LA Deputy Mayor DC-Bound for Obama Cabinet

Nancy Sutley, the Deputy Mayor for Energy and Environment for the City of Los Angeles, is expected to be appointed by President-elect Barack Obama to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

According to an online biography, Sutley is on the Board of Directors for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and has served on the California State Water Resources Control Board. Under Governor Gray Davis, Sutley served as the Energy Advisor, and "during President Clinton’s administration, Ms. Sutley was a Senior Policy Advisor to the Regional Administrator for EPA, Region 9 in San Francisco and a Special Assistant to the Administrator at the Federal EPA in Washington, DC."

Sutley is also known in the political arena as being openly gay, and, according to the Advocate, news of her appointment "comes at a time when gay Democrats have been beginning to express concerns over the absence of LGBT representation in President-elect Obama's senior-level appointees." She supported Obama's chief rival Hillary Clinton during the Democratic primary, and was part of her Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender steering committee. Clinton has since been named Secretary of State in the Obama cabinet; Obama is expected to name his "choices for interior secretary, energy secretary and environmental protection agency chief within weeks if not days," abc7.com is reporting.