There’s been a lot of news about Obama appointees this week:

• Mike Dunford at The Questionable Authority is furious about the secret holds placed on the nominations of John Holdren (for Science Advisor) and Jane Lubchenco (to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and urges readers to “raise more hell over this issue.”
• Maggie Mahar at Health Beat reports on Sanjay Gupta’s withdrawal of his name for the Surgeon General position.
• Kathleen Reeves at RH Reality Check explains how Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s new pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, is a “pro-pregnancy nominee.”
• Jonathan Cohn at The Treatment has the early word on Nancy Ann Min DeParle, who Obama has chosen to be White House Healthcare Advisor. (In another post, Cohn tells the story of how DeParle arranged for family leave when she was last a presidential appointee – something that was harder than it should’ve been.)
• Deron Lovaas at NRDC’s Switchboard considers the nomination of Roy Keinitz as Undersecretary for Policy at the Department of Transportation to show that the administration’s serious about transforming transportation policy.

Elsewhere:

Matt Madia at The Fine Print brings us good news about Obama’s intention to reverse Bush’s regulation weakening the Endangered Species Act.

Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check reports on how Senators Coburn, Wicker, and DeMint are trying to remove family planning language from the omnibus spending bill – in short, by lying about the provisions they dislike.

Ken Ward Jr. at Coal Tattoo follows up on the huge coal-ash spill that happened in Tennessee in December, noting that several Senators want to mandate that EPA act quickly to regulate this dangerous coal-burning byproduct.

Maggie Mahar at Health Beat provides details about Richard Scott, a wealthy healthcare executive who’s already started advertising against national efforts to reform healthcare.

Linda Bergthold at Health Affairs Blog explores the tactics that threatened the survival of the comparative-effectiveness research component of the stimulus bill, and considers the lessons that health reformers should take away from that battle.

Robert McClure at Dateline Earth gives us something else to worry about: we’re running out of dirt.

Christine Gorman at Global Health Report chronicles the evolution of the Wikipedia entry on global health.