Despite the White House responding to trade associations across the country earlier this month that it stood by its nomination of Ann Carlson to lead the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), yesterday the Biden administration officially waved the white flag.

The White House officially withdrew Ann Carlson’s nomination at NHTSA late Wednesday amid growing concerns over her lack of qualifications as a traffic safety expert and background as a climate litigation activist.

While no Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee publicly came out against Carlson, Biden’s abrupt decision to withdraw the nomination suggests Carlson may have faced bipartisan opposition and lacked the votes to advance. Senators Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) on Senate Commerce are all likely to face competitive reelection races next year.

From the outset, Carlson’s resume made it abundantly clear the Biden administration wanted to use her as a means to hijack NHSTA and turn it into a climate-centric agency, focused less on traffic safety and more on emissions. Both Carlson’s environmental activism and record at NHSTA reinforced these concerns.

Carlson’s own statements upon being named Chief Counsel at NHTSA in 2021 also reveal she saw the job as an opportunity to hijack the agency’s mission. “I view my appointment (and a number of others) as evidence that the Biden Administration is truly committed to a ‘whole of government’ approach to addressing climate change,” Carlson wrote to her colleagues at UCLA in emails reported on by Fox News.

In a letter to the Senate Commerce Committee earlier this month, Republican lawmakers criticized Carlson’s record of promoting draconian and potentially unlawful emission standards at NHSTA – an agency that is ostensibly supposed to promote traffic safety.

Prior to her nomination, Carlson established a long track record as an environmental activist. As a law professor at UCLA, she worked alongside plaintiffs firm Sher Edling to coordinate the financing of climate nuisance lawsuits against energy companies. Deep pocketed foundations including the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and JPB Foundation have supported the effort, which some environmental activists admit are “speculative” lawsuits with an uphill battle in court.

Carlson’s failure to disclose these relationships in the course of the nomination process was cited as grounds for opposition in a letter organized by IPAA and signed by 43 industry groups earlier this month:

“Ms. Carlson helped recruit states and municipalities to serve as plaintiffs represented by Sher Edling in climate change lawsuits against oil and natural gas companies seeking to offset costs from climate change. She has boasted that, ‘Sher Edling really knows how to plot against these defendants and knows what it takes in terms of resources, they know what to expect, there will be mud flung in every direction, hoping something will stick to the wall.’ […] Her failure to disclose these relationships raises several alarm bells and should be considered disqualifying.” (Emphasis added)

In the week prior to the nomination being withdrawn it was revealed that Carlson, oddly, held a financial stake in an Oklahoma oil and gas firm. It is unclear whether this embarrassing bout of hypocrisy played a role in the Biden administration pulling her nomination.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said the decision to withdraw the nomination was Carlson’s, but insisted she will remain on at NHTSA.

Bottom line: The only people in Washington who seem surprised that Carlson’s nomination failed work out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It will be interesting to see whether the Biden administration wises up and puts forward a NHTSA nominee with the proper credentials to lead an agency that’s supposed to keep Americans safe on the road, or stick with an “acting” agency leader that appears to have faced bipartisan opposition in the Senate.