Subject: draft transition memo for your review
From: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:14:23 -0500

Weekly Transition Memo for Senators Obama and Biden

From:    Transition Advisory Board and Staff

Date:     September 19, 2008

I.             Working Groups

We spent time on our weekly call reviewing the work of the health care,
education, and immigration working groups, which are headed up by Chris
Edley and Cassandra Butts, with assistance from Janet Napolitano on
immigration issues.  

Health care is the one area where there is the strongest sentiment on
the Hill for moving legislation quickly next year.  Working with Tom
Daschle, who is co-chairing the health care group, we will intercede
with both Senators Baucus and Wyden, who are pushing their own
proposals, and try to reduce the pressure for a new administration to
roll out a full-blown health care bill on day one.

Regarding education and immigration, the groups are working through
policy details without drafting actual legislative language or
consulting with the Hill.  The education group, for instance, is dealing
with the cost of your education policy promises and how they fit with
the broader budget framework.  Legislative action on education next year
will also be affected in large part by the reauthorization of No Child
Left Behind.  With regard to immigration, it is unclear whether
congressional leaders will have the appetite for another difficult fight
on this issue next year.

Both the education and immigration are drafting papers on strategic
policy options for completion by the end of September.  

II.            Agency Review Process

The agency review working group (headed up by Don Gips and Melody
Barnes) is initially focusing on 37 priority federal departments and
agencies.  We will be including Biden representatives on the
post-November 4 teams that will be entering different agencies, in
particular the Justice Department and the national security/foreign
policy agencies.  (On a related issue, we are ensuring that there are
Biden representatives on the national security policy team as well.)   

We have reached out to labor leaders so they know we are sufficiently
prioritizing the agencies (e.g., Department of Labor, NLRB) of greatest
interest to them.  At this point, we believe they are satisfied with our
approach to the transition.

III.           Executive Orders

We have a convened a group of attorneys headed by Todd Stern to examine
both Bush executive orders that are candidates for possible reversal and
quick administrative actions that you could take right after
Inauguration Day.  The group will also look at the procedure for
stopping last-minute rulemaking by the Bush Administration.  For
instance, one simple option is an executive order on day one that puts a
hold on all rulemaking proceedings that have not yet gone into the
Federal Register.  Another is reopening the rulemaking or using the
Congressional Review Act

IV.          Communications with the Hill

John Podesta has reached out to Senator Reid's staff about how the
transition will interact with the Hill, in particular on the
confirmation of nominees.  Reid's staff is amenable to a process by
which background checks for subcabinet members can be expedited by
moving the function from the FBI to OPM.  

In general, our strong preference is to limit the transition board's
interactions with the Hill in order to reduce confusion and to maintain
the Hill's focus on winning the election.  To the extent that we have
any interactions with the Hill, we will be working through Phil
Schiliro, who heads up the campaign's designated congressional liaison.

V.            Miscellaneous

We are meeting with Justice Department officials next week to discuss
the process for providing interim security clearances for upwards of 100
of our transition team members.  This will allow our team to enter
federal agencies, examine documents, and receive briefings starting on
November 5.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Chris Lu

[email-masked]

(312) 505-4864 (cell)