Government affairs

On Feb. 9, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) voted 8-6 and the Senate Budget Committee voted 15-6 to advance the nominations of Shalanda Young and Nani Coloretti to lead the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The nominees will now be considered by the full Senate for a final confirmation vote.

In Nov. 2021, President Biden nominated Young to serve as director of OMB and Coloretti to serve as deputy director. Young is the current OMB deputy director and has served as the acting director since March 2021. Young was a House Appropriations Committee staff member for 14 years. She served as the committee’s staff director for four years before being confirmed as OMB’s deputy director last year.

Coloretti is a senior vice president at the Urban Institute, a think tank focused on economic and social policy research. During the Obama administration, she served as the deputy director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Prior to that, she spent five years at the Department of Treasury in various roles, including as the assistant secretary for management.

OMB is the largest department in the president’s executive office, and it produces the president’s budget. OMB also oversees the performance of federal agencies and evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies and procedures.

In her opening statement at hearings before HSGAC and the Senate Budget Committee on Feb. 1, Young highlighted some of OMB’s achievements during her tenure as the active director, including delivering disaster relief funding to communities across the country, working with members of Congress to enact the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and  establishing the Made in America office, an OMB office that encourages federal agencies to buy U.S.-made products.

At the hearings, Democratic lawmakers focused on the nominees’ qualifications, experience and OMB’s accomplishments under Young’s leadership. Republican members questioned the nominees about defense spending, the federal deficit, government shutdowns and concurrent resolutions to fund the government. Both nominees committed to working in a bipartisan manner to eliminate the cycle of potential government shutdowns.