Senate confirms Steven Cliff as NHTSA administrator

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate has confirmed Steven Cliff, formerly deputy executive officer at the California Air Resources Board (CARB), as administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the agency that sets vehicle safety standards, identifies safety defects and oversees recalls.

Cliff becomes the agency's first Senate-confirmed administrator since 2017, when Mark Rosekind resigned when the Trump administration took over. He has been the agency's deputy administrator since early 2021 when President Biden nominated him for the position.

The Senate confirmed Cliff by consent without objections or a formal roll call vote. He brings extensive scientific and regulatory background to his leadership role at NHTSA, the agency states in his online biography.

As the deputy executive officer at CARB, Cliff had oversight of regulations for passenger vehicle emissions, medium- and heavy-duty engine emissions, implementation of vehicle and engine emissions and on-board diagnostics certification, transportation land-use planning and analysis, and incentive and investment programs for reducing emissions.

Cliff started with the CARB in 2008 as an air pollution specialist and since then held a variety of positions there, eventually overseeing its climate program. From 2014-16, Cliff joined the California Department of Transportation as the assistant director for sustainability. He returned to CARB in 2016 when then-Governor Jerry Brown of California appointed him senior adviser to CARB's board chair.

Prior to joining CARB, Cliff was a research professor at the University of California, Davis for nearly two decades. In 2001, he joined the school's Applied Sciences department as a research professor, later becoming affiliated with the school's Air Quality Research Center.

Cliff received a bachelor's degree and doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He then completed a postdoctorate on atmospheric sciences at the University of California, Davis' Department of Land, Air and Water Resources.

NHTSA's work includes establishing fuel-economy regulations and helping facilitate the testing and deployment of advanced vehicle technologies. Among its responsibilities: issuing recalls of vehicles and tires.

The agency, part of the Department of Transportation, has a budget of more than $1 billion and more than 600 full-time employees across the country.