Biden nominates Buttigieg for transportation post
WASHINGTON » Presidentelect Joe Biden said Tuesday that he is nominating his former rival Pete Buttigieg as secretary of transportation. He also intends to choose former Michigan
Gov. Jennifer Granholm as his energy secretary, according to four people familiar with the plans.
Buttigieg would be the first openly gay person confirmed by the Senate to a Cabinet post. At 38, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would also add a youthful dynamic to an incoming administration that is so far dominated in large part by leaders with decades of Washington experience.
Biden said in a statement that Buttigieg was a “patriot and a problemsolver who speaks to the best of who we are as a nation.”
“I am nominating him for Secretary of Transportation because this position stands at the nexus of so many of the interlocking challenges and opportunities ahead of us,” Biden said, “Jobs, infrastructure, equity, and climate all come together at the DOT, the site of some of our most ambitious plans to build back better.”
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.”
Her intended nomination was confirmed by two people who were familiar with her selection. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly before the presidentelect’s announcement.
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 defense and former Fed Chair Janet Yellen as his treasury secretary. He’s also picked former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role in the Biden administration, and Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge to serve as housing secretary.
Buttigieg became a leading figure in national politics when he was among those who challenged Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination this year. Initially written off as the leader of a relatively small town competing against far more established figures, Buttigieg zeroed in on a message of generational change to finish the firstin- the- nation Iowa caucuses in a virtual tie with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
His campaign stumbled, however, in appealing to Black voters who play a critical role in Democratic politics.