Transition Roundup: Biden Announces Health Team; Transition Challenges at the Pentagon 

President-elect Joe Biden announced several members of his health team on Monday morning. He nominated Xavier Becerra, California attorney general, to be Health and Human Services Department secretary, and Dr. Vivek Murthy, surgeon general under the Obama administration, to be surgeon general again. 

Additionally, he appointed Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chief of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director; Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, leading expert on health care disparities, as COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair; Dr. Anthony Fauci as chief medical adviser (in addition to his current role as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases); Jeff Zients, co-chair of the transition team and a former top official from the Obama administration, as coordinator of the COVID-19 response and counselor to the president; and Natalie Quillian, former Pentagon and White House senior adviser, as deputy coordinator of the COVID-19 response.

Here are some of the other recent headlines from over the weekend and today that you might have missed. 

Despite the guidance HHS has issued to states and the Defense Department’s planned operation for delivery, planning for coronavirus vaccine distribution is still lacking, which will be a challenge for the Biden administration, NBC News reported on Friday. “For example, the federal government is still trying to fine-tune a system to track critical medical supplies, like syringes, and to facilitate regular communication between administrators and providers,” said the report. Also, “Operation Warp Speed is using the Tiberius platform, loaded with data from the census, state and federal health agencies and the CDC, to integrate data related to manufacturing, clinical trials, supply chain and other logistics. But [it] doesn't integrate a diverse patchwork of state and local IT systems, along with multiple other federal systems that should all be communicating.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he is willing to meet with the Biden transition team, despite not publicly acknowledging Biden as the winner of the election yet. However, it was not clear when the meeting would happen, CNN reported on Friday.

President Trump’s nominee to be a top Pentagon official retweeted many tweets about election conspiracy theories, such as that Biden’s victory was a “coup” and suggestions that Trump should declare martial law, CNN reported on Friday. Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot, was nominated last month to be assistant secretary for international security affairs.

Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist who was recently appointed as Pentagon chief-of-staff, is blocking some officials from working with the Biden team, putting a “political spin” on some briefing documents, and making political appointees take over the work that career officials typically do, NBC reported on Saturday. 

The Pentagon’s intelligence agencies will begin meeting with the Biden team on Monday after what some deemed an “impasse that undermined the transfer of control,” The Washington Post reported on Saturday. 

In addition to firing nine members of the Defense Department’s business advisory board and replacing them with Trump loyalists on Friday, the White House liaison for the Pentagon also prevented the publication of the board’s transition recommendations for the Biden team, according to a story Monday in Politico, which obtained a copy of the report. 

Breaking with long-standing precedent, the Trump administration is rushing to make major policy and staffing changes during its last few weeks. For example, “officials are rushing to auction off drilling rights in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, slash U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, implement new rules to limit drug prices and create a new personnel category for civil servants in policymaking roles that would strip them of most job protections,” The Washington Post reported on Sunday. “The Office of Management and Budget also is speeding up work on an unusually detailed new fiscal 2022 budget with Trump’s priorities intact, particularly at the Defense Department.”

Top members of the House Natural Resources Committee demanded answers from the Interior Department about its rush to a lease sale in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before Inauguration Day. In a letter on Monday, they asked how the department can move forward “when it would be cutting short a comment period and requiring bids to be finalized sooner than the minimum time required under Bureau of Land Management regulations,” said the committee’s press release. “The Coastal Plain lease sale, like many other rushed and poorly justified Trump administration actions, is open to swift reversal should it face a court challenge.” 

Neera Tanden, Biden’s pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget, spent nine years in charge of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, which is backed by foreign and corporate interests. Now this is “drawing scrutiny from some progressives and advocates for accountability in government,” although such ties “are not unique among Washington think tanks,” The Washington Post reported on Saturday. 

The Democratic Party is divided on how the Biden administration should manage the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, E&E News reported on Friday. While progressives overall want Biden to “restrict” OIRA’s power because “cost-benefit analyses [are] a giveaway to corporate America,” moderates think the reviews should be redone “to lessen their boon for industry and increase public health benefits for Americans,” said the report. They also differ on who they think should lead the office. 

Biden said on Friday, “It's highly unlikely there will be a million people on the [National] Mall” for his inauguration, due to the pandemic, and “my guess is there will not be a gigantic inaugural parade,” Vice reported. 

Today’s GovExec Daily podcast episode is about how government and public health officials can build the public's trust in a coronavirus vaccine. 

Help us understand the situation better. Are you a federal employee, contractor or military member with information, concerns, etc. about how your agency is handling the transition? Email us at newstips@govexec.com.