President Biden announced Apr. 14 his intent to nominate Tommy Beaudreau to be deputy secretary of the Interior. The president also has chosen a nominee for a high-level Interior policy post and is said to have settled on a nominee to head the Bureau of Land Management.
Beaudreau, an environmental attorney at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, served in the Obama administration as Interior Department chief of staff, first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and acting assistant secretary for land and minerals management.
Biden originally chose attorney Elizabeth Klein for the deputy secretary job, then withdrew her nomination, reportedly after a negative reaction from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.). Klein has become senior counselor to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, despite the withdrawal of her nomination.
Klein is a former Latham & Watkins attorney. She also was deputy director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center in the New York University School of Law. David Hayes was director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center and now is special assistant to Biden on for climate policy. Hayes, an Interior deputy secretary in the Obama administration, also is a former Latham & Watkins attorney.
More Interior candidates
Biden also announced he would nominate Winnie Stachelberg to be Interior assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget.
Stachelberg is executive vice-president for external affairs at the Center for American Progress, a liberal advocacy organization tied to the Democratic Party through its leadership and much of its staff. The White House said Stachelberg has played a role in driving “a multi-issue progressive agenda” while at the advocacy group.
Word has been spreading that Biden will nominate Tracy Stone-Manning to be director of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, the agency responsible for onshore leasing of federal lands for oil and gas exploration and production.
Stone-Manning is associate vice-president for public lands at the National Wildlife Federation. She has led Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, was chief of staff to former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, and was a natural resources adviser to Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.).
