Feds face forecast of revamped rules

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to reverse or sharply modify many of the Bush administration’s policies. Based on his campaign promises, these are some key departments where changes are expected:

State Dept.

Obama will inherit foreign policy challenges involving Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has said he would place a premium on diplomacy over the use of force to solve disputes, and he pledged to maintain a robust diplomatic corps and foreign aid programs.

Obama’s stated willingness to talk with leaders like those in Iran, Syria and North Korea may result in increased diplomatic activity in areas where the Bush administration initially resisted engagement, including dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Intelligence

Obama wants an overhaul of the human side of spying, and wants to give fixed terms to the national intelligence director’s office to buffer it from sudden changes in partisan leadership. He has expressed concerns with the size and scope of the office, created four years ago to oversee and knit together the nation’s 16 intelligence agencies. The office has grown dramatically since then.

Top officials have asked that intelligence structures —- the offices and roles now laid out in laws, after multiple post-9/11 reforms —- remain stable.

Education

Obama has pledged to overhaul President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education law. He says it emphasizes annual test scores in reading and math too heavily at the expense of subjects such as music and art and is too punitive toward struggling schools.

Yet it’s unclear how much of the law Obama would undo. His advisers include supporters as well as opponents of the law, and Obama’s campaign said he would not dump the testing requirements at the heart of No Child Left Behind.

Obama supports universal pre-kindergarten. He would help students pay for college with $4,000 tax credits in exchange for community service. However, paying for such efforts, estimated to cost $19 billion, may prove difficult.

Obama has also said he likes the controversial idea of tying teachers’ pay raises to student performance, but only if teachers negotiate the arrangement and it’s not based solely on test scores.

Transportation

Obama has consistently called for spending more on the nation’s crumbling highways, bridges and tunnels. Besides transportation spending in a proposed stimulus bill, Obama has endorsed a $60 billion National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank.

The current $286 billion highway bill expires in 2009. It’s unclear how Obama and the Congress will fund a new bill now that federal gas taxes are falling short of program obligations.

Another top priority will be passage of a bill reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration and moving forward on modernizing the nation’s air traffic system, which relies on World War II-era technology.

Defense

Obama’s promise to get U.S. troops out of Iraq in the first 16 months of his presidency helped launch his candidacy. He says he will shift forces and resources to Afghanistan.

But, overall, the Pentagon under Obama may not look much different than it does today. When and how he extricates troops from Iraq may depend on the security pact that U.S. officials negotiate with Iraqi lawmakers.

Obama has called for a responsible and phased withdrawal to bring the bulk of the troops out by mid-2010. The proposed security pact being pressed by Iraqis would have all U.S. forces out of the cities by next summer, and out of the country by the end of 2011.

For Afghanistan, Obama has said he would add about 7,000 troops to the U.S. force of 31,000. Pentagon officials are poised to more than double that increase —- saying they need 15,000 to 20,000 more troops in Afghanistan.

Justice

The Justice Department will re-examine all surveillance, interrogation and detainee policies to see whether any should be overturned or changed. Obama has said he wants to close the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, meaning he must decide whether terror suspects held there now should face military or civilian trials if they are moved to U.S. jails.

Obama advisers say he may review the department’s newly approved guidelines that could let the FBI investigate Americans in national security cases without evidence of a crime, based in part on their ethnicity or religion. He wants to create a senior position —- likely from the FBI or Homeland Security Department —- to coordinate all domestic intelligence gathering.

He has called for hiring 50,000 new police officers nationwide.

Health and Human Services

Obama wants the government to help millions of lower-income people buy health insurance through greater use of government subsidies, an approach the Bush administration has opposed.

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program expires soon, and many analysts see its reauthorization as a way for Obama to secure an easy and early victory on health care.

For adults, Obama would establish a new public insurance program as part of a National Health Issuance Exchange, which would include private insurance plans. Millions of Americans would get some federal help in paying their premiums.

The Bush administration encouraged people to leave traditional Medicare by subsidizing private insurers offering “Medicare Advantage” plans. Obama has said he would reduce payments to these Medicare insurers by about $150 billion over 10 years.

Homeland Security

Obama has said he would add more personnel, infrastructure and technology to the border regions and crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, which is what the Bush administration is doing. Obama also said he would bring the 12 million people who are currently in the country “out of the shadows,” fine them, make them pay taxes and get them to the back of the line to become U.S. citizens.

Obama must decide whether to remove the Federal Emergency Management Agency from the Homeland Security Department and restore it as an independent agency. One of his top advisers, James Lee Witt, favors such a move, but other administration priorities may come first.

Energy

The Energy Department is likely to shift its focus dramatically toward development of alternative energy, increasing support for research into cellulosic ethanol, wind turbines, solar technology and more fuel-efficient cars. The department is likely to press for tougher efficiency standards for appliances and buildings.

Obama has said he wants to spend $15 billion a year to spur alternative energy and more efficient use of energy. Economic and budgetary problems, however, may make those spending levels difficult.

Obama has said he does not oppose nuclear power but has reservations about building dozens of new reactors because of concerns about radioactive waste.