FRANKFORT, Ky. — A banking associate of Steve Beshear’s is the new Secretary of Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet while a veteran union member and lawmaker will head up the Labor Department and eventually be Secretary of a new Labor Cabinet.



Gov.-elect Beshear named Robert Vance, a Maysville banker, as EPPC Secretary and J.R. Gray, D-Benton, Commissioner of the Labor Department Thursday, again promising to elevate the department to cabinet level “in the next two to three months.” He also named Nikki Jackson, 37, the Director of Human Resources at Norton Suburban Hospital in Louisville, Personnel Cabinet Secretary and Marcheta L. Sparrow, 60, of Harrodsburg, Secretary of the Commerce Cabinet.



Beshear said he’s known Vance for many years and “he is a man of high moral and ethical fiber with the extensive business and management expertise necessary to run this large cabinet.” Beshear has said he expects to review the organization of the EPPC which outgoing Gov. Ernie Fletcher created to house several previous cabinet and agency level departments when he re-organized state government after this 2003 election.



He also said he expects to fulfill a campaign promise to elevate the Department of Labor to cabinet level status and Gray will then become Secretary of the new Labor Cabinet.



When Vance was asked if he held specific opinions or views about the practice of mountaintop removal, a controversial practice of blasting away the top of mountains to get at the coal underneath, he answered: “I do not.”



Afterward, he said he’s never visited a mountaintop removal site but he expects “to enforce the rules and regulations that are on the books.”



Beshear, as he did during the campaign, said mountaintop removal is an exception to normal mining regulations for which mining operations must demonstrate a “better and higher use” for the land than its original purpose. Proponents say it creates needed flat land in the mountains of eastern Kentucky for airports, recreational and industrial sites. But critics say it destroys the environment and streams and endangers lives of those living nearby.



“We need to constantly review the process and procedures over there (in eastern Kentucky) to make sure the laws and regulations are providing the protection they’re supposed to provide,” Beshear said.



During a visit to a mountaintop removal site in Perry County on Monday, several lawmakers heard from nearby residents that state inspectors and other officials often look the other way as mining companies disregard regulations designed to protect neighbors and the environment.



Rep. Don Pasley, D-Winchester, is pushing a bill to prohibit mining operations from pushing the top layers of the mountains into adjacent valleys in order to get at the coal. Critics say it pollutes the headwaters of the Kentucky River which supplies drinking water to central Kentucky residents, including those in Pasley’s district in Clark and Madison counties. Beshear said he is not familiar with Pasley’s legislation but will review it.



Gray, 69, has served in the state House of Representatives for 26 years, most of them as Chairman of the Labor and Industry Committee. He will resign his House seat following Beshear’s inauguration and his own oath of office as Labor Commissioner. Beshear will then call a special election to fill his seat in the House.



Sparrow is President and CEO of the Kentucky Tourism Council and formerly worked as Marketing and Public Relations Director at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. She has also been Director of Tourism for the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau and Executive Director of the Frankfort Tourism commission.



Jackson is the second African-American named to Beshear’s cabinet (Michael Brown will head up the Justice Cabinet) and she and Sparrow bring to three the number of women in Beshear’s cabinet (Helen Mountjoy is his Secretary of Education). Beshear also named Mary Lassiter his budget director and Ellen Hessen as his general counsel.



“We sought out the very best qualified people we could find for these positions,” Beshear said Thursday. “We also have tried to make sure at the same time that these appointments are as diverse as we can make them, both from a minority standpoint and from a gender standpoint because I want our government to reflect as much as possible what the commonwealth looks like.”



Beshear still hasn’t named a secretary of the Health and Family Services Cabinet. He said Thursday that “is a work in progress.



Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort, Ky. He may be contacted by email at rellis@cnhi.com.