Foe of fossil fuels tapped to head Interior’s offshore energy agency

The Interior Department announced Jan. 10 that Elizabeth Klein has been appointed director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), the agency responsible for offshore leasing of energy and minerals in federal waters.

The choice of Klein, an attorney who has made no secret over the years of wanting to shift energy production away from fossil fuels, left some people in the oil and gas sector scratching their heads, as one trade group official put it.

The Interior announcement about Klein stressed the department’s work “to foster a clean energy future” and cited President Biden’s “ambitious goals to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.” It made no specific mention of oil and gas.

Among Klein’s legal obligations will be the formulation of a new 5-year plan for offshore oil and gas leasing, and the conduct of two mandatory offshore lease sales for oil and gas in 2023.

Biden nominated Klein in early 2021 to be Interior deputy secretary, but the nomination was withdrawn when opposition developed within the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, apparently because Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the panel’s chairman, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.), the ranking member, had doubts about her appropriateness for the job. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland then chose Klein as a senior counselor.

A BOEM director does not need Senate confirmation.

Klein is a former Latham & Watkins attorney. She also was deputy director of the State Energy and Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC) in the New York University School of Law.

The SEEIC, as Interior put it, supports state attorneys general addressing clean energy, climate, and environmental initiatives. Critics say the organization, primarily funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, especially helps states sue oil and gas companies.

Klein worked in Interior under Presidents Clinton and Obama. Interior said she “was a key architect of the Obama administration’s work to create a new offshore wind industry and leasing program.”