Confirmation Hearings For Obama's Cabinet Begin Thursday; Hillary Expected To Breeze Through

January 8, 2009 7:17 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The Senate will begin hearings to confirm President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet appointees on Wednesday. It will begin with the nomination of former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services.

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions led by its chair, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), will hold a hearing on 10:00 am ET on Daschle's appointment. Daschle, who served as national co-chair of the Obama campaign, called for the creation of an independent agency modeled after the Federal Reserve that will oversee the nation's healthcare system, in a book published last year entitled, ""Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis."

Kennedy's panel will consider the credentials of Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Labor secretary. The 51-year-old congresswoman won her bid for a fifth term in November. She served the Office of Hispanic Affairs under the Carter administration and in the California state Senate before being elected to the U.S. House in 2000.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who has yet to officially resign from the Senate, will face the Foreign Relations Committee and its chair, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), next Tuesday. The former first lady's nomination as the third woman secretary of State is not expected to face opposition.

The same day, hearings will be held for physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Chu as Energy secretary, Chicago Schools Chief Arne Duncan as Education secretary, and former New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection chief Lisa Jackson, as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Congressional Budget Office director Peter Orszag will sit before senators about his nomination as head of the Office of Management of Budget.

After Clinton, much of the attention will be devoted to Eric Holder, Obama's choice for attorney general. The Judiciary Committee holds his hearing next Thursday at 9:30 am ET.

Holder's confirmation hearing was originally scheduled to start this wek, the same day as Daschle's. But Republican concerns about his approval of the controversial presidential pardon of fugitive and Democratic contributor Marc Rich eight years ago had forced committee chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to delay his hearing.

As deputy attorney general, Holder approved former President Bill Clinton's 2001 pardon of Rich, a commodities trader convicted of 65 counts of tax evasion and illegal arms deals with Iran during the hostage crisis.

The 57-year-old Holder, who was one of three members of Obama's vice presidential search committee and the president-elect's former campaign legal adviser, has repeatedly expressed regret over his participation in the pardon.

He told a House panel in 2001, "It is now clear, and this is admittedly hindsight, that we, at the Justice Department, and more importantly, former President Clinton, the American public, in the cause of justice, would have been better served if the case had been handled through the normal channels."

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), the ranking minority member of the Judiciary panel, is said to have pushed for the postponement of Holder's hearing.

Leahy had issued a statement last month saying, "It is disappointing to me that [Republicans] are insisting that we delay at a time when the nation needs its top law enforcement officer and national security team in place and working. I trust that with this additional time to prepare, they will cooperate in proceeding promptly to Committee and Senate consideration of the historic Holder nomination as Democrats did for President Bush."

Other confirmation hearings will be held next Thursday for New York Federal Reserve Bank president Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security, former Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar as Interior Secretary, and Susan Rice as ambassador to the U.N.

No dates have been announced for other appointees. Much awaited is the hearing for Leon Pannetta as CIA director.

The recent appointment of Panetta, who was chief of staff to former President Bill Clinton, has triggered a firestorm of criticisms, including from Democrats, that he is not qualified for the post. Obama has had to defend his choice and apologize to the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), for failing to consult her about the nomination.