Christopher Dodd Still Trying To Block Elizabeth Warren

Obama May Name Warren as Interim Consumer Agency Head

By Hans Nichols and Lorraine Woellert – Sep 14, 2010

President Barack Obama may appoint Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who scolded U.S. banks while overseeing their bailout, as the interim head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as early as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

An interim appointment could allow Obama to bypass a confirmation battle over Warren in the Senate, where Republicans have raised objections to her possible nomination.

Today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he was “not enthusiastic” about an interim appointment because it could jeopardize the future of the bureau by inviting retaliation by Congress that could cut off funding for the office.

“You could gut this before it even gets off ground,” Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters. “None of us know what the outcome is going to be politically” in the congressional elections, said Dodd, whose committee would take the lead on confirmation of a permanent appointee.

An interim appointment “will be met with a lot of opposition,” Dodd said. “It’s a big job, an important job. You’ve got to build the support for that institutionally” with Congress. He has questioned whether Warren could win the votes for confirmation.

‘In the Mix’

The White House hasn’t publicly acknowledged the choice. White House spokesman Bill Burton said Warren is “obviously in the mix.” An interim appointment is “an option,” Burton said.

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More Republicans For Obama's Cabinet

Barack Obama, Ken Salazar, Mary Schapiro, Repuublicans, Robert Gates, SEC, Vilsack

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)

President-elect Barack Obama has picked GOP Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois to be his nominee for transportation secretary, two sources told CNN on Wednesday.

Two Democratic sources also said Obama will tap Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Schapiro is CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the largest nongovernment regulator for all securities firms doing business with the U.S. public. She is a former SEC commissioner and served as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 1994 during the Clinton Administration.

Obama will formally announce his choice of LaHood, a seven-term congressman from Peoria, at a press conference in Chicago on Thursday morning, the sources said.

LaHood is well-respected by Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

One of LaHood’s closest friends in Congress, fellow Illinois Republican Tim Johnson, said LaHood “has the ability to work both sides of the aisle well” and called him “an extraordinarily talented legislator.”

Obama has so far chosen one other Republican for his Cabinet. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will stay on in the Obama administration.

Earlier on Wednesday, Obama announced former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack as his choice for agriculture secretary and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as his choice for secretary of the interior.

“Together they will serve as guardians of the American landscape on which the health of our economy and the well-being of our families so heavily depend,” Obama said at a news conference in Chicago.

Vilsack was a high-profile supporter of Sen. Hillary Clinton during the presidential primaries after he briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

Vilsack has championed the development of ethanol, an alternative energy, in Iowa — something that coincides with Obama’s vision for an energy-independent future, and something he can promote from the Department of Agriculture.

Vilsack, who dropped out of the presidential race in February 2007, is the fourth former presidential rival to join Obama’s team.

Vice president-elect Joe Biden; Hillary Clinton, Obama’s pick for secretary of state; and Bill Richardson, Obama’s pick for secretary of commerce, also sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

“With the appointments I announced earlier in the week, and with those I am announcing today, I am confident that we have the team we need to make the rural agenda America’s agenda, to create millions of new green jobs, to free our nation from its dependence on oil and to help preserve this planet for our children,” Obama said. Watch Obama name Salazar and Vilsack to his team »

Salazar, Obama’s choice for secretary of the interior, has focused on public land and energy resource issues as a first-term senator from Colorado. He is the second Latino to be named to Obama’s Cabinet.

Obama said Wednesday he was confident that under Salazar, the Interior Department would become more proactive instead of “sitting back, waiting for whoever has most access in Washington to extract what they want.”

Salazar is a member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and has developed a reputation as a strong advocate of reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil.

A fifth-generation Coloradan, Salazar was elected to the Senate in 2004 and quickly made a name for himself in immigration reform.

He was a key member of a bipartisan Senate group that put together the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which would have beefed up border security and increased the number of Border Patrol agents, but also would have created a guest worker program.

That program would have allowed migrants to work temporarily in the Untied States. The most controversial aspect of the bill was the creation of a pathway to legalization and eventual citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country, an idea that critics dismissed as “amnesty.” The bill failed to make it through Congress.

Salazar’s appointment would not jeopardize the balance of power in the Senate. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a fellow Democrat, would name his replacement. iReport.com: Chatting with Salazar

Also on Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino announced that Obama will meet for a second time with President Bush. The meeting also will include the three living former presidents.

President Bush will be host at a lunch with Obama and former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton on January 7, Perino said.

Obama proposed the meeting with the former presidents to Bush when the two met in the Oval Office on November 10, two sources said.

The high-powered meeting is another sign of how closely the Obama and Bush teams have been working to try to make sure the first post-9/11 transfer of power goes smoothly.

“It’s been unbelievably cooperative,” said one Democratic official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the conversations between Bush and Obama.

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700 Billion? "We Just Wanted to Choose a Really Large Number"

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“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Bad News For The Bailout
Brian Wingfield and Josh Zumbrun

FORBES DOT COM 09.23.08, 6:39 PM ET

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill seem determined to work together to pass a bill that will get the credit markets churning again. But will they do it this week, as some had hoped just a few days ago? Don’t count on it.

“Do I expect to pass something this week?” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., mused to reporters Tuesday. “I expect to pass something as soon as we can. I think it’s important that we get it done right, not get it done fast.”

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, says his office has gotten “close to zero” calls in support of the $700 billion plan proposed by the administration. He doubts it’ll happen immediately either. “I don’t think it has to be a week” he says. “If we do it right, then we need to take as long as it needs.”

The more Congress examines the Bush administration’s bailout plan, the hazier its outcome gets. At a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle complained of being rushed to pass legislation or else risk financial meltdown.

“The secretary and the administration need to know that what they have sent to us is not acceptable,” says Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn. The committee’s top Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, says he’s concerned about its cost and whether it will even work.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Wow. If it wants to see a bailout bill passed soon, the administration’s going to have to come up with some hard answers to hard questions. Public support for it already seems to be waning. According to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Tuesday, 44% of those surveyed oppose the administration’s plan, up from 37% Monday.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who testified before the Senate committee Tuesday, will get a chance to fine tune their answers Wednesday afternoon, when they appear before the House Financial Services Committee.

A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says she is optimistic that the House will pass a bill this week. But that doesn’t mean the Senate, which is by nature more sluggish than its larger counterpart on the other side of Capitol Hill, will be so quick to act.

“They will act first,” says Sen. Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “Many of our members today were just beginning to have interaction with Secretary Paulson.”

Dodd proposed his own counter-proposal to Paulson’s plan earlier this week. Among other things, it calls for limits on executive compensation at troubled firms and for the Treasury to take a contingent equity stake in those firms. On Tuesday, Paulson rebuffed both ideas, as it might discourage firms from participating in the bailout program.

Those things aside, lawmakers have plenty of other concerns with Treasury’s proposal. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested the bailout be doled out perhaps $150 billion at a time, instead of $700 billion all at once. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., says it has an initial cost of $2,300 for every man, woman and child in the country. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., calls it a “financial socialism and it’s un-American.”

Dodd says that in speaking with his Senate colleagues, all are agreed on three issues: that a bailout bill include some oversight accountability for the Treasury, protection for taxpayers and that it address the continuing foreclosure problem.

He also points to one other concern: Paulson, the bill’s chief architect, is scheduled to leave office in just four months.

“I’m not about to give a $700 billion appropriation to a secretary I don’t know yet,” says Dodd.

–Senior writer Liz Moyer contributed to this article.

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