Shalanda Young, who has been serving as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget since March, was nominated by President Joe Biden to permanently lead the department on Wednesday.

What You Need To Know

  • OMB acting director Shalanda Young has been nominated by President Joe Biden to formally lead the department

  • Young, who was initially confirmed as deputy director, would be the first Black woman to permanently lead the crucial White House budget office if confirmed by the Senate

  • Young is a popular figure among Congressional leaders after previously serving as a staff director on the House Appropriations Committee; she was confirmed in bipartisan fashion to serve as deputy director, with multiple Republicans signaling they'd support her as permanent director at the time

  • Biden also nominated Nani Coloretti to serve as Young's deputy; she would be one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans to serve in the Biden administration

The news was first reported by the Washington Post.

Young, who was initially confirmed as deputy director, would be the first Black woman to permanently lead the crucial White House budget office, if confirmed by the Senate.

The White House initially tapped Neera Tanden to lead the office, but her nomination was withdrawn after Senate Republicans, along with key moderate Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, criticized her past acerbic partisan rhetoric on social media, mainly targeting Republicans. The Biden administration said after her failed nomination that they would find another role for Tanden in the White House, and in October named her White House staff secretary.

Young is a popular figure among Congressional leaders after previously serving as a staff director on the House Appropriations Committee, where she drew widespread bipartisan praise for her role in negotiating bipartisan funding deals.

During her confirmation hearings, lawmakers recalled Young being a crucial part of negotiating the end to the 2018-19 federal government shutdown, which lasted for 35 days. As Senate President Pro Tem Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said of the shutdown: "Fortunately, Shalanda was with us."

"We reached a solution," Leahy added. "That's what Shalanda is best at. She knows how to work across the aisle to get a deal done."

Young was confirmed to her deputy post in March in a widely bipartisan 63-37 vote, and received rave reviews from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with lawmakers openly pushing for her to assume the director role in her confirmation hearings.

"You’ll get my support, maybe for both jobs," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at the time. "Everybody who deals with you on our side has nothing but good things to say. You might talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it."

"You may be more than deputy," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told her, with Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Al., also offering his endorsement: "She would have my support, and I suspect many of my Republican colleagues would support her, as well."

Young has been on parental leave since the fall after having a baby last month.

Biden made the announcement in a video posted to social media on Wednesday.

"In her eight months as acting director of OMB, she's continued to impress me and Congressional leaders as well," Biden said in the pre-recorded video. "Shalanda will not on be a tremendously qualified director, she'll also be a historic director. The first Black woman to hold the post. She will join the most diverse presidential Cabinet in history."

Biden also nominated Nani Coloretti, who currently works as the senior vice president for financial and business strategies at the Urban Institute, to serve as Young's deputy. Coloretti, who is Filipino American, would be one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans to serve in the Biden administration. She also served in the Obama administration as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Assistant Secretary for Management and Acting CFO of U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Acting COO of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Coloretti also worked for years as a policy advisor and budget director for then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.

"It's my honor to nominate two extraordinary, history-making women to lead the Office of Management and Budget," Biden said, calling them "two of the most experienced, qualified people to lead" OMB.