President Biden Announces Key Nominations

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following individuals to serve in key roles:

• Steven Cliff, Nominee for the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Donald Armin Blome, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
• Peter Beshar, Nominee for General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force
• Brenda Elaine Stevenson, Nominee for Member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board

Steven Cliff, Nominee for the Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Steven Cliff has served as Deputy Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since February 2021.  In this role, he oversees the nation’s vehicle safety agency that sets vehicle safety standards, identifies safety defects and manages recalls, and educates Americans to help them drive, ride, and walk safely. He also oversees NHTSA’s work in establishing fuel economy regulations and helping facilitate the testing and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies.

Cliff has an extensive scientific and regulatory background.  After earning his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California San Diego in 1998, Cliff worked as a research professor at the University of California, Davis.  He then joined the staff of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in 2008 and held various positions until 2014 when he was appointed to the California Department of Transportation as the inaugural Assistant Director for Sustainability.  He returned to CARB in 2016 as senior advisor to CARB’s board chair.  Immediately prior to joining NHTSA, Cliff was deputy executive officer at CARB where he oversaw development and implementation of regulations for passenger vehicle emissions, medium- and heavy-duty engine emissions, certification of vehicle emissions controls and on-board diagnostics systems certification, transportation land-use planning and analysis, and incentive and investment programs designed to spur technological innovation and reduce emissions.

Donald Armin Blome, Nominee for Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Donald Armin Blome, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Minister-Counselor, is currently the U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia.  Prior to that, Ambassador Blome was Chargé d’Affaires a.i. at the Libya External Office in Tunis, Tunisia, Consul General at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem, and Director, Office of Arabian Peninsula Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. He has also served as Political Counselor, Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan and Minister-Counselor for Economic and Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. Earlier in his career, Ambassador Blome served as the Civilian Co-Director, Multinational Force Strategic Engagement Cell, Baghdad, Political Counselor, Embassy Kuwait, and as Israel Desk Officer, Deputy Director and Acting Director, Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs.

Ambassador Blome earned a B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Michigan.  Ambassador Blome speaks Arabic.

Peter J. Beshar, Nominee for the General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force
Peter J. Beshar has served as the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Marsh McLennan, a global professional services firm, for the past 17 years.   He leads the Company’s legal, compliance, public affairs and risk management departments. In 2015, Mr. Beshar was appointed by President Obama as a trustee of the Wilson Center for International Scholars.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Beshar served as the Special Assistant to former Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, in the peace negotiations in the former Yugoslavia. Mr. Beshar has broad expertise in cybersecurity with a particular focus on public-private partnerships to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure.  He has testified before the Senate Banking, Commerce and Homeland Security Committees on cybersecurity and terrorism matters.

Over the past decade, Mr. Beshar has spearheaded a series of initiatives to assist veterans with employment opportunities and access to housing, disability and other benefits. Mr. Beshar is active in civic causes and serves as a trustee of CARE USA, the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University.

Brenda Elaine Stevenson, Nominee for Member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board
Brenda E. Stevenson is an internationally recognized scholar of gender, race, slavery, family and racial conflict. At UCLA, where she has spent most of her career, she served as the inaugural Nickoll Family Endowed Professor of History and Professor of African American Studies. Currently at the University of Oxford, she is the inaugural Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair of Women’s History at St. John’s University. Her published works include:  Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South; The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins:  Justice, Gender and the Origins of the Los Angeles Riots; and What is Slavery?  along with multiple edited volumes and articles on women, race, film, family and art.

Professor Stevenson’s research has garnered numerous awards, including the James Rawley Book Prize, the Ida B. Wells Barnett Award and the Gustavus Meyer Book Prize.  Her research has been supported by, among others, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Ford and Mellon Foundations, the American Association of University Women, the Center for Advanced Study, the National Humanities Center and the American Academy in Berlin. She is the recipient of the John Blassingame Award for Mentorship and Scholarship, the Carter G. Woodson Medallion and Yale’s Wilbur Cross Alumni Medal.  She is a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians and is currently a member of its Executive Board.

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