The Senate Foreign Relations Committee this morning approved Hillary Clinton’s nomination to be Secretary of State on a 16 to 1 vote. Clinton must now face a vote before the entire Senate, but she enjoys strong support among her former colleagues and her confirmation is expected.
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Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, one of President-elect Barack Obama’s top military advisers, is said to be the pick to lead NASA. Our colleagues at Space News were the first to report the story yesterday. Gration is a decorated fighter pilot and held senior policy positions in the military, but does not have a space background, according to Space News. No word on whether current NASA administrator Mike Griffin’s wife has ended her campaign to convince Obama her husband should stay.
When President Bush leaves the White House on Jan. 20, he’ll have some comfortable digs to work out of in Dallas. The General Services Administration has secured 8,000 square feet of office space at Sherry Lane Place, a highrise office building in downtown Dallas, for the soon-to-be former presisdent, GSA said yesterday afternoon in a press release. The 10-year lease will cost taxpayers $311,600 annually — that’s $38.95 per square foot, more than twice the average Dallas office rent, according to this Bloomberg report. The size and cost of Bush’s new office space is in keeping with the space secured for…
Peter Orszag appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee for a hearing on his nomination as OMB director. It was almost as painless as yesterday’s hearing before the Senate Budget committee. Senators focused mostly on government management issues, and Orszag made a few notable statements. First, though, a word about the budget. Orszag reiterated, once again, that the Obama administration will release a 2010 budget in “mid-to-late February.” One new detail: He said the budget will include “some program eliminations.” No word on which programs, though.
Sure, we’ve been reporting for some time on the government’s requirement to purchase products made from agricultural or biological materials (see here, here and here). But Sen. Tom Harkin thinks it’s time for an update. During today’s confirmation hearing for former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, President-elect Barack Obama’s pick to head the Agriculture Department, the Iowa Democrat said he will use his position as chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee to address the biobased procurement requirement, which Harkin inserted into the 2002 Farm Bill. Specifically, Harkin said he would call every Cabinet secretary before the committee to ask…
We’ve been wondering why the Senate Finance committee took so long to schedule a confirmation hearing for Treasury secretary-designate Timothy Geithner. It may have to do with a tax problem: Timothy F. Geithner, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Treasury secretary, failed to pay more than $34,000 in federal taxes over several years early this decade, and also faces questions about the employment papers of a former household employee, suddenly complicating what had seemed to be an easy confirmation process in the Senate. Hard to know what to make of this. Geithner repaid the back taxes, with interest, after the Obama…
President-elect Barack Obama today named William Corr as the nominee for deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Corr, currently the executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, served as chief of staff to former Secretary Donna Shalala during her tenure at HHS. He also served as the deputy assistant secretary for health and counselor to the secretary. He also has a solid working relationship with HHS Secretary-designate Tom Daschle, having served as chief counsel and policy director for former Senate Minority Leader Daschle for two years. In a statement, Obama praised Corr’s experience and said…
Baseball may be the national pastime, but this seems a little extreme. A new report (pdf) from the Justice Department’s inspector general found that a U.S. Marshals lawyer, Joseph Band — who was moonlighting as a statistician for FOX Sports — arranged for the Marshals to escort the limousines of FOX’s baseball announcers (Joe Buck and Tim McCarver) after two 2007 World Series games. They then led McCarver’s limousine out of the Fenway Park area in a two-car motorcade… they had their emergency lights on as they were attempting to work their way out of the immediate area of Fenway…
It’s happened at countless workplaces across the country. Someone, on purpose or by accident, sends an email to the entire office and people start replying…to every person on the list. Inevitably, angry co-workers also start replying to everyone, chiding those who hit “reply-all.†Inboxes overflow with message after message. Annoying yes, but cause for disciplinary action? It could be if you work at the State Department, which was recently hit by a similar scenario that got so bad it nearly crippled the department’s unclassified email system. Now, according to a cable obtained by the Associated Press, senior department officials are…
I just got off a conference call with Sen. Robert Casey, D-Penn., about his meeting today with Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton. Casey, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that will consider Clinton’s nomination Jan. 13, said he is very pleased with the direction Clinton wants to take State and expects she’ll be easily confirmed. Most of today’s meeting dealt with State’s management, budget and personnel issues, Casey said, which will be among Clinton’s primary concerns. And one of Clinton’s first actions at State will be to elevate management issues to the deputy secretary level.…