Slater Confirmed, 98-0, as Secretary of Transportation
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WASHINGTON — Federal Highway Administrator Rodney Slater, an Arkansas friend of President Clinton, won Senate confirmation as secretary of Transportation on Thursday. The vote was 98 to 0.
Slater worked as executive assistant to Clinton in 1983-87, when Clinton was governor of Arkansas. From 1987 to 1993, Slater was a member, and then chairman, of the Arkansas State Highway Commission.
Clinton brought him to Washington as the federal highway administrator in 1993.
A graduate of Eastern Michigan University and the University of Arkansas School of Law, Slater succeeds Federico Pena, Clinton’s choice to be Energy secretary.
As Transportation secretary, he will face such issues as an increase in highway fatalities, disputes among states about the distribution of federal highway funds and negotiations over renewal of a massive multiyear highway-spending bill.
Among other second-term Cabinet posts, the Senate has already confirmed Madeleine Albright for State, William S. Cohen for Defense, Andrew Cuomo for Housing and Urban Development and Bill Daley for Commerce.
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