Vice President Biden arrives in the Capitol with Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew to meet with Senate leaders on the budget.

Gen. David Petraeus

Jennifer Granholm

Former Governor of Michigan

Michelle Obama listens to the national anthem at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

Michelle Obama speaks alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on childhood obesity and steps that families, schools, and communities can take to fight it.

Michelle Obama greets children during her visit to a school in Mexico City on April 14, 2010.

One of Copenhagen’s biggest handicaps was the expectation that it would be a final climate treaty. When the parties failed to deliver, the political agreement that was achieved was labeled a failure.

Jerry Brown (D)

California Governor

President Obama

While the Republican freshmen members disagree within their own caucus over which specific programs need to be cut, they agree that the government should reduce its role substantially in areas ranging from environmental regulations and education to public broadcasting and the arts. They feel that their credibility is on the line. -NYT

Lawrence H. Summers

Teacher, Harvard Kennedy School

A controversial genius, Summers has long been considered a top U.S. economic brain. As the head of the National Economic Council (NEC), Summers exercised maximum sway over U.S. economic policy as the top White House economic adviser during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Paul Volcker

Former Chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board

http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Paul_Volcker

Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.)

U.S. Senator

Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee

The Enviromental Protection Agency released a plan Wednesday that would reduce emissions of mercury and other toxins from coal-burning power plants, drawing praise from health officials and condemnation from some industry representatives and lawmakers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/epa-proposes-first-ever-emissions-standards-for-power-plants/2011/03/16/ABWy7Mh_story.html

Susan E. Rice

Ambassador to the United Nations

Gary Locke

U.S. Ambassador to China

Re: Guns in National Parks and Wildlife Refuges

"People go to national parks, in fact, to get away from those kinds of pressures and those kinds of aggravations," Wade says. "So now, legislation of this kind would intend to make it just a little bit more like every place else in the country — and less special."

 In a stinging defeat for gun-control, the U.S. Congress has voted to allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.

"The NRA is basically taking over the House and Senate," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., a leading gun-control supporter. "If the NRA wins, the American people are going to be the ones who lose."

Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)

U.S. Senator

Michael Steele

Former Republican National Committee chairman

Jim Messina

Manager, 2012 Obama Presidential Campaign

Messina left soon afterwards, in January 2011, to assume the post of campaign manager of Obama's 2012 reelection effort. The 2012 campaign will be managed from Chicago, the first such modern reelection effort to be housed outside of Washington, D.C. The White House political operation, which Messina supervised, closed with his Washington departure and was moved to the Democratic National Committee to avoid communications and personnel problems.

Adm. Michael Mullen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Robert Gates

Secretary of Defense

Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.)

U.S. Senator

Scott P. Brown (R-Mass.)

U.S. Senator

Moving on a central tenet of the Republican energy and environment platform, a House committee on Tuesday approved a measure to halt the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed program to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Republican leaders promised a floor vote on the bill before the Easter recess.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, by a vote of 34 to 19. Three Democrats, Representatives John Barrow of Georgia, Jim Matheson of Utah and Mike Ross of Arkansas, voted with the unanimous Republican majority.

President Obama has promised to veto any measure to limit E.P.A. authority. -NYT

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/us/politics/16epa.html?ref=politics

Ben Bernanke

Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Vincent C. Gray (D)

Washington, D.C. Mayor


http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Vincent_C._Gray

Haley Barbour (R)

Governor of Mississippi

Mike Pence (R-Ind.)

U.S. Representative

Re: President Obama

Instead, he emphasized his belief that the Constitution guarantees individuals’ right to bear arms and boasted that “my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners — it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.”

Representative John Kline ,the chairman of the House education committee, said in a statement Monday that “the president’s remarks affirm the importance of fixing the nation’s broken education system. As we develop targeted, fiscally responsible reforms, the Committee on Education and the Workforce continues to work with school officials and state and local leaders to learn about the tools they need to prepare students for the future. We need to take the time to get this right – we cannot allow an arbitrary timeline to undermine quality reforms that encourage innovation, flexibility, and parental involvement.” -NYT

Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)

U.S. Representative

http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Anthony_Weiner

Weiner has served in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade, but for much of that time he has set his sights on one goal: New York’s City Hall. The Democratic congressman ran an energetic but failed bid for mayor in 2005, and was planning a second run in 2009. But popular incumbent Michael Bloomberg succeeded in overturning the city’s two-term limit, leading Weiner not to make the race. Bloomberg went on to win reelection in November 2009.

Members of Congress joined President Obama in pledging U.S. support to aid Japan after the devastating earthquake that has triggered tsunami warnings in Hawaii.

