Despite a thin mandate and a deadlocked Congress, incoming President George W. Bush is likely to make significant changes in shaping the federal government's role over California's land resources. In particular, his provocative selection of former Colorado Attorney General Gail Norton as Interior secretary is likely to create a major shift in the way the federal government approaches management of federal lands in California – and may also signal a shift in the way the Endangered Species Act is administered. Norton was by far the most conservative selection for the five key Cabinet posts dealing with planning and development issues. His selections for Agriculture, Housing & Urban Development, Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency all appear to be moderates who are unlikely to dramatically alter the direction of federal policy. Two are Californians – Agriculture secretary Anne Veneman and Transportation secretary-designate Norm Mineta, the only Democrat in the Cabinet – suggesting that Bush has placed a high priority on courting California constituencies during his first term. New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman is a high-profile choice for EPA administrator, while HUD secretary-designate Mel Martinez is a local politician from Florida who is close to the new president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. None of the nominees to the five relevant Cabinet posts are white males. Three are women, one is a Cuban-American and the other is a Japanese-American. However, it is probably more relevant to break down the nominees a different way – by discussing the natural resource agencies (Interior and Agriculture), the urban development agencies (HUD and Transportation), and the regulatory agency that straddles urban and resource issues (EPA). Stacked up this way, it appears that the Bush Administration is likely to make a major break from the Clinton Administration only in natural resource issues – and even then the moderate Veneman may serve as a damper on the more conservative Norton. Interior and Agriculture Bush nominated two Western women to the key Cabinet positions on natural resources, but there the similarity appears to end. Norton worked in the Interior Department in the Reagan Administration but has spent most of the last 20 years in state politics in Colorado, serving as the state's attorney general from 1990 to 1998. Veneman, a lawyer who grew up in a Central Valley farming family, worked in the Agriculture Department during both the Reagan Administration and the first Bush Administration, rising to deputy secretary. More recently, she served as director of the California Department of Food & Agriculture under Republican Gov. Pete Wilson. Major environmental groups have launched a high-profile attempt to block Senate confirmation of Norton, claiming she is a disciple of James Watt, the Reagan Administration Interior secretary who favored aggressive exploitation of natural resources on federal land and thus served as the environmental movement's favorite "bad boy." There is no question that Norton is closely allied with the "Wise Use" movement and would represent a major shift in Interior Department policy from her predecessor, Bruce Babbitt. However, she also has a reputation as a smart and capable public official; her fellow attorneys general from both parties selected her to be one of the key negotiators in the multibillion-dollar settlement with tobacco companies. In eight years as Clinton's Interior secretary, Babbitt pursued a steady conservation agenda, moving much more Western land into federal protection and altering federal policy to restrict economic use of federal lands. He also defended the Endangered Species Act against congressional attack with considerable success – largely by shepherding the Natural Communities Conservation Planning effort in Southern California as an alternative method of protecting species while also permitting development. The Endangered Species Act was not amended by Congress during Babbitt's secretaryship. Norton will likely pursue a much different course – in large part because of a different philosophy about the Interior Department on the part of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, formerly a congressman from Wyoming. Both Bush and Cheney have been oil executives who favor expanded economic use of federal land. As Colorado attorney general, Norton steadfastly defended states' rights and the rights of property owners. Indeed, the most damaging evidence the environmentalists have dug up on her was a speech in which she said the nation "gave up too much" in terms of states' rights during the Civil War. However, she has distanced herself from the evangelical Watt, for whom she worked at the Mountain States Legal Foundation more than twenty years ago. "A person we worked for 20 years ago does not determine who we are now," she told the Denver Post. "I have a very different style. I work on a bipartisan basis." Indeed, Norton has not criticized the goal of environmental protection. Rather, she has argued in favor of "free-market environmentalism" and states rights. In 1998, she proposed changes to the National Environmental Policy Act to give states and local governments more power. In Colorado, Norton became known for implementing a voluntary self-audit system for corporations seeking to comply with environmental regulations. She also served as chair of the Coalition of Republican Environmental Activists, a group that sought to reclaim the environmental issue from the Democrats. The biggest question for California is whether Norton will hold firm on Babbitt's conservation planning approach to the Endangered Species Act. With a Congress almost evenly split, it is unlikely that the law will be amended any time