Obama Announces 3 Cabinet Nominations

Mr. Obama introduced Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the president of the Walmart Foundation in Arkansas and a familiar figure in the Democratic administration from her service in the Clinton administration, to be the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Ernest J. Moniz, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Energy Initiative, is the president’s choice to take over for Steven Chu at the Energy Department. And Gina McCarthy, the assistant administrator in charge of air and radiation at the Environmental Protection Agency, is the pick to replace the departing administrator, Lisa P. Jackson. All three positions are subject to Senate confirmation.

Ms. McCarthy most likely faces the greatest scrutiny given Republicans’ opposition to Mr. Obama’s environmental and climate policies.

“I hope the Senate will confirm them as soon as possible,” Mr. Obama said as he introduced the three nominees and thanked the current holders of the cabinet posts in the East Room, which was packed with family, friends and administration staff members.

Mr. Obama described Dr. Moniz as “another brilliant scientist” to succeed Dr. Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, at the Energy Department. And for the E.P.A., the president said Ms. McCarthy was well suited with her experience as a state environmental official in both Massachusetts — for former Gov. Mitt Romney — and Connecticut. She has “a reputation as a straight-shooter” who “welcomes different points of view,” he added.

Together, Ms. McCarthy and Dr. Moniz are “going to be making sure that we’re investing in American energy, that we’re doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we’re going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity in the first place,” Mr. Obama said, implicitly addressing the criticism, especially from Republicans, that environmental policies inhibit the economy.

The applause that greeted Ms. Burwell as the budget nominee reflected how familiar she remains, having served President Bill Clinton at the budget office, where she was the deputy director, as well as at the Treasury Department and in the White House. In that time, she worked closely with Jacob J. Lew, now Mr. Obama’s Treasury secretary, who recommended Ms. Burwell for the budget director’s job, which he held for both Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama. Since then, Ms. Burwell has lived far from Washington, first in Washington State during her time leading global development programs for the Gates Foundation and then in Bentonville, Ark., Walmart’s headquarters.

Mr. Obama used his announcement of Ms. Burwell’s nomination to once more address the across-the-board cuts to military and domestic spending, known as sequestration, that took effect on Friday, after he and Congressional Republicans failed to agree on a more deliberate set of deficit reduction actions.

She and the acting budget director, Jeffrey D. Zients, “will do everything in their power to blunt the impact of these cuts on businesses and middle-class families,” the president said. “But eventually a lot of people are going to feel some pain. That’s why we’ve got to keep on working to reduce our deficit in a balanced way.”

Mr. Obama also hinted that he would find another post in his administration for Mr. Zients, a former business executive, who is well respected within the White House. He has been mentioned as a possible nominee to be Mr. Obama’s trade representative or commerce secretary — two of the last cabinet posts that Mr. Obama must fill to complete his second-term team.

“I expect he will continue to serve us well in the future,” Mr. Obama said.

Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 4, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled in some references the surname of the president’s pick to lead the Energy Department. He is Ernest J. Moniz, not Muniz.