Bill Richardson, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is moving to head the Energy Department, President Clinton said Thursday. Diplomatic troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke was tapped to take over at the mission in New York, where he already is renowned for his work negotiating the Bosnian peace accord.
In the Rose Garden, Clinton saluted Richardson in his work at the United Nations as a "vigorous and articulate proponent of our engagement around the world and the importance of leveraging that engagement by living up to our United Nations obligations.""In short, if there's one word that comes to mind when I think of Bill Richardson it really is energy - but that is hardly the only reason I am appointing him to this job," the president chuckled.
Clinton said Richardson, a 14-year former congressman from New Mexico, home to two Department of Energy labs, has firsthand experience in deregulating the oil and gas industries, promoting alternative sources of energy to ensure that energy development meets tough standards of environmental safety.
With his foreign policy team arrayed behind him, Clinton recognized Holbrooke as "already a familiar face around the globe" for his ongoing work on Bosnian peace.
Holbrooke's expertise on Indochina - dating from Vietnam in the early 1960s and later as President Jimmy Carter's assistant secretary of state for Asia - will be tested at the United Nations, which faces an economic crisis in Asia, evolving U.S.-Sino relations, and new nuclear tensions between India and Pakistan.
Holbrooke is noted for his aggressive, strong-willed style. He doggedly mediated talks leading to the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended three years of fighting in Bosnia. In a PBS interview, he once explained his hard-nosed approach to the warring factions in the former Yugoslavia: "Dealing with people who are liars and in some cases killers, dealing with people who are desperate, dealing with traditions, you just have to get very tough."
Holbrooke now will have to deal with the Serb-led crackdown in Kosovo, plus increased pressure from Russia, France and China to wrap up weapons inspections in Iraq and lift sanctions. The United States also is more than $1 billion behind in its U.N. dues.
Holbrooke, 57, one-time assistant secretary of state for European affairs, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for the Bosnia peace agreement. He has served as Clinton's envoy on many hot-button foreign policy issues, including unrest in Cyprus.
Richardson, 50, had been rumored as Clinton's nominee for the energy post for weeks, after Federico Pena announced he would step down in July to spend more time with his family. With Pena gone, Richardson becomes the administration's most high-profile Hispanic, an important Democratic constituency.
Richardson had been considering whether the energy job would help him if he runs someday for governor of New Mexico.