Donald L. Evans Commerce Department Established: 1913 2003 Budget: $5.1 billion Full-time Employees: 38,900 Evans's salary: $171,900 Web Site: www.doc.gov Overall Grade: A- Back To Overview And Other Cabinet Grades

National Journal
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Friday, Jan. 24, 2003

He is a man of limited reach and steady focus. Where others might see a world of complexity and ambiguity, Donald L. Evans sees simple truths and straightforward choices about right and wrong. He is, in other words, very much like the president he serves as secretary of Commerce.

And as with George W. Bush, these attributes haven't been shortcomings; they have helped Evans succeed. Being Commerce secretary calls for an un-nuanced view of economic and international relations: Business is always good, and other countries are most important as potential customers. Friends say Evans, an experienced and savvy businessman, was genuinely shocked by the venality of the fellow Texans who looted Enron. After all of the corporate scandals, he is still comfortable telling foreigners that the single most important factor in America's economic success is the honesty of its business executives.

Evans hadn't worked in government before, but he has recognized that Commerce secretaries seldom succeed by fighting for turf. Instead, he has used his close friendship with the president to be a behind-the-scenes force on policy and political strategy while effectively managing the hodgepodge of functions Commerce performs.

He has picked his battles -- such as trade relief for the steel industry -- and has quietly moved to fill policy voids, making a major push to improve economic ties with Russia, for example. He has been willing to assert himself when others falter, such as in his round-the-clock effort to nail down House votes for presidential trade-promotion authority. And his hands-off management style and his commitment to finding excellent deputies have earned him strong support from career workers at Commerce.

Inside Influence Grade: A
If there's one thing most people know about Donald Evans, it is that he is one of President Bush's oldest and closest friends.

Although they are the same age, it has been Bush who has looked up to Evans for most of the time since they met in 1975 as young men on the rise in the Oil Patch town of Midland, Texas. While Evans rose steadily from roughneck to chief executive of Tom Brown Inc., a major oil-field service company, Bush was struggling as a businessman. Around the time that Evans was rescuing Brown from an industry downturn, he was also helping Bush confront substance abuse, an experience that deepened their friendship.

Along with political adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney, Evans is one of Bush's closest and most trusted advisers, though his role is far less formal and almost invisible. The Commerce secretary is involved in economic policy-making decisions to a much greater extent than any of his recent predecessors. Evans played a key role in the decision to fire Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill and in the search for his successor. His official and social relations with the president sometimes mix, often keeping him at Bush's elbow. On his first Fourth of July as president, Bush hosted family and friends on the White House's Truman Balcony, and Evans was the only Cabinet member there.

Evans is self-effacing when asked whether his relationship with the president adds to his stature and influence. "I hope that as people see how I conduct myself and manage and deal with other people, they say, 'Well, this is the kind of individual that the president surrounds himself with.'" But he isn't coy when asked about his pull with people like Rove and White House policy czar Josh Bolten. Evans stepped in when the administration's effort to pass trade authority last year was languishing, "and clearly they listened to what I had to say during that period," he said.

If some think Evans lacks gravitas, there is no indication that Bush would agree. During Bush's rise, Evans has always played an important and behind-the-scenes role, and his job at a second-tier department such as Commerce suits this low-profile approach. If Bush had nominated Evans to succeed Paul O'Neill as Treasury secretary, the president might have lost his confidant to the limelight and the big responsibilities that accompany the Treasury post. "I don't think the president wanted to lose Don," said James Langdon, an old friend of Evans's and an energy lawyer in Washington.

Commerce seldom gets into turf battles, because it rarely takes a leadership role on controversial issues. But in cases where Evans has gone up against other powerful secretaries, he's done well. Early in the administration, a dispute arose over the military's wireless frequencies, which Commerce wanted to sell to the telecommunications industry. Pentagon officials tried to divert the move, and Evans was pitted against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Evans won that face-off.

