Obama’s Cabinet takes shape

INTERIOR
Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar was named to head the Department of the Interior. Salazar is expected to face questioning from the Senate about his view of land use and mining on federal lands. Some environmental groups have questioned his appointment.  (Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images)

TRANSPORTATION
Ray LaHood’s selection as Transportation secretary fulfills a pledge Obama made to name a Republican to his Cabinet. LaHood should have an easy time clearing the Senate despite some questions about infrastructure needs.  (Seth Perlman / Associated Press)

ENERGY
Obama named Nobel Prize-winning physicist and California professor Steven Chu as his Energy secretary.

Chu was confronted by questions about coal usage in his appearance Jan. 13 before the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee. Chu, who has strong environmental credentials and often calls global warming a key problem, once called coal “my worst nightmare” because of its emissions. But coal is a major U.S, resource, and its use is not likely to end soon. In his hearing, he came out strongly in favor of clean coal technology, which seemed to satisfy the committee.

The son of Chinese immigrants, Chu won the Nobel Prize for “development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.”  (John G. Mabanglo / AFP/Getty Images)

DEFENSE
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been asked to stay on.  (Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

HOMELAND SECURITY
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is the nominee for secretary of Homeland Security. Napolitano could face questions in the Senate about immigration and border issues, always contentious topics, and security, another issue that often raises red flags because of concerns about government power and individual rights.  (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

JUSTICE
Eric H. Holder Jr., who was the first black deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, is Barack Obama’s nominee for attorney general.

Holder is expected to face questions in the Senate about his role in investigating pardons issued by the Clinton administration, particularly the one granted to fugitive financier Marc Rich.  (Alex Wong / Getty Images)

STATE
Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has been nominated to be secretary of state. Clinton was questioned in the Senate on Jan. 13 about former President Bill Clinton’s foundation and the possible appearance of conflicts of interest in donations by foreign governments that might be seeking to curry favor with the new secretary of State. She insisted there would be no problem. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton have already agreed to more transparency on donations.  (AFP/Getty Images)

VETERANS AFFAIRS
Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki was tapped to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary. He’s a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.

Shinseki was scheduled to testify Jan. 14 on his appointment to head the Veterans Administration. Though he was forced out of the Bush administration because of a dispute over the number of American troops needed to keep the peace in Iraq, there is no ill will against him in the Senate. His platform of cleaning up the VA’s health system and making the agency more responsive to veterans will likely go over well.  (Ralf-Finn Hestoft / Getty Images)

HOUSING
Shaun Donovan, New York City’s housing commissioner, is Obama’s pick to head the Housing and Urban Development Department. The Harvard-educated architect kept foreclosures to a minimum in New York’s low- and moderate-income home ownership plan.

In a friendly Jan. 13 Senate hearing, Donovan, formerly New York City’s housing chief, was encouraged to be an aggressive secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The collapse of the housing and mortgage market was one of the causes of the current economic turmoil. HUD oversees the Federal Housing Agency, and senators told Donovan that he faced a big job.  (AFP/Getty Images)