Justice
Department, but there is another pivotal anti-discrimination slot ready
for President Bush to fill-the chairmanship of the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission.
Currently, the five-member commission has two vacancies, which leaves Bush
free to appoint two people and install them as chairman and vice chairman.
The EEOC is "a very potent agency," says Clint Bolick, vice
president and director of litigation at the libertarian Institute for
Justice.
Unlike the Justice Department, which monitors government malfeasance, the
commission focuses on private employers, ranging from automakers to
retailers. Its mandate is to enforce federal statutes prohibiting
employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex,
national origin, age, or disability.
The commission can set policy through its interpretations of these job
discrimination laws, as well as through litigation. "The EEOC sets
the tenor for discrimination law, even to an extent greater than the
Justice Department," Bolick says. And most of EEOC's policy
initiatives on employment discrimination originate with its chairman,
notes Donald R. Livingston, former general counsel of the EEOC and a
partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld in Washington.
Will Bush's chairman try to advance policies revered in conservative legal
circles-those that, for example, seek to limit the reach of affirmative
action and sex discrimination laws?
"A lot of those cases are going to be handled the same way, no matter
who the President is," says Roger Clegg, general counsel for the
Center for Equal Opportunity. "But there are areas where there are
differences of opinion of how to interpret the law, and one of those is
affirmative action.... [ Another is] how to interpret the Americans With
Disabilities Act." He adds that he hopes the Bush Administration's
approach to hiring preferences based on race, ethnicity, and sex will be
very different from its predecessor's. "The Clinton Administration
has been very aggressive and unforgiving to private employers in the way
that it has been interpreting [these statutes]," he said.
Deep in the Bowels of OMB
Administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
If business leaders have their way, the next head of a certain obscure
department within the Office of Management and Budget will once again put
the bite on regulatory proposals that put the bite on business.
President Bush has not announced who will direct OMB's Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs. The person mentioned most often is
John Graham, who runs Harvard's Center for Risk Analysis-a center popular
with business interests.
"We'd like to see OIRA re-established as a gatekeeper," said R.
Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. Chamber officials and many other business leaders
believe that OIRA should function as it did during the Reagan
Administration and the earlier Bush one-as the office that sternly
questions or even stops rules that agencies have proposed. They contend
that President Clinton allowed agencies to run wild with their rule
proposals.
But supporters of Clinton's approach say that OIRA worked with federal
agencies to craft proposals, rather than simply waiting for the agencies
to forward them to OMB. "OIRA was fully engaged in the process,"
insists Jacob Lew, Clinton's last OMB director. "We were partners
rather than antagonists.... [We weren't] the traffic cop who said
no."
In contrast, the Bush Administration is not hesitating to give the red
light to regulatory proposals left over from the Clinton era. On Jan. 26,
OMB Director Mitchell Daniels asked agency heads to withdraw from OIRA
virtually all pending rules that were products of the Clinton
Administration.
Under Bush, OIRA's role will almost certainly change to business's liking.
Yet Josten insists that the chamber's goal is not to make the office
unduly obstructionist. "The objective is to improve rule-making, not
to stop rule-making," he said.
But some longtime OMB-watchers are suspicious. Under the Reagan and George
H.W. Bush Administrations, OMB essentially blackmailed agencies, one
critic charged. In order to get more leverage over controversial rules,
OIRA would hold up noncontroversial ones, said Gary Bass, executive
director of OMB Watch, an independent public-interest group. "Things
went in and may have never come out," he added. "At times, the
Reagan and Bush OMBs ran roughshod over agencies."
That did not happen during the Clinton Administration, Lew said. He added
that opponents of Clinton-issued rules may discover exactly how well OIRA
operated if they try to challenge those regulations that have come under
fire, including last-minute ones.
"It may be frustrating, for those who would like to reverse things,
that OIRA did its job well," Lew said. "The record behind the
rule-making, in every case I'm familiar with, is strong."
The Overseer of Financial Markets
Undersecretary of Treasury for Domestic Finance
Famed for the dazzling gold blossoms they can sometimes produce, financial
markets are nevertheless fragile plants. They can wilt on a whiff of
public pessimism, or suddenly succumb to a hidden tangle in their
roots.
Treasury Secretaries are supposed to help keep these hothouse creatures
thriving. For that, they need credibility on Wall Street and a thorough
understanding of the markets' complex subterranean structure-or at least a
good gardener on the staff who can provide both.
