Tommy Beaudreau appears before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing April 29 on his nomination to be deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior. Beaudreau, who grew up in Alaska and is politically close to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, was the first director of the department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under the Obama administration.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is naming Tommy Beaudreau, a former Obama administration official, to be deputy secretary at the Interior Department after dropping plans for a more liberal nominee who faced key Senate opposition.
President Joe Biden on April 14 nominated Beaudreau, a former chief of staff at the department who was the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The agency, created after the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, oversees offshore drilling and wind power.
Beaudreau grew up in Alaska and is politically close to Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a former chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who holds great sway over oil drilling, endangered species and other department issues.
Murkowski and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who now heads that committee, had opposed Biden's plan to nominate former Interior Department official Elizabeth Klein as deputy secretary. Murkowski and Manchin told the White House they were concerned that the progressive Klein would not be a sufficient counterweight to new Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a former Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico who has criticized the oil and gas industry.
Beaudreau's appointment is widely seen as an attempt to win favor with Murkowski and Manchin, moderates who are vital to a number of Biden's priorities, including his $2.3 trillion infrastructure and clean energy plan.
Murkowski was one of four GOP senators who voted in favor of Haaland, the first Native American to lead a Cabinet department, but said she "struggled" with her decision, citing Haaland's views on oil drilling and other resource development. Manchin also hesitated for weeks before announcing his support for Haaland.
Beaudreau is a private attorney in Washington, D.C., working in a law firm's environment and resources department.
In a 2013 interview, he said that growing up in Alaska was crucial to his role at the Interior Department. "I know how important resource development is to the state. It's the economic blood of the state. But I also know how important the outdoors are to everyone in Alaska. Everyone in Alaska wants to see that preserved and protected,″ he said.
Beaudreau later served as acting assistant secretary and as chief of staff under Interior Secretary Sally Jewell in the administration of then-President Barack Obama.
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