一年多来，当该机构在对抗新冠肺炎的战斗中处于核心地位时，食品药品监督管理局一直没有一个固定的负责人。一旦乔·拜登总统提名罗伯特·卡里夫博士领导该机构，参议院就花了三个月的时间来确认他。

围绕加州提名的政治斗争凸显了拜登在填补整个政府关键职位时面临的困难。

行政部门高级职位的空缺可能会拖累拜登抗击疫情、实施1万亿美元的两党基础设施法以及在通胀水平处于40年高点的情况下提振经济的能力。

“没有领导和专家，我们看到各部门越来越紧张，”负责任的联邦预算两党委员会主席玛雅·麦克吉尼斯说。“拨款很难完成，有人在谈论债务上限违约，”她说，并补充说，空缺的职位会影响政府的财政状况和总统的整体议程。

致力于提高政府效率的非营利组织公共服务伙伴关系(Partnership for Public Service)指出，政府中有70个高级职位没有确定的提名人，包括卫生与公众服务部(Department of Health and Human Services)、财政部和交通部。

白宫指责共和党在严重分裂的参议院陷入僵局，但也没有提交许多空缺职位的提名。

白宫表示，拜登政府已经提名了569人，其中302人已经确认，247人正在等待确认。这是需要参议院确认的1200个文职职位中的一个。

根据公共服务合作组织的数据，在拜登的第一年，参议院确认了41%的提名。相比之下，乔治·w·布什的提名人中有75%在第一年得到确认，而巴拉克·奥巴马为69%，唐纳德·特朗普为57%。

该组织呼吁减少参议院确认的提名人数，称审查和披露要求越来越复杂，参议院确认过程的延迟随着每次过渡而增加。

“如果它能更快发生，会不会更好?是的，”前财政部长杰克·卢说。"理想情况下，确认过程应该是精简的。"但他补充说，这些重要职位需要有问责制，并有一个程序来询问被提名者他们将如何做好工作。

卢在被奥巴马提名后不到两个月就获得了参议院的批准。

这些空缺对拜登的一些政策重点意味着什么:

制定财政政策

在财政部，至少有五个参议院确认的职位空缺，包括负责国际事务的副部长和美国财政部长

一个没有国际事务负责人的财政部将让秘书珍妮特·耶伦(Janet Yellen)领导实施全球公司税协议的希望变得越来越困难。

卢告诉美联社，让参议院确认的具有先前决策和政府经验的人担任工作人员至少会填补空缺。

他说:“如果你看看财政部团队，从最高层开始，有在决策方面有丰富经验的部长和副部长。"你有很多职业天赋，这使得转变更加顺利."

他说，填补空缺席位的关键是“让国会程序更好地运转。”

抗击疫情

在卫生与公众服务部，两个主要的科学机构仍然没有参议院确认的永久领导，而此时政府正在努力与疫情沟通，该国可能会重新开放。

其中一个机构是食品和药物管理局。Califf的提名在参议院停滞了几个月，部分原因是他为制药公司提供咨询服务，并被指控未能有效监管令人上瘾的阿片类药物。上周，他勉强获得了这一职位，此前他曾在奥巴马手下短暂任职。

国家卫生研究院也缺少一名主任，尽管预算不确定性是目前更大的问题，研究的顶级政策专家Ellie Dehoney说!美国，一个非盈利组织，倡导国家在健康和医学研究。

“他们受到限制，因为他们在旧的预算下，他们不能很容易地推出新的项目，”她说。

尽管如此，员工士气保持稳定。“我们在NIH周围听到的是留下来的愿望，特别是看穿这个疫情，”Dehoney说。

实施基础设施计划

在运输部，联邦公路管理局和联邦汽车运输安全管理局的代理负责人已经到位，这是处于促进道路安全前沿的三个机构中的两个，尽管该部推出了一项新的国家战略，以阻止交通事故死亡人数的创纪录增长。第三个机构是国家公路交通安全管理局(National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)，在一个委员会于2月2日批准提名后，该机构正在等待参议院对拜登提名的史蒂文·克利夫(Steven Cliff)的全面确认。

该部门还缺少管道危险材料安全管理局局长的提名人，在斯蒂芬·迪克森于3月31日卸任后，联邦航空管理局局长也将很快出现空缺。

在公路局，前马萨诸塞州州交通部长斯蒂芬妮·波拉克(Stephanie Pollack)是执行拜登新基础设施法条款的关键人物，比如帮助向各州发布关于使用数十亿美元高速公路资金的指导意见，以及分配竞争性拨款以促进交通安全。