The one who wields the trowels, checks for fungi, and stakes droopy stems
is actually three tiers down the organizational ladder: the undersecretary
of the Treasury for domestic finance. An already-powerful post, it's
likely to take on added importance in a department where neither the
Treasury Secretary-industrialist Paul O'Neill-nor his rumored choice for
the No. 2 slot-law professor Kenneth Dam-is from the world of high
finance.
Persistent leaks have this undersecretary job going to Peter Fisher, who,
as executive vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has
intimate links to the financial powers-that-are: Alan Greenspan and the
bond markets.
The job lacks the power of fiat given to the heads of all those
alphabet-soup banking and securities regulators, but its breadth gives its
holder increasing clout. As technology blurs the lines among banking,
securities, insurance, and even commerce, "what's really needed is to
bring together the banking and other financial agencies," said Robert
R. Glauber, who had the job in the first Bush Administration. The
undersecretary's post "is a natural place for it all to come
together."
Past undersecretaries have effectively run the President's Working Group
on Financial Markets, which looks at threats to the financial system and
is composed of top banking and securities regulators.
The undersecretary typically takes the lead in drafting major financial
reform bills and shepherding them through Congress. Previous
undersecretaries oversaw the passage of the 1999 law that tore down the
barriers separating banking, insurance, and securities firms. The next
undersecretary will be key in deciding how that actually works, because
Treasury and the Federal Reserve now share power to decide what new lines
of business banks can enter. Other hot upcoming issues he or she will face
include whether to tighten the reins on government-sponsored enterprises
such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and whether to allow insurance
companies to be chartered and regulated at the federal, rather than the
state, level.
The undersecretary also handles management of the federal debt, a task,
ironically, that gets tougher and more sensitive as the debt
dwindles.
No one doubts that Fisher-who is now in charge of carrying out the Fed's
monetary policy through the buying and selling of federal debt-is hugely
qualified for the job. But he could face some congressional hazing over
his role in the Fed's 1998 salvage operation on that Titanic of hedge
funds, Long-Term Capital Management.
The Procurer
Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy
Unless you are a government contractor, you can go through life without
giving a moment's thought to the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.
This small part of the Office of Management and Budget oversees the
government's procurement of more than $200 billion worth of products and
services each year. President Bush has yet to name an administrator to
head the office, but whoever gets the job may be thrust into several
high-stakes controversies, including oversight of faith-based-initiative
and affirmative action contracts.
Under President Clinton, the office was used to streamline government
procurement practices, and it successfully reduced red tape and cut costs,
say industry officials. Now, groups such as the Information Technology
Association of America want Bush's OFPP to continue to improve along those
lines, said Harris Miller, the association's president. To that end, the
association has given its support to one of several applicants for the
office, Miller said. He declined to name any of the applicants but said
they have experience in both government and industry. "We care a
lot" about the OFPP, he said. "It has a lot of
impact."
But the Bush Administration may have its own focus. John DiIulio, who
directs Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, says the
government needs to develop new yardsticks to measure the performance of
faith-based service providers, who will bid for contracts overseen by
OFPP. The new yardsticks should measure outcomes, he said, such as how
long a faith-based organization's clients stay off drugs. Any proposed
yardsticks are bound to spur criticism from opponents of the
faith-based-initiatives program.
Bush's OFPP will also have to deal with some Clinton Administration
legacies, specifically its "blacklisting" policy. Under this
regulation, issued on Dec. 20, government contract officers were
encouraged to examine bidders' compliance with a wide range of federal
laws, including civil rights, antitrust, and tax laws. Industry officials
fear the new regulation gives government agencies more power to penalize
them for real or alleged violations, even if their contract bids are
judged to offer the most value to government buyers. On Feb. 2, the
General Services Administration issued a memo saying the rule should be
voluntarily lifted for six months, and sparked protests from three
Democratic Senators.
Also, if the Bush White House decides to reform affirmative action
programs-or even if it merely decides to leave Clinton-era policies
intact-the OFPP will find itself at the center of subsequent disputes
because it is responsible for the details of contract policies that steer
more than $5 billion per year to minority-owned firms through the Small
Business Administration's 8(a) and Small Disadvantaged Business
Certification programs.
The Numbers' Cruncher
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Tax Analysis
There's no argument about who is at the top of the marquee for tax matters
in the executive branch. The assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax
policy is the public face of the Administration when it comes to taxes.
Not only must the assistant secretary testify before Congress and face the
press on tax issues, but the appointee is also ultimately responsible for
drafting legislation, reviewing tax regulations, and negotiating tax
treaties. Perhaps most important, he or she is the person who must explain
tax policy to the President.
