WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- Last-minute appointments by U.S. President George Bush, which in past presidencies have been controversial, aren't raising concerns this time, analysts say.
Even though some of those named to various boards, commissions and other posts will last well into the presidency of Bush's Democratic successor, President-elect Barack Obama, most of the appointees don't seem to be highly partisan, the New York Times reported Sunday.
Bush nominated six people for four-year terms on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, charged with scientifically evaluating U.S. Department of Energy plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but the picks were "apolitical," one of the people reappointed to the panel, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Andrew Kadak, told the Times. "Whoever is president, we are indifferent to that -- we are attempting to see that the work that the D.O.E. is doing is technically correct and appropriate."
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, has moved to keep the Senate technically in session during the holidays to block any moves by Bush to use "recess appointments" to install controversial choices -- a tactic used by both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the newspaper said.
