Rendell rules out serving Obama in Transportation post

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) is taking himself out of the running to replace departing Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. 

Rendell is among a long list of rumored candidates who are being mentioned as potential replacements for LaHood, who announced his retirement earlier this week. 

But Rendell told a newspaper in his home state that he doubted he would be Obama’s pick for the DOT job.

{mosads}”The president would not be interested,” Rendell said in an interview this week with the Allentown Morning Call.

“I’d be too critical of the lack of transportation funding,” Rendell continued. “I want to continue influencing this from the outside.”

Rendell is thought to be a possible contender for the DOT post in part because he co-founded an infrastructure investment advocacy group called Building America’s Future after he left office in 2011.

He is one of the few rumored contenders who is as outspoken as LaHood, but Rendell told the Morning Call his talkativeness could hurt his chances of replacing the outgoing transportation secretary.

“He’s not going to come to me,” Rendell said of Obama. “I’m a little too much of a free spirit to be in anyone’s Cabinet.”

Rendell told the paper that LaHood is “an icon to those of us who believe it is important to work across party lines for the good of our country.”

LaHood was a Republican House member from Illinois for 14 years before he accepted Obama’s offer to run the transportation department in 2009.

White House officials have been quiet about candidates in the running to replace LaHood, but lawmakers have begun making their opinions known.

Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.) said on Wednesday that he thought LaHood should be replaced by National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chairwoman Deborah Hersman.

“Debbie Hersman … has experience to be terrific @USDOT Secretary,” Rockefeller tweeted Wednesday, adding that Hersman “will make safety and investment in infrastructure priorities” if she is tapped by Obama for the DOT post.

Rockefeller’s counterpart on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), has made similar comments about another rumored transportation secretary contender, Los Angels Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

“I think he’d be terrific at it,” Boxer told reporters prior to LaHood’s announcement of his retirement.

“No one has asked my opinion, but I think he would make a very fine secretary of Transportation,” Boxer said of the mayor of the largest city in her home state.