One of the assistant secretary's deputies, however, plays a less visible
role that is nearly as important, and could be crucial for President
Bush's top priority this year-his $1.6 trillion tax cut. By tradition, the
deputy assistant secretary for tax analysis is the top-ranking tax
economist at Treasury. When it comes to the numbers-crunching-and
Treasury's tax people do a lot of it-the deputy for tax analysis is in
charge.
Few outsiders know it, but it is Treasury, and not the Office of
Management and Budget, that is responsible for the entire revenue side of
the federal budget. The deputy for tax analysis supervises this huge
accounting and analytical effort. Ordinarily, the fact that no one has yet
been named to fill this job would be a problem, but President Bush didn't
issue a detailed budget on Feb. 28-only an outline. Treasury officials say
they expect to have a deputy for tax analysis in place to help prepare the
full budget before its release sometime in April.
The tax deputy represents credibility. "The person in that job is
responsible for all the [economic] assumptions," said a key
congressional tax staffer. "He's got to have the confidence of the
staff on the Hill, and ultimately the members." Perhaps the deputy
assistant's most important constituent is the Congressional Budget Office.
"When it comes to gauging the economic impact of a proposal, it is
really important to have an economist with credibility," said former
CBO Director Robert Reischauer. That person's reputation "determines
whether the numbers will be laughed at by the top professionals."
Among the alumni of this post is R. Glenn Hubbard, a top Bush campaign
adviser who was just appointed to be the chairman of Bush's Council of
Economic Advisers.
The Brookings Institution's Bob Litan, who was an OMB official under
President Clinton, said that the tax deputy may play a lesser role under
Bush because of the abundance of tax experts close to the President,
including economic czar Larry Lindsey. But one former deputy says that one
part of the job never changes. "There's always a conflict with the
White House, where the goal is getting out the message, and [Treasury],
where the goal is getting it right," said Len Berman, who held the
job from 1998 to 2000. "I always felt awkward as a political
appointee because you're not supposed to be immune to the political needs
of the President, but you also have this obligation to be totally
honest."
Safety First
Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Judith Lee Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety,
doesn't understand why the job of National Highway Traffic Safety
Administrator is often one of the last major Transportation Department
slots to be filled. "It somehow never gets the attention at
DOT," she said, and yet "it is always the one dumping the big
problems onto the Secretary's desk."
And that remains true. As the Bush Administration looks for someone to
oversee the agency that's responsible for setting safety standards in the
auto industry, it is well aware that the new administrator will face
several troublesome issues. At the top of the list will be Firestone tires
and whether the agency should expand the recall of those tires; in fact,
the Firestone mess beleaguered the Clinton Administration's outgoing NHTSA
administrator, Sue Bailey. Other issues that the new administrator will
have to confront include regulatory decisions on air bags, automobile
rollover standards, and child-safety seats.
On the regulatory issues, Stone believes that President Bush's NHTSA will
side with automakers far more often than the Clinton Administration
did-even though Norman Mineta, the new Administration's sole Democratic
Cabinet member, sits atop the Transportation Department. "Let's face
it-this is a Republican Administration, and they're not as interested in
regulatory issues," she said.
Diane Steed, who was Ronald Reagan's NHTSA administrator from 1983-89 and
who currently serves on the Bush transportation advisory team, doesn't
believe that the new administrator could get away with being the auto
industry's lackey. "Any administrator who does that will get
killed," she said, because the job description puts so much emphasis
on ensuring safety. Instead, she says, the new NHTSA will work to strike a
better balance between regulating the industry and promoting safety (by,
for example, working to increase seat belt use). Previous Democratic
Administrations, Steed contends, spent too much of their time beating up
the auto industry with regulations. "It has to be a balanced
approach," she said.
Gloria Bergquist, a spokeswoman for the Alliance of Automobile
Manufacturers, says that Big Business doesn't always get what it wants
from Republican Administrations; she points to the examples of Richard
Nixon creating the Environmental Protection Agency and George H.W. Bush
signing the 1990 Clean Air Act. "I think, as Michael Jordan is
finding out, there is no slam dunk in Washington anymore," she
said.
FERC: Back in Fashion
Chairman, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
In a nondescript brick building a few blocks behind Washington's Union
Station, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission quietly oversees the
nation's energy industries, which account for an impressive 5 percent of
the gross domestic product. Ever since the energy crisis of the 1970s, the
five-member commission has toiled in near obscurity. Until now.