Surrounded by her grandchildren and children of other U.S. House members, California Democrat Nancy Pelosi is sworn in as the first female speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon waves before addressing a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. Behind him is Vice President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Tom Daschle

Policy Adviser, DLA Piper

http://www.dlapiper.com/tom_daschle/

Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.)

U.S. Senator

Reid became the most powerful man in the Senate after Democrats won the upper chamber's majority in 2006. And it looks like he'll stay that way as he not only beat back a 2010 challenge from national tea-party star Sharron Angle (R), but managed to remain atop a slimmer, but still present Democratic Senate majority in a divided Washington after the GOP won control of the House in the 2010 midterms.

Ken Salazar

Secretary of Interior


http://www.doi.gov/index.cfm

Steven Chu

Secretary of Energy

It was Chu's work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, where he became director in 2004, that has earned him national stature. There, he has sought to make the lab, with its 4,000 employees and $650 million budget, a leader in carbon-neutral energy research. The lab is owned by the Energy Department (DOE).

As both the director of the lab and a professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at UC – Berkeley, Chu has focused on global warming and the need for carbon-neutral, renewable energy sources, which he calls "the greatest challenge facing science." Under his direction, the DOE lab began focusing on advancing biofuels, artificial photosynthesis, and other solar energy research. He's also been outspoken on the need to improve energy efficiency.

House Tea Party Caucus

Chair Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/politics/22tea.html

Re: Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
Chairman of the House Budget Committee

"If you want to be honest with the fiscal problem and the debt, it really is a health care problem," he said Thursday. "If you look at the future of our debt, it primarily comes from our health care entitlements. We have to reform those if we are going to get this debt crisis under control."

Republicans have sought to blame Obama's policies for the high gas prices, saying he should be allowing more offshore drilling, though experts say more domestic production wouldn't immediately impact prices. Obama rejected that criticism Friday.

President Obama officially nominated Commerce Secretary Gary Locke as the next U.S. ambassador to China

Austan Goolsbee

Chairman, White House Council of Economic Advisers


http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Austan_Goolsbee

NPR executive Vivian Schiller resigns

Schiller, in an interview this morning, called NPR "an incredible news organization" that she regretted leaving. She added, however, that "the organization is under tremendous amount of pressure because of the de-funding threat" from Republicans in Congress.

Tea Party

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html


"If the Tea Party runs its own candidates for U.S. House, virtually every vote the Tea Party candidate gets would be siphoned from the GOP candidate, potentially allowing the Democrats to win in districts that they might have otherwise lost," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "While the concept of an independent third party is extremely popular, most Americans, including most Tea Party supporters, don't favor a third party that would result in a winner who disagrees with them on most major issues."
-
Tea Party supporters were asked in the poll what they thought of a few notable figures. The most popular was Sarah Palin, who is viewed favorably by 66 percent of people in the movement.

-CBS

Lisa P. Jackson

EPA Administrator


http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/Lisa_P._Jackson

Re: Harold Ford

In 2006, Ford lost the closest Senate race in Tennessee’s history to Republican Bob Corker, by less than three percentage points.

John F. Kerry (D-Mass.)

U.S. Senator

Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee


http://www.whorunsgov.com/Profiles/John_F._Kerry

James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.)

House Assistant Minority Leader, 112th Congress

Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)

U.S. Representative


Former chair of the Democratic Congessional Campaign Committee

Ranking Member on the House Budget Committee

But inside or outside government, Gore will continue to shape how the public and policy-makers think about climate change. Gore first turned his attention to the issue in the late 1980s, learning about the science of greenhouse gases and traveling the world to see the early effects of a changing climate. He was a key figure in some of the earliest congressional work on climate change, and as vice president attempted to lead the country on limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

The former vice president’s work on climate change also won him a Nobel Peace Prize in October 2007, which he shared with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the intergovernmental scientific body established by the United Nations.

When the 112th Congress convened in January some of the first bills out of the box were specifically targeted at EPA and some of the specific clean air safeguards that the agency is scheduled to announce later this year – commonsense reductions of carbon pollution, mercury and other toxic air pollution. This week, Chairman Upton introduced a bill to undercut the EPA’s ability to do its job, after slashing the EPA’s budget last week – all the while keeping billions of dollars in tax breaks and loopholes for the biggest oil companies.

Kent Conrad (D-N.D.)

U.S. Senator


Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee

In January 2011, Conrad announced he would not seek reelection in 2012.

John Cornyn (R-Texas)

U.S. Senator


Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee