Energy Secretary Pena to Quit Clinton Cabinet

Energy Secretary Federico Pena announced Monday that he will retire in June, raising concern among some Latino groups that the Clinton administration will end its second term with no Latinos leading Cabinet-level departments.

Pena said he will leave the Energy post after less than 18 months for a private job that will give him more time with his family. The former Transportation secretary and two-term Denver mayor ruled out a return to politics.

“There is never a perfect time for a decision like this, but I believe that, after 5 1/2 years in the Clinton administration, that the time is now,” said Pena, 51, who led the Department of Transportation for all of Clinton’s first term.

Pena had prepared to leave Washington in January 1997, but he was pressured to take the Energy job when Latino leaders complained at the last moment that their Cabinet-level representation in Clinton’s second term was minimal.

Some Latino leaders said Monday that Pena’s departure would be a serious loss for a group that they believe is underrepresented in senior-level posts in the federal government, despite Latinos’ growing numbers and strong support for Clinton’s reelection.

This reduction of representation in the Cabinet “is not satisfactory, because in fact some of the departments are doing very poorly in having senior-level Latinos to begin with,” said Arturo Vargas, who chairs the Latino Hispanic Leadership Agenda, an umbrella organization of 35 groups. “The absence of a Cabinet voice will be strongly felt among the constituency.”

Marisa Demeo, of the Washington office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said her group wants Pena replaced with a qualified Latino. “With the size of our population,” she said, her group wants Latino concerns to receive full consideration.

President Clinton pledged in his first term to appoint a Cabinet that “looked like America” and has often showed himself attentive to the concerns of women and minority groups in making such decisions.

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Although his second-term Cabinet has included three blacks, four women and a Republican, it had only one Latino--Pena. In so-called “Cabinet-level posts,” which do not have the status of the 14 traditional Cabinet jobs, Clinton has two more Latinos: United Nations Ambassador Bill Richardson and Aida Alvarez, head of the Small Business Administration.

White House officials said they will undertake a thorough search for Pena’s replacement, but they made no promises on the outcome.

Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, said Clinton “will cast a wide net” in looking for a new Energy secretary. “Obviously diversity will be an important criteria, as will excellence,” he said, adding that in his view Latinos “enjoy a high degree of representation throughout the administration.”

Latino advocacy groups pressed the administration last year to put Latinos in top jobs at agencies considered key to their interests, such as the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, as well as the Justice Department, with its jurisdiction over civil rights.

But the vacancy at the Labor Department went to Alexis M. Herman, who is black.

Administration officials acknowledged that a strong candidate for the Energy job is Elizabeth A. Moler, the deputy Energy secretary, who is not Latino. A former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees gas pipelines and electric utilities, Moler was all but chosen for the Energy job in January 1997, when Pena was named to the position.

Moler, who led the administration’s effort to deregulate the electric power business, “is a very competent person. I’m sure her name will be among the names of others to be considered by the president,” Pena said Monday.

The White House “is just at square one,” said a person close to the selection process.

When he took the job last year, Pena indicated that he would serve for one to two years, officials said. They said his decision to leave in June is in part a reflection of his view that his $148,000-a-year job is insufficient to support his wife and three children.

Pena’s wife, Ellen Hart Pena, has set aside her career as a lawyer to raise the children, and is an accomplished marathon runner.

Despite the keen interest many Latino groups have in finding a Cabinet spot for a Latino, officials of some advocacy groups acknowledged that it might not happen.

Charles Kamasaki, vice president of the National Council of La Raza, said there may be fewer Cabinet openings and greater reluctance among top Latino candidates to disrupt their careers to fill out the remainder of a presidential term.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), who helped lead the fight last year to find a Latino Cabinet secretary, said that--although he would “love to see a qualified candidate” from the Latino community--he would not press the White House to fill the Energy slot in particular.

“This isn’t a game of quotas,” he said.

Pena succeeded Hazel O’Leary as secretary at a time when some Republican members of Congress questioned the department’s usefulness. Attacks on the department subsided during Pena’s tenure, although he has been key in crafting strategies to promote new technologies and energy efficiency to support the president’s controversial global warming policy.

During his time in the Cabinet, Pena was the focus of two Justice Department inquiries. No evidence of wrongdoing was found in either case. In one, the Justice Department cleared Pena of improperly intervening in a Coast Guard contract. The other case involved a contract awarded to Pena’s former law firm and federal funds used to revamp Denver’s airport.