Bill Clinton: “Relax, this is a pro-family administration. [Laughter] He is a passionate believer in doing what's right, and he is a…”

“Relax, this is a pro-family administration. [Laughter] He is a passionate believer in doing what's right, and he is a determined leader who gets it done. His test is never soft sentiments but hard results. The empowerment zones effort he has led so well is a perfect example of the new HUD. Instead of big solutions imposed by Washington, it creates a partnership between Government, business, and private citizens to help communities lift themselves up. This is Andrew Cuomo's vision, and it is why I expect him to be a very strong voice for America's cities and a great HUD Secretary. The Department of Energy has many missions, ranging from producing nuclear fuels and managing nuclear wastes to widening the frontiers of science at our national laboratories, to promoting energy efficiency and environmental technology. Hazel O'Leary has made huge strides with that Department and has done this while bringing unprecedented openness to the agency. I mention obviously the reports that the Energy Department has done on radiation experiments and the groundbreaking work that the Energy Department did to lead us to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. To manage this diverse and sprawling operation, a Secretary of Energy must be an experienced leader and manager who understands the demands of a large Government agency, who will demand peak performance from Government contractors, who knows why we must reinvent Government and how to do it. As Secretary of Transportation, Federico Pena has proven himself a talented leader of a large and complex Government agency. He found ways to encourage new technologies, promote safety, protect the environment. I am happy to announce today that I will nominate him to be our new Secretary of Energy. He will continue to streamline and reinvent the Energy Department. He will build on its unprecedented commitment to openness. He will oversee the urgent cleanup of our nuclear stockpiles, and he will work with the energy industry to create economic opportunity by using energy in a way that does not hurt our environment. I am very happy that he has agreed to remain in the Cabinet in this new and ever-changing role and very grateful for the service he rendered at the Department of Transportation. To replace him, I am proud to nominate the Federal Highway Administrator, Rodney Slater. First as the chair of the State highway commission in our home State and then as Federal Highway Administrator, Rodney Slater has managed large programs with skill and high standards. He has rebuilt and expanded our Nation's highways and linked isolated communities to jobs and opportunities. He has built bridges both of steel and of good will to bring people closer together. When the Northridge earthquake struck California with such deadly force, Rodney led our effort to rebuild vital highways in record time. He is the right person to help us meet the many transportation needs and challenges we face as we enter the 21st century. He has been my friend and adviser for many years. Along with his own family, I have watched with pride as he has built his own road to success. I can say that he was recommended by more people from more places in more ways for this job than any person for any position I have ever seen. [Laughter] And in spite of that-- [laughter]--I am confident that he will be a superb and successful Secretary of Transportation. Over the past 4 years, first with Erskine Bowles' leadership and then Phil Lader's, we have worked hard to revitalize and broaden the mission and increase the impact of the Small Business Administration. SBA has doubled the number of loans to small businesses, tripled the loans to women-owned businesses, even as its staff has been cut by 25 percent. Phil Lader told me several months ago that he wanted to return to private life after the election. However, I have asked him to serve in another senior role in my administration, and he will be considering this over the holidays. I hope he and his family agree to accept my offer. I can only stand so many of these people leaving. [Laughter] To replace Phil Lader, I will nominate Aida Alvarez. She has been an award-winning journalist and investment banker. For the past 3\1/2\ years she has been the Director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, responsible for the safety and soundness of $1.4 trillion in housing finance institutions. She combines business savvy with a dedication to public service. I have known her for many years and have been very proud to have her as a part of this administration. I am also proud that this is the first time a person born in Puerto Rico has been appointed to a President's Cabinet. To complete our economic team, I will nominate Janet Yellen to be Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Since it was created by President Truman 50 years ago, the CEA has provided objective and rigorous economic advice to the President. Under Laura Tyson and then Joe Stiglitz, the CEA has been unflinchingly honest, and our economic policy has had hard work--hard-won credibility. As we work together to balance the budget in a way that reflects our values and will continue to grow our economy, the CEA's role will be more important than ever. Janet Yellen will provide the leadership and experience to get the job done. She is currently a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Directors. She had been a professor of economics at the University of California-Berkeley and at Harvard, where she taught, among others, the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, who said that his grade was sufficiently high for her to be recommended for the job. [Laughter] She is an esteemed writer and thinker who will serve our country well. The Domestic Policy Council coordinates the work of our domestic policy agendas--agencies. It finds innovative ways to use our most enduring values to meet our newest challenges. Today I am proud to appoint Bruce Reed as Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Director of the Domestic Policy Council, replacing Carol Rasco about whom I will say more in a moment. Bruce is an original thinker, someone who long ago rejected the easy answers from any part of the political spectrum, and no one has had a greater impact on the thinking of the administration or the President. He combines a unique practical knowledge with a real, powerful concern for the welfare of ordinary Americans. He has been at my side from the day I announced my candidacy for President in 1991. He was an architect