WASHINGTON – A Maine resident is being promoted to a Cabinet-level position in the Obama administration, at least for now.
President Obama said Friday that he is elevating the head of the Small Business Administration, a post filled since 2009 by Karen Mills of Brunswick.
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Mills chaired Maine’s Council on Competitiveness and the Economy under Gov. John Baldacci, a Democrat. She is married to Barry Mills, the president of Bowdoin College.
Her promotion could be wiped away by Obama’s proposal to consolidate a group of trade- and commerce-oriented federal agencies, including the Small Business Administration.
Among those who have long pushed for the SBA administrator to be elevated to Cabinet-level rank is Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
“I was an early and ardent advocate for the (Obama) administration to elevate the SBA administrator position to the Cabinet level since before President Obama took office because, given the central job-creation role small businesses play in our nation’s economy, it is absolutely essential the head of the SBA have a seat at the Cabinet table with the president,” Snowe said in a prepared statement.
Snowe didn’t comment on whether Obama’s consolidation proposal would effectively demote the head of the Small Business Administration from Cabinet-level status. But she said she “will carefully and thoroughly review this proposal that will require congressional approval as further specifics are made available.”
Also praising the decision to elevate Mills was Rep. Mike Michaud, D-2nd District, and Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District.
“The voices of our small businesses need to be heard at the highest levels,” Michaud said in a prepared statement.
“Small business is the key to economic growth here in Maine and across the country and I’m pleased to see President Obama elevating the SBA to a Cabinet-level agency,” Pingree said in a statement.
Neither Pingree nor Michaud addressed the issue of what would happen to the SBA head’s Cabinet-level rank under Obama’s consolidation plan.
MaineToday Media Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind can be contacted at 791-6280 or at:
jriskind@mainetoday.com
Twitter: Twitter.com/MaineTodayDC
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