Hill Clout Grade: B
Evans is generally well liked by lawmakers key to Commerce's activities, though some consider him a lightweight. He is careful to tend to the many Commerce-related constituencies in Congress, such as the perennially beleaguered textile industry, for which Commerce maintains a system of import quotas.

A test for any Commerce secretary is withstanding the long-winded lectures of Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., who was chairman of the Commerce Committee for most of the last two years. The polite and patient Evans has kept his cool and stayed on Hollings's good side. Democratic aides said that lawmakers are sometimes irritated that Evans's loose management style means he has few of the answers when he is called to testify, but they say he has been good about ensuring that his subordinates follow up. Evans has effectively defended Commerce's relatively small budget, which reached $5.1 billion in fiscal 2003.

Political Imperatives Grade: A
Most Commerce secretaries are experienced political fundraisers and are well placed to maintain contacts with the business executives who are the main source of campaign cash. As manager of the 2000 Bush presidential campaign, Evans raised a record $100 million, and he is expected to play a similar role in 2004. In the meantime, he is positioned to manage Bush's relations with this indispensable constituency, and he effectively projects the president's belief that business is central to the nation's well-being. Paul O'Neill was supposed to be an important emissary to business, but as he struggled, Evans filled the void. He speaks, acts, and looks like a CEO.

Because Commerce has its fingers in several policy areas, Evans has been able to use his influence to head off political problems for Bush. The president inherited a crisis in the steel industry and had to respond early in his term to a request for import protection, a proposal that clashed with Bush's free-trade principles. Free-marketeers in the administration were balking, but Evans spearheaded an effort to deliver the protection and buy some goodwill with steelmakers and steel workers. Although the import relief was reduced later, Evans's efforts helped win votes for trade-promotion authority and helped boost Bush's popularity in steel states, such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Evans says he will step up his domestic travel on behalf of the president in 2003. If he is not tapped again to run the campaign, he will remain one of Bush's most important political assets in the Cabinet.

Running The Department Grade: A
The Commerce Department is a famously disparate collection of government agencies, concocted in its current form in 1970, when President Nixon awarded the functions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to Commerce in order to punish Interior Secretary Walter Hickel for speaking out against the Vietnam War.

Commerce enforces some trade laws, but it defers to the trade representative's office in negotiations. It shares responsibility for controlling military-related exports with other agencies, and it has a telecommunications agency and a minority-business agency that take backseats to the Federal Communications Commission and the Small Business Administration.

Managing these different kingdoms smoothly is an important part of a Commerce secretary's job, and Evans has excelled at it. Like Bush, he manages by delegation, and says, "The most important job I have around here is selecting the people who are going to be part of this team."

Although Commerce has frequently been a dumping ground for lackluster political employees, Evans has done very well at surrounding himself with highly respected aides. Deputy Secretary Samuel Bodman, a former CEO and engineering professor whom Evans calls "my chief operations officer," has the expertise to handle the science at NOAA and other technology-related agencies. Trade Undersecretary Grant Aldonas was a respected Senate staffer and a leader of the presidential transition team who was actively courted by other Cabinet secretaries. Vice Adm. Conrad Launtenbacher gets high marks for managing NOAA.

By getting good assistants and giving them independence, Evans has raised morale at Commerce among career employees who know that their work and their decisions will not be unaccountably second-guessed in the secretary's office. Some of the highest praise comes from former Clinton administration appointees at Commerce. Everett Ehrlich, former head of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, said Evans has supported a costly overhaul, launched under Clinton, of the government's methods for calculating economic growth.

Despite Evans's background as an oilman, former NOAA Administrator James Baker says the secretary fought hard to get a more forward-looking policy on global warming early in the administration. And he continues to use the expertise and research resources of NOAA to inch the administration toward a policy that could recapture U.S. leadership on global warming. "I'm convinced that Evans wants to do more than just avoid this issue," as others in the administration want to, the former Clinton appointee said. NOAA employees are involved with an issue of international urgency and believe that their work is being taken seriously, Baker said.

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