在监管卡车运输业的汽车运输代理处，在Meera Joshi离开到纽约市长Eric Adams的政府任职后，拜登失去了他选择的管理员。该部门最近将其负责安全政策的副助理部长罗宾·哈奇森调任为该机构的代理行政长官。

代表州安全办公室的州长公路安全协会的执行董事乔纳森·阿德金斯对代理负责人有效完成工作的能力表示担忧。

他说，代理领导人身边的工作人员通常较少，也不太公开露面。目前，美国汽车运输代理机构有许多拟议的卡车安全法规尚未完成，也正在努力改变以缓解美国供应链的拥堵。与此同时，公路局站在最前沿，敦促各州和地方改变道路设计和限速，以帮助减少死亡人数。

探索枪支管制

在其总统任期的早期，拜登提名大卫·奇普曼领导酒精，烟草，枪支和爆炸物管理局，但这位前ATF特工和枪支控制倡导者在参议院面临反对，并被视为政府最有争议的提名人之一。提名被撤回了。

撤军延续了共和党和民主党政府的模式，自2006年得到确认以来，这一立场在政治上令人担忧。自那以后，只有一位提名人，前美国司法部长b·托德·琼斯得到了确认。琼斯在2013年通过了参议院，但只是经过了六个月的斗争。2013年1月，奥巴马提名琼斯为代理局长。

特朗普对警察兄弟会前主席查克·坎特伯雷(Chuck Canterbury)的提名在2020年被撤回，原因是共和党人担心他的枪支权利立场。

“我们在这里的集体观点是，阻止一名完全合格、经验丰富的前ATF特工担任这一角色肯定是共和党人没有必要采取的措施，但我们在这里，”白宫新闻秘书珍·帕萨基说。她没有责怪民主党人，他们也表示不会投票给他。“所以，我们必须提名一个新人。当总统找到合适的人选时，我相信他会做好准备的。”

负责任的联邦预算委员会的麦克吉尼斯说,“治理失败”是提名过程缓慢的原因。

她说:“有些人因为争议太大而不能被提名，或者白宫知道他们会被搁置。”。“我们现在的组织方式非常低效，国会高度两极分化。”

Biden agency vacancies to drag on White House priorities

WASHINGTON -- For more than a year, the Food and Drug Administration lacked a permanent head when the agency was central in the battle against COVID-19. Once President Joe Biden nominated Dr. Robert Califf to head the agency, it took the Senate three months to confirm him.

The political battles over Califf’s nomination highlight the difficulties that Biden faces in filling key positions throughout his administration.

The vacancies in high-ranking positions across the executive branch could put a drag on Biden’s ability to fight the pandemic, implement the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law and boost the economy with inflation levels at a 40-year high.

“Without leadership and experts, we've seen departments increasingly stressed,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. “There is a struggle to get appropriations done, there is talk about defaulting on the debt ceiling,” she said, adding that unfilled jobs affect the government's fiscal position and the president's overall agenda.

The nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which works to make government more effective, points to 70 high-ranking positions across the government without a confirmed nominee, including at the Department of Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department and the Transportation Department.

The White House blames gridlock from Republicans in a sharply divided Senate, but it also has not submitted nominations for many of the open positions.

The White House says the Biden administration has nominated 569 people, of whom 302 have been confirmed and 247 are waiting to go through the confirmation process. That's out of 1,200 civilian positions requiring Senate confirmation.

In Biden’s first year, the Senate confirmed 41% of his nominations, according to the Partnership for Public Service. In comparison, 75% of George W. Bush’s nominees were confirmed in his first year, compared with 69% for Barack Obama and 57% for Donald Trump.

The group is calling for a reduction in the number of Senate-confirmed nominees, stating that vetting and disclosure requirements are increasingly complex, and delays in the Senate confirmation process grow with each transition.

“Would it be better if it could happen faster? Yes," said former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. “Ideally the confirmation process would be streamlined." But he added that there needs to be accountability for these important positions and a process for questioning nominees about how they would do the job.

Lew was confirmed by the Senate less than two months after he was nominated by Obama.