of welfare reform. He has been a driving force behind our efforts to shrink Government, expand educational opportunity, and fight crime. For the past year, as Assistant to the President for Policy Planning, he has worked to hone our goals for the next 4 years, and now he will have a chance to make that agenda happen. He is the intellectual core of the vital center. Under his leadership, the Domestic Policy Council will be a place where dynamic ideas are turned into actions that will make a difference in the lives of our people. He is a person of the highest integrity, a good friend, and I am proud that he will be by my side as we complete the work of preparing our country for the next century. Finally, I have prevailed upon my friend of long standing Mack McLarty to stay on for a second term as Counselor to the President, remaining as a member of the National Economic Council. In addition, Mack will take on new responsibilities as Special Envoy to the President and the Secretary of State for Latin America. With this new role, I expect him to deepen and broaden his portfolio as he helps to coordinate and strengthen our policies toward Latin America. He is well suited to carry out this important role because of his business experience and his broad understanding of the new global economy. His perspective was clear when he served as one of the principal architects of our economic strategy and played a key role in passing our deficit reduction plan in 1993. Throughout this administration he has been central to our efforts to build our relationships with our neighbors in our hemisphere. His leadership was instrumental in passing NAFTA and he led our efforts, along with Vice President Gore, to host the Summit of the Americas in Miami and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The 1994 summit was a historic meeting and will require significant followup as we move forward to the second Summit of the Americas in Santiago. He will head the United States delegation to the signing of the Guatemala peace accords later this month. And this new assignment for Mack should underscore the importance that we in this administration and I personally place upon Latin America as we move forward. The other members of my domestic policy team are here with us today. Attorney General Reno has led our crusade to put police on our streets and take guns off our streets. Donna Shalala has worked tirelessly and well to give our people quality health care, to move millions from welfare to work, to care for our children and their future. Dick Riley has succeeded in reforming the student loan program and lowering its costs and making it more available to millions of people. He has challenged our schools to reach even higher standards. We have expanded educational opportunity, enhanced reform, and we will do much, much more of this in the next 4 years. As I said in the campaign this year, education must now be our highest priority, and I am pleased that Secretary Riley will continue to lead our efforts. Earlier this week I announced that one of my oldest and closest advisers, domestic policy adviser Carol Rasco, will join the Education Department as Senior Adviser to the Secretary and Director of the America Reads Challenge. The importance of this initiative to me should be underscored by my asking someone this close to me to act on my behalf. If you will remember in the campaign, I talked a lot about the importance of mobilizing one million volunteer tutors all across America to work with parents and teachers, to make sure that by the year 2000 every 8-year-old in this country can read independently. If every third grader can read independently, when 40 percent of them are not reading at grade level today, it will dramatically alter the future of America's landscape for the better. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jesse Brown has been a strong and effective voice for our veterans. He will continue to ensure that they have the health care and the services they deserve. Federal emergency management administrator James Lee Witt has transformed that agency into a model for disaster assistance and helped communities all across our country to rebuild. In community after community, from the Southeast to the Middle West to the West, he has made the term ``Federal bureaucrat'' a positive, not a negative, appellation. General Barry McCaffrey will stay on as the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. We need his vigorous leadership, and he is in the process of doing something that Presidents for more than 30 years have wanted to do but never succeeded in doing, actually developing a coordinated, disciplined, long-term approach to dealing with the drug problems and reducing drug abuse in America, particularly among our youth. Secretary Babbitt has been a wise steward for our precious natural resources and has helped us to solve some of the thorniest challenges facing America in this regard. He sent me a letter right after the election saying that in one way or another we have protected over 20 million acres of America's precious land in the last 4 years, a legacy of conservation equaled only in the two Roosevelts' administrations, and I thank him for that. Secretary Glickman has worked to keep our food the safest and most plentiful in the world as we have overhauled our food safety standards for the first time in decades and decades. And I thank him also for finding ways to promote agriculture and protect the environment. As EPA Administrator, Carol Browner has cut redtape and curbed pollution. She has brought common sense back to the task of protecting our environment, enlisted more allies, and will lead the way in the next 4 years to making sure we do close those hundreds of toxic waste dumps that keep our children from growing up next to parks, not poison. All these leaders have done a remarkable job. I am delighted they have agreed to stay in their positions. And now I'd like to ask the new appointees to come up and make some statements, beginning with the next Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman. [At this point, Secretary of Labor-designate Alexis Herman, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development-designate Andrew Cuomo, Secretary of Energy-designate Federico Pena, Secretary of Transportation-designate Rodney Slater, Small Business Administrator-designate Aida Alvarez, Council of Economic Advisers Chair Janet Yellen, Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy Bruce Reed, and Special Envoy to the President and the Secretary of State for Latin America Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty each made brief remarks.]”