Biden nominates Buttigieg for transportation, Granholm for energy

US President-elect Joe Biden has nominated his former rival Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation and intends to choose former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as his energy secretary. Buttigieg, nominated by Biden on Tuesday, would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet post.
Biden also plans to tap Gina McCarthy, a former Environmental Protection Agency chief, for the powerful new position of domestic climate chief to run his ambitious climate plans across the federal government.
All three will be central to Biden’s plan to remake the country’s automobiles and transportation systems to quickly cut climate-damaging petroleum emissions.'Patriot and problem-solver'
Buttigieg at 38, the previous mayor of South Bend , Indiana, would also add a youthful dynamic to an incoming administration that's thus far dominated in large part by leaders with decades of Washington experience Biden said during a statement that Buttigieg was a “patriot and a problem-solver who speaks to the simplest of who we are as a nation.”
Buttigieg became a number one figure in national politics when he was among those that challenged Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Initially written off because the leader of a comparatively village competing against much more established figures, Buttigieg zeroed in on a message of generational change to end the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses during a virtual tie with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Buttigieg's campaign stumbled, however, in appealing to Black voters who play a critical role in Democratic politics.
As the primary moved into more diverse states like South Carolina, Buttigieg faltered and quickly withdrew from the race.
His backing of Biden ushered during a remarkably swift unification of the party around its ultimate nominee.
Michigan’s first female governor
Granholm, 61, served as Michigan’s attorney general from 1999 to 2003 and two terms as Michigan’s first female governor, from 2003 to 2010. She was a supporter of Biden’s presidential bid and has spoken out against President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election results, accusing him of “poisoning democracy.”The intended selections of Granholm and McCarthy were confirmed by three people that were conversant in one or both of the picks They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly before the president-elect’s announcement.Biden's Cabinet picks
Biden is steadily rolling out his choices for Cabinet secretaries, having already selected former Obama adviser Tony Blinken as his secretary of state, retired Army Gen.
Lloyd Austin as his secretary of defence and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary.
He’s also picked former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role within the Biden administration, and Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge to serve as housing secretary.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland is taken into account a lead contender to become interior secretary despite Democratic worry that her departure would go away them with a perilously thin majority within the House.
Haaland, a member of New Mexico's Pueblo of Laguna, would be the first Native American to lead the Interior Department if confirmed.Rights groups react
Biden’s selection of Buttigieg for transportation secretary drew praise from LGBTQ rights groups, with one calling it “a new milestone during a decades-long effort” to possess LGBTQ representation within the US government.
“Its impact will reverberate well-beyond the department he will lead,” added Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Institute.
The South Bend chapter of Black Lives Matter, however, denounced Buttigieg’s pending nomination.
The group had made their displeasure of Buttigieg known during his presidential campaign, following the 2019 South Bend shooting of a Black man by a white policeman .
“We saw Black communities have their houses torn down by his administration,” BLM’s South Bend leader Jorden Giger said during a statement, pertaining to Buttigieg’s effort to level substandard housing.

 https://mitraspec.com?afmc=da&utm_campaign=da&utm_source=leaddyno&utm_medium=affiliate
“We saw the machinery of his police turned against Black people.”
If confirmed as transportation secretary, Buttigieg are going to be charged with implementing Biden's proposals to spend billions making major infrastructure improvements and on retrofitting initiatives which will help the US battle climate change.
He also wants to immediately mandate mask-wearing on airplanes and public transportation systems to slow the spread of the coronavirus.Trillion dollar climate plan
Meanwhile, as energy secretary, Granholm will have a role in executing Biden’s promised $2 trillion climate plan, billed as the nation’s broadest and most ambitious effort to cut fossil fuel emissions that are dangerously warming Earth’s atmosphere.
Biden’s plan includes overhauling the nation’s transportation and power sectors and buildings to eliminate fuel emissions by 2050.
As governor, when Granholm faced an economic downturn before the Great Recession struck, she sought to diversify the state that is home to the Detroit Three automakers by emphasising the growing “green economy.”
The state pushed incentives to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, advanced batteries and electric vehicles, and she or he signed a law requiring that more of Michigan’s energy come from renewable sources.After leaving office, she moved to California to show at the University of California, Berkeley.
As domestic climate chief, McCarthy will spearhead Biden's ambitions for a huge , coordinated domestic campaign to slow global climate change .
Her counterpart in climate efforts are going to be former Secretary of State John Kerry, earlier named by Biden as his climate envoy for national security issues.
The selection of McCarthy is in line with Biden’s pattern of picking tested, familiar figures from his time as vice chairman .
McCarthy, 66, served as EPA administrator from 2013 to 2017 during President Barack Obama’s second term and was assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation in Obama’s first term. She led initiatives that cut air and pollution and signed the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s signature effort to deal with global climate change by setting the primary national standards for reducing carbon emissions from existing power plants.
Trump later scrapped the plan, and moved to support climate-damaging coal, oil and gas.

 {With input from news agency language) If you like this story, share it with a friend! 

We are a non-profit organization. Help us financially to keep our journalism free from government and corporate pressure.

 https://nplink.net/u6gordka 

https://nplink.net/z41blh90