President Biden Announces Three Key Nominations

WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate the following three individuals to serve in key roles:

• David Uhlmann, Nominee for Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, Environmental Protection Agency
• Celeste Wallander, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Department of Defense
• David Prouty, Nominee for Member of the National Labor Relations Board

David Uhlmann, Nominee for Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, Environmental Protection Agency

David M. Uhlmann is an internationally recognized expert on environmental law, leading authority on criminal enforcement of the environmental laws in the United States, and highly-regarded advocate for environmental stewardship and corporate sustainability programs. He is currently the Jeffrey F. Liss Professor from Practice and the director of the Environmental Law and Policy Program at the University of Michigan Law School. Professor Uhlmann previously served for 17 years as a federal prosecutor, including seven years as the Chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the United States Department of Justice. In that role, he led prosecution of environmental and wildlife crimes nationwide, coordinated national legislative, policy, and training initiatives regarding criminal enforcement, and chaired the Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Policy Committee. He earned a reputation for prosecuting polluters aggressively and fairly, presided over expansion of the environmental crimes program, and strengthened relationships with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, and other law enforcement partners. His work as lead prosecutor in United States v. Elias, a tragic knowing endangerment case that left a 20-year-old worker severely and permanently brain-damaged, is chronicled in The Cyanide Canary. He received numerous Justice Department and EPA awards for his precedent-setting prosecutions, including the first environmental justice criminal trial.

Professor Uhlmann is a fellow in the American College of Environmental Lawyers, which invited him to join their Board of Regents earlier this year. Professor Uhlmann was named a “Conservation Hero” by the Michigan League of Conservation Voters and selected by the University of Michigan to be a Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Sustainability. Professor Uhlmann received a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. in history and political science with high honors from Swarthmore College. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Marvin H. Shoob in Atlanta, Georgia. He is married to Virginia Murphy, a professor in the Residential College at the University of Michigan. They have three adult children and two grandchildren, all of whom love hiking in the northern Maine woods.

Celeste Wallander, Nominee for Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Department of Defense

Celeste Wallander is President and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Foundation. She served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia/Central Asia on the National Security Council (2013-2017), as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia (2009 to July 2012), professor at American University (2009-2013), visiting professor at Georgetown University (2006-2008), Director for Russia/Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2001-2006), Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (2000- 2001), and professor of Government at Harvard (1989-2000).  She is the author of over 80 publications on European and Eurasian security issues, focused on Russian foreign and defense strategy. She received her Ph.D. (1990), M.Phil. (1986) and M.A. (1985) degrees from Yale University, and her B.A. (1983 – summa cum laude) from Northwestern University.  She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

David Prouty, Nominee for Member of the National Labor Relations Board

David Prouty is General Counsel of Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ, the largest labor union for property service workers in the country with over 175,000 members. He served as General Counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) from 2013 – 2017 and as Chief Labor Counsel of the MLBPA from 2008 – 2013. Prior to June 2008, Mr. Prouty was General Counsel of UNITE HERE, the union formed by the 2004 merger of UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) with HERE (the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union), and was General Counsel of UNITE from 2001 – 2004. Before serving as General Counsel of UNITE and UNITE HERE, Mr. Prouty was Southern Regional Counsel for UNITE and its predecessor union, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU), for fifteen years and litigated many of the union’s landmark organizing cases including Fieldcrest Cannon, S. Lichtenberg, Tultex and Kmart.  He is a Fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers; was the Union Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s Committee on Practice and Procedure Under the National Labor Relations Act from 2007 – 2010; was a member of the National Labor Relations Board’s Union Advisory Panel from 1997 to 1998; and is a member of the Peggy Browning Fund’s Advisory Board. Mr. Prouty graduated from Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland in 1976; received his AB magna cum laude from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine in 1980; worked as a researcher and organizer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) from 1980 to 1983; and received his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1986.

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