soon. However, in administrative terms Norton could encourage conservation planning on terms that are more friendly to developers and landowners. It is also likely that, on her watch, the Interior Department will not have friendly relations with the California Resources Agency. During Babbitt's term, his office worked closely with moderate conservationists in both the Wilson and the Davis administrations. At Agriculture, Veneman will likely have a major influence on California – not only because California is the largest farm state but also because she will control the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees how land is used in the state's vast national forests. Both timber production and resort development were severely curtailed in the Clinton Administration. Similarly, Veneman will likely help the Bush Administration figure out how to handle the Bay-Delta water problem, which could affect agricultural land in California. For the last two years, Veneman has been a lawyer with Nossaman Guthner Knox & Elliott, a major California law firm active in endangered species, land use, and water work. HUD and Transportation In picking his Cabinet officers to run the two major urban development departments, Bush went in opposite directions – selecting a well-known, inside-the-Beltway veteran for one slot and a virtually unknown local politician from Florida for the other. However, both appear to come with a strong understanding of the role the federal government plays in shaping urban growth. At the Department of Transportation, Norm Mineta is likely to advocate a continued move toward the reform policies instituted by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, ISTEA, and continued with TEA-21. As a Democratic congressman from San Jose and chair of the House Transportation Committee in 1991, Mineta played a key role in pushing ISTEA through the House. The two key provisions of ISTEA and TEA-21 are giving regional transportation agencies more power (by taking it away from state transportation departments) and allowing the regional agencies more flexibility in determining how to use federal funding (permitting them to shift some highway money to public transit, for example). The state highway departments and other highway lobbyists have fought hard – but unsuccessfully so far – to reverse this change in policy direction. When TEA-21 comes up for reauthorization later this year, all these issues will undoubtedly bubble to the surface again. While it might seem that a Bush Administration would be more hospitable to highway spending, it is worth noting that the original ISTEA was signed by Bush's father, who accepted the bill in the fall of 1991 – just as a recession was coming on – and promoted it as a "jobs bill". It may be that Mineta will be able to help ISTEA's defenders hold on to the policy reforms this year. It is less clear whether Martinez will continue – or reverse – the reforms made in public housing and community development by his predecessors in the Clinton Administration, Henry Cisneros and Andrew Cuomo. Cisneros reformed public housing with the HOPE VI program, which promoted replacement of high-rise public housing with low-rise, mixed-income projects. More recently, Cuomo had been promoting the "New Markets" idea, which held that American business should focus on inner-city areas because they are underserved markets. Martinez, a Cuban immigrant, was a surprise choice for HUD; most observers had expected Bush to pick Steven Goldschmidt, the moderate Republican mayor of Indianapolis. Martinez has relatively little public experience, having served as chairman of the Orange County Housing Authority in Orlando, Florida, during the 1980s and then one term as chairman of the Orange County board. Martinez caused some ruckus last year when he took a hard line against developers in Orange County, demanding full school mitigation for new residential projects and opposing two developments on that basis. However, he also chaired Jeb Bush's recent Growth Management Study Commission, which recommended a weakening of the state's growth management law. In particular, the commission called for reforming the state's "Development of Regional Impact" process, giving more power to local governments in reviewing projects that may have cross-jurisdictional impacts. Environmental Protection Agency Gov. Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey was widely hailed as the best-known politician ever to take the EPA Administrator job. (Her predecessor, Carole Browner, was a relatively unknown Gore staff member who had been an environmental official in Florida.) Environmentalists generally accepted her appointment – especially compared to the selection of Norton as Interior secretary – but it is unclear how much she will change course from the Clinton Administration. Some environmental groups criticized Whitman for cutting environmental regulation programs in New Jersey and a few argued that she would be a friend of corporate polluters. However, as New Jersey's governor, Whitman strongly supported both brownfields redevelopment (which Bush advocated in his campaign) and open-space preservation. Whitman successfully promoted a statewide goal to set aside 40% of New Jersey's land in permanent open space and passed a $1 billion bond issue for land acquisition. She even committed some state bond money to purchase land in New York State to protect New Jersey's watershed. During the Clinton Administration, EPA gained a reputation as an aggressive promoter not only of brownfields redevelopment but also of "Smart Growth;" the agency coordinated a national network of Smart Growth activists, which was sometimes criticized by conservatives as a "cabal." It is unclear whether Whitman will retain or dismantle the Smart Growth program