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There is an old saying in Washington, D.C., that personnel is
policy. It is common sense: whoever is in charge of a federal
agency or subagency will impart his or her own particular policy
preferences on the agency's priorities, resource allocation,
and regulatory agenda. In the current hyper-partisan political
environment, where the U.S. Congress has ceded much of the federal
policymaking apparatus to the federal agencies, this old saying is
even more appropriate. The situation is more complicated, however,
when talking about agencies that are helmed by bipartisan boards or