Trade official nominated to be next OMB director

President Bush on Tuesday said he will nominate the top trade official to lead the Office of Management and Budget.

Rob Portman has been the U.S. trade representative for nearly a year and previously served more than a decade in Congress, where he held influential positions on the House Budget and Ways and Means committees. If confirmed, he would replace Joshua Bolten as OMB director.

Bolten left OMB last week to take over for Andrew Card as Bush's top aide at the White House. Clay Johnson, regularly OMB's deputy director for management, is acting as director until the Senate approves a permanent chief.

The director position is a "really important post," Bush said in his Tuesday morning announcement. The OMB leader is responsible for meeting the administration's goal of halving the budget deficit by 2009, Bush said.

"And he is responsible for managing federal programs efficiently," Bush continued. "The American people deserve results for every hard-earned tax dollar they send to Washington." In the 11 months he served as the trade representative, Portman opened new markets to American exports, ensured fair treatment of U.S. farmers and producers and secured the American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement, Bush stated. He also cited Portman's legislative achievements, including his work on 1998 reforms at the Internal Revenue Service.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents 90,000 IRS employees, worked with Portman during the IRS restructuring, said Colleen Kelley, the union's president. But NTEU since has disagreed with him on other legislative issues, including his involvement in the creation of the Homeland Security Department, she said.

"We made known our differences at that time, and since then, through our determined and thus far successful legal actions against the department's regressive personnel rules," Kelley said in a statement. A three-judge panel earlier this month heard arguments in the latest of those legal actions -- an appeal where both the union and the department challenged unfavorable aspects of an August ruling rendering the labor relations portion of DHS' personnel overhaul illegal.

Kelley said despite these differences, NTEU is prepared to work with Portman on issues "of concern to the federal workforce," should he be confirmed.

In comments following Bush's announcement, Portman agreed that the OMB director position is a "big job" and said he is up to the challenge. In reference to the management side of the post, he praised Johnson's leadership "in improving government performance."

Johnson is the key OMB official overseeing the President's Management Agenda, Bush's plan for making government more efficient. The agenda has five main items: human capital reform, the opening of federal jobs classified as commercial in nature to bids from contractors, improved financial management, implementation of e-government projects and the incorporation of information on program performance into budget decisions.

But Jonathan Breul, a senior fellow at the IBM Center for the Business of Government in Washington, said Portman's work on the IRS restructuring signals that he would not shy away from management issues. Portman formed a bipartisan commission to shape the overhaul legislation, Breul said, showing he is "clearly not just somebody who gets involved around the edges."

"It's rare that Congress has the time and so forth to dig into these matters with the care [the commission] did," Breul said. "They got into considerable detail."

At the same time, the Management Agenda is in good hands under Johnson's leadership, leaving Portman time he could need to focus on patching relationships with the Hill, Breul said. The House left for recess two weeks ago without approving a budget blueprint for fiscal 2007, and even if members are able to agree on a plan when they return from the break, they will likely have difficulty finding common ground with the Senate.

Donald Kettl, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government, described Portman as "an established pro." He is "someone who brings the administration much-needed leverage on Capitol Hill and someone with the experience to build congressional support," Kettl said. "When he was on the Hill, Portman had a wonkish side, which will put him in good stead in OMB."

Kettl said that with Treasury Secretary John Snow in a weak position, the roles of OMB and the Treasury Department in reining in spending could be in flux.

Steven Katz, formerly counsel to the then-Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, said that if confirmed, Portman should focus on a small set of issues where real achievements are feasible in the limited time remaining in Bush's second term.

Gary Bass, executive director of Washington-based OMB Watch, said sunset commissions to review federal programs and the line-item veto might be issues on which Portman could make a mark. Both have been proposed in the past, but sunset commission proposals have languished in Congress, while the Supreme Court ruled the line-item veto unconstitutional shortly after then-president Clinton won its use in 1997.

Bass suggested that battles within the Republican party could force serious discussion on those issues, creating a window of opportunity for the OMB chief to advance them even as party battles will make the job of shepherding the president's budget priorities through Congress more difficult.

"He's going to be thrown into the fire right away," Bass said. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will share jurisdiction over the nomination with the Senate Budget Committee, said a date has yet to be set for Portman's confirmation hearing. "Ambassador Portman is a great choice for this position," Collins said in a statement. "As a former congressman, he understands the federal budget. And perhaps more importantly, he understands the inner workings of Congress."