The U.S. Department of the Interior announced the new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management director.

Elizabeth Klein will take over for resigning Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Director Amanda Lefton effective Jan. 19, according to a Jan. 10 news release. Klein is an attorney noted for clean energy, climate change and environmental law and policy leadership and has served as senior counselor to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland.

"Liz has been an invaluable asset at the Department since day one, and we are thrilled she is taking on this new role," DOI Chief of Staff Rachael S. Taylor said in the release. "The Interior Department is leading the effort to foster a clean energy future, and Liz will be critical to our efforts to meet the president's ambitious goals to deploy affordable clean energy to power homes across America and create good-paying jobs in the growing offshore wind industry."

Klein previously was nominated by the White House to be the deputy Interior secretary under Haaland, but her nomination was withdrawn from consideration in March 2021, according to Reuters. Klein's nomination was opposed by Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who withheld her key vote for Klein over concerns that Klein was opposed to oil development.

Before her time at DOI, Klein was the deputy director of the non-partisan State Energy and Environmental Impact Center at New York University's School of Law, the release reported.

Klein also worked at the department under presidents Bill Clinton and Barak Obama and under DOI Secretaries Ken Salazar and Sally Jewell, according to the release. Klein served in the posts of DOI associate deputy secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Policy, Management and Budget.

"She was a key architect of the Obama administration's work to create a new offshore wind industry and leasing program," the news release said.