President Biden Announces Key Nominees

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

• Melissa G. Dalton, Nominee to be Under Secretary of the Air Force, Department of Defense
• Andrew Plitt, Nominee to be Assistant Administrator for the Middle East, U.S. Agency for International Development
• Tanya F. Otsuka, Nominee to be Member of the Board of Directors of the National Credit Union Administration Board
• Spencer Bachus III, Nominee to be Member (Republican) of the Board of Directors of the Export Import Bank of the United States

Melissa G. Dalton, Nominee to be Under Secretary of the Air Force, Department of Defense

Melissa G. Dalton currently serves as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs. She is responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense and other senior defense leaders on defense continuity and mission assurance, homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities, Arctic and global resilience, and U.S. defense and security policy for North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.

Previously, she served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities from January 2021 to March 2022. In that role, she was responsible for advising the Secretary of Defense and other senior defense leaders on national security and defense strategy, the forces, contingency plans, and associated posture necessary to implement the defense strategy. Before joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Dalton was a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) International Security Program and Director of the Cooperative Defense Project. Prior to joining CSIS in 2014, Dalton served for a decade as a career civil servant in the Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden Administrations in the Department of Defense. A graduate of the University of Virginia and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow.


Andrew Plitt, Nominee to be Assistant Administrator for the Middle East, U.S. Agency for International Development
A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Andrew Plitt serves as USAID’s Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East region. In this role he is USAID’s principal senior-level contact for oversight and management of policy, strategy, resources, and operations across the Middle East and North Africa region and directs technical and regional support matters for the Bureau for the Middle East. Plitt joined the Foreign Service in 1991 and most recently served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East covering North Africa and Egypt from 2019 to 2021. He served as USAID’s Senior Development Advisor at U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany from 2016 to 2019. He has also served as Director of the Office of North African and Arabian Affairs in the Bureau for the Middle East, and Director of the Office of Strategic Planning and Operations in the Bureau for Asia, covering the Asia and Middle East regions.

Plitt’s previous overseas assignments include West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Morocco, Rwanda, and Cote d’Ivoire. Prior to government service, Plitt held staff and mid-level positions at Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young offices in Washington, D.C. A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Plitt holds a Bachelor of Arts from North Carolina State University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. He and his spouse are proud parents of two boys.


Tanya F. Otsuka, Nominee to be Member of the Board of Directors of the National Credit Union Administration Board
Tanya F. Otsuka is a dedicated public servant with over a decade of experience in financial regulation and supervision. She is currently Senior Counsel for the majority staff of the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee under Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH), where she has handled the Committee’s work on banking and credit union issues since March 2020. In 2019, she also served on the Committee staff through the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University’s Capitol Hill Fellowship Program, on detail from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

Prior to her time with the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Otsuka was a staff attorney and Counsel at FDIC where she worked on a broad range of banking issues. She began her career at the FDIC as a law clerk in 2010 and an Honors Attorney in 2011.Otsuka earned her J.D. from Boston College Law School and B.A. with distinction from the University of Virginia. She is originally from Woodbridge, Virginia and is a member of the Virginia Bar. She currently resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband and son.

Spencer Bachus III, Nominee to be Member (Republican) of the Board of Directors of the Export Import Bank of the United States
Spencer Bachus III has served as a member of the Export-Import Bank (EXIM) Board of Directors since May of 2019. Bachus served a Member of the House of Representatives from the state of Alabama. In the House of Representatives, Bachus worked on the committees of Transportation and Infrastructure, Judiciary, and Financial Services. He was named Chairman Emeritus of the Financial Services Committee for the 113th Congress. His accomplishments for his district and state include work on I-22, the Northern Beltline, other major highway and infrastructure projects, establishment of the National Computer Forensics Institute, creation of the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge, and construction of the Alabama National Cemetery to honor veterans and their families.

Selected by his Republican colleagues as Ranking Member and Chairman of the Financial Services Committee from 2006 to 2012, Bachus assumed his responsibilities during the 2008 financial crisis, where was the first to advocate for the Capital Purchase Plan to help stabilize the financial sector. The approach was ultimately adopted by the Treasury Department and returned a profit to the U.S. Treasury of more than $15 billion dollars. He has also helped to pass the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, deposit insurance reform, Check 21, and he is credited with originating the provisions which authorized Medicare coverage to seniors for prostate cancer screenings that eventually became part of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. Bachus is the recipient of numerous financial, legal, humanitarian, and leadership honors, including the Houghton-Lewis Leadership Award from the Faith and Politics Institute. Starting in 1993, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) and Bachus cohosted an annual civil rights pilgrimage to Alabama, visiting the cities of Selma, Montgomery, and Birmingham. Bachus holds his B.A. from Auburn University and a J.D. from the University of Alabama School of Law.

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