WASHINGTON — President Bush named a new Transportation secretary Tuesday, while one of his top healthcare experts announced he was resigning -- all part of ongoing personnel shifts as the administration prepares for its last two years.
Bush nominated former Federal Highway Administrator Mary E. Peters to the transportation post, replacing Norman Y. Mineta, the veteran San Jose congressman who had been the only Democrat in the Cabinet.
Meanwhile, after having largely succeeded in steering the complex new prescription benefit for seniors through its rocky rollout this year, Medicare Administrator Mark B. McClellan announced he was taking a respite from government and would be joining a public policy center.
Peters, 57, went to work at the Arizona Department of Transportation as a secretary in 1985 and worked her way up to become its director in 1998. Although her professional background is in highway planning and construction, her first major challenge will be to win congressional reauthorization of the government's commercial aviation policy next year.
Accepting her nomination at the White House on Tuesday, Peters said her top priority would be to reduce congestion in all types of transportation.
"Today, our vital transportation infrastructure is showing signs of aging," she said. "We are experiencing increasing congestion on our nation's highways, railways, airports and seaports, and we're robbing our nation of productivity and our citizens of quality time with their families."
As federal highway chief, a position she held from 2001 until 2005, Peters sought to promote the use of special toll lanes to ease congestion and worked to allow private entrepreneurs into road planning and construction -- a field traditionally dominated by state and local governments. She left the government to join HDR Inc., an engineering firm, as a vice president and policy advisor.
"She is very market-oriented and future-oriented," said Robert Poole, director of transportation studies for the libertarian Reason Institute think tank in Los Angeles. "She really understands the growing obsolescence of paying for highways out of gas taxes, and she understands the importance of tolling and market pricing for the highway system of the future."