These days, Curt L. Hebert Jr., whom President Bush named as commission
chairman in January, pops up on television news shows and on the front
pages of the nation's largest newspapers. Hebert's newfound fame comes in
part from California's festering electricity supply problems. FERC does,
after all, have authority over electricity transmission and wholesale
prices. The commission also governs hydroelectric dam operations, and
shipments of oil and natural gas throughout the nation.
But it's also clear that Hebert enjoys the limelight. "He's more
obviously political than I was," noted Elizabeth Moler, who was FERC
chairman during President Clinton's first term and is now a lawyer at
Exelon Corp., a Chicago-based electricity firm.
Hebert is an outspoken supporter of supply-side economics, and he has
opposed California's pleas for federal help in resolving its energy
problems, which stem from the state's efforts to restructure its
electricity industry. "He follows the line that what can be
competitive should be competitive," said Branko Terzic, a former FERC
commissioner who is now director of energy and utilities services for the
business-services firm Deloitte & Touche. "He believes in the
discipline of market forces-the negative discipline if you make mistakes
and the positive incentives if you do well." Electricity is likely to
remain Hebert's main challenge. "The industry is going through major
changes because of the electricity restructuring experiments taking place
throughout the country," Moler said. "Change attracts
attention."
But Hebert's profile will also rise as the White House and Congress
develop proposals to increase the nation's domestic energy production and
to ease the cross-country transit of electricity, natural gas, and oil.
"The role of FERC could be stronger and greater than ever as they go
toward a comprehensive energy strategy," said Walker Nolan, an energy
lawyer at Oldaker and Harris and a former lobbyist for Edison Electric
Institute. "The commission has gone from being a routine regulatory
institute to tackling some of the most difficult issues the nation is
facing."
As chairman, Hebert's success could depend on his ability to work with
other members of the commission. Bush has yet to fill the agency's two
open commissioner slots. Insiders say that Hebert also needs to harness
the commission's 1,217 employees and $175 million annual budget. So far,
he has gotten high marks for naming Kevin Madden, who has served in a
variety of posts at FERC, to be general counsel. "Madden is an
insider who is well respected at the agency," Moler said.
In Search of a Super-Scientist
Chief Scientist, Environmental Protection Agency (Proposed)
If there's one thing that Republicans, Democrats, industry groups, and
environmentalists agree on, it's the premise that environmental protection
strategies and rules should be based on sound scientific research.
On this point, EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman sought to reassure
members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during her
confirmation hearing on Jan. 17: "Without a level of confidence on
the part of the Congress and the people of this country that the
department makes decisions based on the very best science available, I
don't believe we will have the moral authority, much less the legal
authority, to really make a difference."
Behind those comforting words lurks an unsettling reality: The EPA does
not have a distinguished scientist directing the research behind rules
that protect public health and can cost industries billions of dollars.
There is, as a result, strong bipartisan support for the creation of a
powerful position at EPA that would take the lead on scientific matters in
ways that could dramatically change how key environmental decisions are
made in Washington.
Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Science
subcommittee overseeing the EPA, has introduced a bill setting up a
super-scientist job to oversee the agency's research and to ensure a
strong objective voice in policy debates. "I've been bothered for
several years that EPA decisions were not always based on good
science," said Ehlers, who is a research scientist with a Ph.D.
"I think this bill will help remedy that." Ehlers' bill is based
on recommendations from a National Academy of Sciences report that was
heralded by environmentalists and by such business groups as the Business
Roundtable. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is working on a companion bill
in the Senate. Whitman, however, has yet to weigh in on the idea.
The legislation, which sponsors hope to advance quickly, would create the
position of deputy EPA administrator for science. The plan is to install a
distinguished scientist to direct the work of the agency's 12 laboratories
and some 2,000 scientists, ensuring that sound scientific research
underpins all agency decisions.
The EPA's current top science job-assistant administrator for the Office
of Research and Development-is one of the agency's weakest and most
transient administrative positions, according to the June report by the
National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council. The administrator
has no authority over scientific work done by EPA program officials or by
the agency's regional offices; to be heard, he often must joust with
lawyers who run the agency, the report found.
The idea behind creating a deputy administrator slot is to attract someone
with an unassailable reputation as a researcher. This person would not
only lead science in the agency but would also be a strong, recognizable
voice for EPA's science in the public eye. "The agency's senior
administrators now are paid to manage, not to do good science," says
Robert Huggett, a former EPA assistant administrator for research.
"You need to have someone who puts science first."
Julie Kosterlitz, James Kitfield, Marilyn Werber Serafini, Mark Murray, Bruce Stokes, Elisabeth Frater, David Baumann, Neil Munro, John Maggs, Margaret Kriz, Cyril T. Zaneski
National Journal