What the vacancies mean for some of Biden's policy priorities:

CREATING FISCAL POLICY

At the Treasury Department, at least five Senate-confirmed positions are unfilled, including the undersecretary for international affairs and treasurer of the U.S.

A Treasury Department without an international affairs head will make Secretary Janet Yellen’s hope to lead the implementation of a global corporate taxation agreement increasingly difficult.

Lew told The Associated Press that having Senate-confirmed people with prior policymaking and government experience on staff will at least fill in the gaps where vacancies exist.

“If you look at the Treasury team, starting at the very top, you have the secretary and and deputy secretary with deep experience in policymaking," he said. "You’ve got a lot of career talent, which makes transitions go more smoothly.”

The key to filling empty seats, he said, "is getting the congressional process to work better.”

FIGHTING THE PANDEMIC

At the Department of Health and Human Services, two major science agencies remain without permanent Senate-confirmed leadership at a time as the administration struggles with its communications on the pandemic and the country might be reopening.

One of the agencies is the FDA. Califf's nomination had stalled for months in the Senate in part due to his consulting work for pharmaceutical companies and allegations that he had failed to effectively regulate addictive opioids. He was narrowly confirmed last week to the post, which he had held briefly under Obama.

The National Institutes of Health is also missing a director, although budget uncertainty is currently a bigger concern, said Ellie Dehoney a top policy expert with Research!America, a nonprofit that advocates for national spending onhealthand medical research.

“They are constrained because they are under an old budget and they can’t launch new programs very easily,” she said.

Staff morale remains steady nonetheless. “What we have heard around NIH is a desire to stay and particularly to see through this pandemic,” Dehoney said.

IMPLEMENTING INFRASTRUCTURE PLANS

At the Transportation Department, acting heads are in place at the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, two of the three agencies at the forefront of promoting roadway safety, even as the department launches a new national strategy to stave off record increases in traffic fatalities. The third agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is awaiting full Senate confirmation of Steven Cliff, Biden’s pick to head the agency, after a committee approved the nomination Feb. 2.

The department also lacks a nominee for head of the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and will soon have a vacancy as well for head of the Federal Aviation Administration after Stephen Dickson steps down on March 31.

At the highway agency, deputy administrator Stephanie Pollack, a former state transportation secretary in Massachusetts, is key in implementing provisions of Biden’s new infrastructure law, such as helping to issue guidance to states on use of billions in highway money and distribute competitive grants to promote traffic safety.

At the motor carrier agency, which regulates the trucking industry, Biden lost his pick for administrator after Meera Joshi left to take a post in New York Mayor Eric Adams’ administration. The department recently shifted its deputy assistant secretary for safety policy, Robin Hutcheson, to serve as the agency's acting administrator.

Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state safety offices, expressed concern about the ability of the acting heads to effectively get work done.

Acting leaders typically have fewer staff around them and tend to be less publicly visible, he said. Currently the motor carrier agency has a number of proposed truck safety regulations yet to complete and is also working on changes to ease congestion in the U.S. supply chain. The highway agency, meanwhile, stands at the forefront of prodding states and localities to embrace changes to road design and speed limits to help curtail deaths.

EXPLORING GUN CONTROL

Early in his presidency, Biden nominated David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but the former ATF agent and gun control advocate faced opposition in the Senate and was seen as one of the administration’s most contentious nominees. The nomination was withdrawn.

The withdrawal continued a pattern for both Republican and Democratic administrations with the politically fraught position since it was made confirmable in 2006. Since then, only one nominee, former U.S. Attorney B. Todd Jones, has been confirmed. Jones made it through the Senate in 2013 but only after a six-month struggle. Jones was acting director when Obama nominated him in January 2013.

Trump's nomination of Chuck Canterbury, a former president of the Fraternal Order of Police, was withdrawn in 2020 over Republican concerns about his gun rights stance.

“Our collective view here is that the blocking of a fully qualified, experienced former ATF agent from serving in that role certainly is something Republicans didn’t have to take the step to do, but here we are,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. She did not blame Democrats, who also said they would not vote for him. “So, we have to nominate a new person. And when the president finds the right person, I’m sure he’ll be prepared to do that.”

MacGuineas, of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said a “failure to govern” is to blame for the slowed nomination process.

“People have been nominated who are too controversial to be nominated, or the White House knows they’re going to be held up,” she said. “The way we are organized right now is highly inefficient with Congress highly polarized."