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Transit security needs to be a priority, Napolitano says

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama's pick to oversee Homeland Security told senators yesterday that the department needed to focus on transportation security and securing biological and chemical facilities in the private sector.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama's pick to oversee Homeland Security told senators yesterday that the department needed to focus on transportation security and securing biological and chemical facilities in the private sector.

Aviation security has improved since the 2001 attacks, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said, but more must be done to secure transit systems and other modes of ground transportation.

Napolitano, 51, made the remarks during her confirmation hearing. Senate committees also heard yesterday from Sen. Ken Salazar (D., Colo.), President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for interior secretary, and Susan Rice, tapped to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Napolitano, testifying before the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, defended her work on homeland security issues in Arizona and pledged to revisit REAL ID, a costly program to enhance the security of driver's licenses. The program has been unpopular among many states, including Arizona, because of the costs associated with upgrading licenses.

Responding to questions about her record on homeland security issues in Arizona, Napolitano took issue with an Associated Press report that said she fell short of her goals.

The AP cited information from Arizona's homeland security director and other officials acknowledging that at least four of Napolitano's 10 homeland security proposals had not been completed in the six years since she announced the plan. She said eight of the 10 proposals had been "fully effectuated."

Napolitano said she would focus on areas that other departments were less engaged in - transportation security being one. "Let's go where the gaps are," she said.

Salazar, 53, told the Energy and Natural Resources Committee he would help wean the United States off foreign oil as head of the Interior Department. He said he would seek to expand renewable energy on public lands and promote the "wise use" of traditional energy sources, he testified.

Interior manages 500 million acres of public lands, protects wildlife and endangered species, and oversees development of energy resources. Salazar said he would work "to make sure that we get energy independence . . . and we really set America free."

In a prepared statement, he said that would entail expanding solar and wind on public and tribal lands and updating the electricity grid. But, he added, "we must also make wise use of our conventional natural resources, including coal, oil and natural gas."

Salazar, who in the Senate helped broker a deal to expand offshore oil production, said that while it was appropriate in some areas, "there may be other places that are off limits."

During a hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee, Rice, the nominee for U.N. envoy, said she would work to strengthen "an indispensable if imperfect" institution.

Rice, 44, who served in the Clinton administration as assistant secretary of state for Africa, said she realized that many Americans were deeply frustrated by the United Nations. But terrorism, genocide, poverty, nuclear weapons, climate change and disease are "global challenges that no single nation can defeat alone," she said.

"They require common action, based on a common purpose," she said.

U.S. officials and lawmakers have called for changes at the United Nations and have leveled allegations of corruption and mismanagement. Many around the world believe that the Bush administration lacked a strong commitment to working with other countries and that U.S. power as the world's richest nation and a veto-wielding member of the Security Council has been disproportionate.

Rice is expected to be confirmed to the U.N. post.