Bush Chooses Former Utah Governor to Head Department of Health and Human Services

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By Mark Sherman
The Associated Press
Monday, December 13, 2004; 10:52 AM
Washington Post.com

President Bush chose Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Leavitt on Monday to be secretary of Health and Human Services, filling one of the last two openings in his second-term Cabinet.

Bush praised Leavitt as a "fine executive" and "a man of great compassion." "He's an ideal choice to lead one of the largest departments of the United States government."

Leavitt, Utah's governor before joining the Bush administration in late 2003, would succeed Tommy Thompson, who recently resigned.

Bush also has to name a new head of the Homeland Security Department to take the place of Bernard Kerik, who abruptly withdrew his nomination Friday night, citing immigration problems with a family housekeeper.

Leavitt, 53, thanked Bush for showing confidence in him. "I feel a real sense of understandable regret" about leaving the EPA, he said.

He said the department of Health and Human Services plays a vital part in the lives of every American.

"I look forward ... to the implementation of the Medicare prescription drug program in 2006, medical liability reform and finding ways to reduce the cost of health care," Leavitt said. "I am persuaded that we can use technology and innovation to meet our most noble aspirations and not compromise our other values that we hold so dear."

The HHS secretary oversees Medicare and Medicaid, the mammoth government health programs for the elderly, poor and disabled, as well as the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Indian Health Service.

The agency has a budget of more than $500 billion and 67,000 employees.

Leavitt served as Utah's governor for 11 years before Bush appointed him to lead the Environmental Protection Agency last year. As a three-term governor, he chaired the National Governors Association.

As recently as last week, Dr. Mark McClellan, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, had the inside track for the HHS job, White House officials and many health care analysts said.

But McClellan is overseeing the new Medicare prescription drug law, which takes full effect in 2006, and Bush was said to have been reluctant to take McClellan from his post during this critical period.

Thompson, a former governor of Wisconsin, announced his resignation Dec. 3, using the occasion to issue a warning about the vulnerability of the nation's food supply to terrorist attack.

Leavitt, in the EPA job only a year, quickly won a reputation as a Bush loyalist. He also shares Bush's enthusiasm for technological and market-based approaches to fixing problems.

At EPA, most of Leavitt's focus has been on crafting strategies to reduce air pollution. While in Utah, he had cut several environmental deals with the Bush administration, including settling a long-standing dispute over ownership of roads across federal land. He also negotiated exchanges of state and federal land, some of them questioned by Interior Department auditors.

He also had advocated a major highway extension through wetlands and wildlife habitat near the Great Salt Lake, a project halted by the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals because of concerns about wildlife needs.

Leavitt, a father of five and devout Mormon, moved to Washington in the past year with his wife, Jacalyn, and a son in high school. Before becoming governor, he was chief operating officer of the Leavitt Group, an insurance firm.