If the Obama administration decides to help boost the economy by investing in infrastructure and alternatives to fossil fuel, this cabinet post will increase in importance. Among those being mentioned for the head job:

• Valerie Jarrett, longtime Obama friend and adviser and one of three co-chairs of his transition project. Before joining the campaign, Jarrett was the chair of the Chicago Transit Authority for ten years ending in 2005, and served as commissioner of the Chicago Department of Planning and Development before that.
• Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, often mentioned as a possible for energy secretary has also signaled that he’s interested in transportation. Since he helped deliver Pennsylvania, he’s likely to get serious consideration.
• Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, who also helped bring in a key state and was on Obama’s short list for vice president.
• Rep James Oberstar, a Democrat from Minnesota, who is also chairman of the House committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
• Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who headed Obama’s Oregon Campaign, and has long had an interest in infrastructure and mass transit. A fan of biking to work, he’s reputed never to have applied for a Capitol parking permit.
• Jane Garvey, a former Federal Aviation Administration official during the Clinton administration, she has also served as deputy administrator of the Federal Highway Administration, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Works, and director of Logan Airport in Boston. 
• Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who was on Obama's short list for vice president, has been mentioned as a possible contender for a number of Cabinet spots, including energy. As governor, she required all state agencies to develop "green teams" to encourage recycling and waste reduction, prevented the construction of coal-fired power plants and has actively promoted wind energy.
  

Penny Pritzker, business executive, philanthropist and Obama’s record-breaking national finance chair, seems to have the inside track for the head job at Commerce. Heiress to the Hyatt fortune (Forbes lists her as the 135th richest person in the country, with an estimated net worth of $2.8 billion ), Pritzker created Classic Residence by Hyatt, the leader in luxury housing for senior citizens, and remains its chairwoman. She also cofounded and chairs The Parking Spot, which manages off-site airport parking, and chairs TransUnion, a credit reporting agency, and Pritzker Realty Group. However, Pritzker has attracted controversy because of her stewardship of the Superior Bank of Chicago, which collapsed in 2001 after expanding into the subprime mortgage business. Pritzker, who served as chair of the bank between 1991 and 1994, and continued to serve on the board of its holding company, has stressed that she stepped down seven years before the bank’s collapse and that many of the banks problems were due to accounting errors. “My family voluntarily agreed to pay the FDIC $460 million to help defray costs incurred by the government and other losses in connection with the bank’s closure,” she says in a statement posted on the Obama campaign Website. “We did this without litigation or any allegations by federal regulators of wrongdoing. I am proud of how my family responded to this situation.”

--with Richard Wolffe

By Daniel Stone

Barack Obama doesn't seem to be wasting any time filling out the ranks of his administration. Just two days after the election, Congressman Rahm Emanuel accepted Obama's offer to be the new president's chief of staff. Beltway chatter and sources close to the president-elect suggest that Obama could be close, within a few days, to naming the top of his Treasury team, with other high level posts--Defense, State, NSA--soon to follow.

But forget (for a moment) about the lofty names being floated for top cabinet posts. What about the masses of invigorated Democrats looking for lower level roles in Washington's newest administration? Well, from the campaign that promised you change comes an all-new Website that certainly changes how scores of political appointments could be made: Change.gov.

It's Obama's official and aptly-named transition Website, run by Obama's transition headquarters in Washington. The site's cattle call for jobs is only for "non-career positions," meaning political appointments that would last only as long as Obama's job does. (Longer term, civil servant vacancies still go through the government's massive HR site.

A spokesperson for Obama's transition tells NEWSWEEK that there are thousands of positions to fill, and the Internet is the most effective way to reach out to qualified people everywhere. So now, just by inputting some basic information (name, contact and current place of employment), you can be considered to join the ranks of the Obama administration...until, and if, you get called back for a full application and round of interviews. Apparently, just because it's the Internet doesn't make the process easier. No one will divulge how the early applications will be reviewed, or how many have been received.

Whether this approach proves good or bad for making good selections is anyone's guess, but Obama's quest for change is certainly apparent in his new way of sifting out good people. And if it doesn't work, at least the domain name makes clear his intention.

Will Obama be harnessing star power for his energy department? When asked in December 2007  which Republicans he’d consider for a possible bipartisan cabinet, Obama specifically mentioned  California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s green reputation.”What [he’s] doing on climate change in California is very important and significant,” Obama told the crowd assembled for a New Hampshire town meeting. “There are things I don’t agree with him on, but he’s taken leadership on a very difficult issue and we haven’t seen that kind of leadership in Washington.” And even though Schwarzenegger endorsed John McCain during the presidential race (and made fun of the "skinny" president-elect), he told a TV interviewer in July that he wouldn’t rule out joining the Obama administration to work on national energy and environmental issues. Not surprisingly, Schwarzenegger is now popping up on many people’s lists of contenders for energy secretary. Others include:

• Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who’s been successful in passing tough emission regulations as well as attracting renewable energy companies to his state. An enthusiastic backer of Hilary Clinton during the primaries, Rendell helped deliver his key state to Obama, and hasn’t been shy about mentioning the fact that he wants to be Obama’s secretary of energy or secretary of transportation. One catch: he says he doesn’t want the job until after his current term ends in 2011.
  
• Jason Grumet, Obama’s lead energy and environmental adviser, who has been with the president elect since he first arrived in Washington in 2005. Prior to that, he was the head of the National Commission on Energy Policy and the Bipartisan Policy Center.