With President Barack Obama’s Cabinet fanning out across the country to sell the his health care proposal, Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be coming to Charlotte on Wednesday, the White House announced.

The visit by Chu is part of a nation-wide bilitz and grass roots lobbying effort by the administration that included a visit to Raleigh last week by Obama, Rob Christensen reports.

Details of the Chu visit have not yet been anounced.

Transporation Secretary Ray LaHood is heading to Lyon Station Pennsylvania, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is heading to Kansas City, and EPA administrator Lisa Jackson is heading to Tampa Bay area.

Gov. Beverly Perdue will meet with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on Wednesday to tell him how much the state needs a new bridge over the Yadkin River.

The Interstate 85 bridge, a few miles northeast of Salisbury, is an aging four-lane bridge built in the 1950s, Barb Barrett reports. It would cost an estimated $335 million to replace.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has a $1.5 billion pot of discretionary money to go to special, big-ticket items around the country. States have to apply for funding, and no state could receive more than $300 million under the program’s rules.

Perdue’s push continues work already begun by state transportation leaders. State Secretary of Transportation Gene Conti visited the White House this spring to talk with federal officials about the state’s needs.

While in Washington on Wednesday, Perdue also has meetings planned with Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan, and with most of the House delegation.

She plans to talk with them about North Carolina’s ongoing budget crisis, its needs from federal recovery efforts and how the state is spending its money so far.

President Bush went to the Middle East this week carrying a letter co-written by U.S. Rep. David Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, urging a new approach to diplomacy between Israel and Palestinians in the troubled region.

Price and U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican, urged an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza. They also asked Bush to work with Egypt, Israel and other nations to negotiate a ceasefire and other peaceful solutions to the violence.

They were joined by 50 other members of Congress in sending the letter.

The letter condemns the ongoing rocket attacks from Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups into Israel this year, and defends Israel’s right to self-defense, which, it notes, has killed Palestinian civilians.

"We are concerned that unless something changes, progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement will continually be hampered by the violence in southern Israel and Gaza," the letter states.

More after the jump.

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