By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Tuesday President Joe Biden was withdrawing the nomination of the acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to take the top job on a permanent basis.
The White House gave no reason for the decision and declined to comment.
Ann Carlson, the agency’s chief counsel, was named acting head of NHTSA in September and formally nominated for the executive position in March.
She has overseen Tesla Inc safety investigations, airbag ruptures, efforts to reduce road fatalities and to increase vehicle fuel economy requirements.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Carlson would continue to serve with NHTSA, but did not explain why the appointment was withdrawn.
“Ann’s service has helped advance NHTSA’s mission to save lives and reduce the economic costs of motor vehicle crashes,” Buttigieg said in a statement. Road deaths in the United States jumped 10.5% in 2021 to 42,915, the highest number of American road deaths in a single year since 2005, but fell 0.3% in 2022.
Carlson did not respond to a request for comment.
His nomination faced strong opposition, with the 13 Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month criticizing his role in developing fuel economy standards in 2021. They told Carlson the standards were “consistent with your long career as an environmentalist without road safety”. experience.”
NHTSA is expected to soon come up with new fuel economy standards for 2027 and beyond.
Jonathan Adkins, head of the nonprofit Governors Highway Safety Association representing state and territory highway safety offices, said the group was deeply disappointed with the withdrawal of Carlson’s nomination.
“The GHSA urges the Biden administration to appoint someone with a strong security background that can be quickly confirmed,” Adkins wrote on Twitter.
Carlson took over NHTSA after the departure of Steven Cliff in September 2022. Cliff was named deputy administrator of NHTSA in February 2021 and led the agency on an interim basis until his confirmation in May 2022.
For much of the past six years, NHTSA has been without a Senate-confirmed administrator.
During the Trump administration, no nominees were ever confirmed to lead NHTSA, and there were no nominees for much of the four-year period. The Biden administration has struggled to secure the endorsement of many key transportation candidates in a tightly divided U.S. Senate.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Matthew Lewis)