Senate confirms Ferriero to be next Archivist

The Senate pushed through a series of pending nominations including David Ferriero to be the next Archivist of the United States.

Ferriero will be the 10th Archivist of the country.

He had been the Andrew W. Mellon Director of the New York Public Libraries.

President Obama nominated him July 28 to replace Allen Weinstein, who resigned in December because of health reasons. Deputy Archivist Adrienne Thomas had been serving as the acting Archivist in the interim.

Along with Ferriero, the Senate on Nov. 5 confirmed several other nominees, including the Susan Tsui Grundmann to be chairwoman of the Merit Systems Protection Board, Elizabeth Robinson to be chief financial officer at NASA, and Patrick Gallagher to be director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Earlier this week, the Senate also confirmed Tara Jeanne O'Toole to be the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for Science and Technology.

One name conspicuously missing from the list of confirmed political appointees is Martha Johnson, the nominee to be the administrator of the General Services Administration.

Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) continues to hold her nomination because he is upset over GSA's decision not to build a courthouse in Kansas City.

Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Bond got into a debate on the Senate floor in late October about the hold.

"Today, that person has still not been confirmed. President Obama nominated this woman in April on the first full day of the Major League Baseball season," Reid said Oct. 29. "Today, on the second day of the World Series, she remains unconfirmed for her job. Why? Because a Republican Senator is demanding that a Federal building be built in his home state."

Bond replied to Reid's criticism.

"Obviously, I am that Senator. I thank the good Senator from Nevada for raising that question because I and a bipartisan group of members of Congress and the leaders of the Kansas City area have been working with the GSA for the past several weeks to resolve the concerns I have and get some questions answered on a project very important to the Kansas City community," Bond said later that day.

"Our conversations have amazingly become very productive, and the GSA has assured me they will have information to share very shortly. Unfortunately, until I put this hold on the nominee, progress was not quite so quick. But I expect the issue to be resolved shortly, in what I hope is a matter of a couple days, to the benefit of the GSA and certainly to the benefit of the Kansas City greater community."

Bond also said that it was Reid, who first initiated the hold on Johnson.

"The Commissioner of Public Buildings has assured me that the existing facility is not a fit place for the workers to work," he said. "So I had asked and inquired of GSA and advised them that Kansas City needs to know what the plans are. As I say, our bipartisan congressional delegation is now receiving great cooperation, and we are working hard to get this resolved. We hope to do that shortly."

---
On the Web:

Senate -- Civilian nominations confirmed

FederalNewsRadio -- Archives officials grilled on the Hill over missing data drives

NARA -- Press release announcing new Archivist

(Copyright 2009 by FederalNewsRadio.com. All Rights Reserved.)