TRANSITION WATCH

MENTIONINGS: Late news on the job front: . . . C. Everett Koop, surgeon general under former President Ronald Reagan, is being mentioned as an AIDS czar. So is Dr. David A. Kessler, current head of the Food and Drug Administration. . . . Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund who is close to Hillary Clinton, has been touted for secretary of Health and Human Services. But she is said to want only a spot on the Supreme Court. Asked to comment, a spokeswoman says only that Edelman does not want a Cabinet post. . . . Word is that Time Magazine editor-at-large Strobe Talbott, a Rhodes scholar with Bill Clinton, would not accept ambassador to Moscow, despite rumors, but would take secretary of state or national security adviser. Wife Brooke Shearer is likely as top aide to Hillary. . . . Sen. David H. Pryor (D-Ark.), Clinton’s best friend in the Senate, is being talked about as agriculture secretary. . . . Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan, another Clinton friend, is an Interior prospect. And Former Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt, president of the League of Conservation Voters, is possible for Interior or Energy.

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DENR READY? The Energy and Education departments sprang to life under Jimmy Carter, the Veterans Affairs department under George Bush. Now, Clinton may seek a Department of Environment and Natural Resources, wrapping in the Environmental Protection Agency with major parts of the Interior Department. . . . Interior’s National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management would go into the new DENR, along with the Forest Service, now a part of Agriculture. Interior’s Minerals Management Service would move to the Energy Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs would join Health and Human Services. Interior itself would be no more. . . . Analysis: rational. Outlook: a congressional donnybrook.

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STICKER SHOCK: Little Rock, Ark., aides who plan to move with Clinton to Washington had better take a deep breath. A four-bedroom house that goes for $180,000 in fashionable west Little Rock goes for about $600,000 in Washington’s Foxhall Village and between $450,000 and $500,000 in suburban Bethesda, Md., and McLean, Va. So says Runzheimer International, a management consulting firm, which also pegs annual living costs at $22,000 more in Washington than Little Rock for a homeowner earning $100,000. . . . “I imagine most people will end up buying condos or renting until they adjust to the prices,” says realtor Dyan Dobbyn of Alexandria, Va.

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SAX APPEAL: The nation appears headed for an outbreak of tootling, inspired by the President-elect’s fondness for the tenor saxophone. . . . Ever since Clinton donned a pair of shades and wailed a version of “Heartbreak Hotel” on Arsenio Hall’s TV show, music stores have noticed something new. “In the last week, four adults came in to rent a saxophone and take lessons,” said Andrew Mason, a salesman at Foxes Music Works in Falls Church, Va. “We definitely see a Clinton connection.” . . . Then there is the Saxophone Club, a fund-raising group dreamed up by the Democratic National Committee to draw in younger members. More than 1,000 have paid $250 to get briefings from Clinton aides, discount tickets to the inaugural ball and an inch-long Gold Saxophone Pin.