NASA Administrator Michael Griffin may be under fire for his alleged rude behavior toward the Obama transition team, and he's said he doesn't expect to keep his job. But Representative Bart Gordon (D–TN), the head of the congressional panel with jurisdiction over NASA, still thinks Griffin is the right man to lead the agency.
"He's bright and candid, and he'll tell you the truth, and that's a novelty around here," says Gordon, chair of the House Science and Technology Committee. Speaking this morning at a press briefing on the committee's agenda for 2009, Gordon said that he's recommended to the president-elect that Griffin, appointed in 2005, stay "at least through the transition" and that he "be considered for the job." Then he added, "If they kept him, I'd be comfortable."
Gordon was less effusive in his praise of Arden Bement, director of the U.S. National Science Foundation, which is also under the committee's jurisdiction. Although Bement and Griffin serve at the pleasure of the president, Bement also has a 6-year term that doesn't expire until November 2010. But when asked if he thought Bement should be retained, Gordon told ScienceInsider "that's up to the president-elect. It's his team."
—Jeffrey Mervis
Given Griffin's role in the Hansen debacle, would he be entirely at home in an administration that's as environmentally conscious as Obama's might be?