Ms. Young was confirmed as deputy budget director last March, and Mr. Biden announced her nomination to be director in November. Over the past year, she oversaw the release of Mr. Biden’s first budget, helped finalize the $1 trillion infrastructure law and participated in negotiations to produce the first government spending package of the Biden administration, which won final approval in Congress on Thursday. Just before her confirmation, Ms. Young was at the White House watching Mr. Biden sign that package into law.
“As evidenced by the strong bipartisan confirmation vote she received, Shalanda Young is well known to many of us due to her years of experience on the House Appropriations Committee staff,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said in a statement, describing Ms. Young as “smart, fair and knowledgeable.”
Some Republicans objected to Ms. Young’s move to the budget office in part because of her support for getting rid of the so-called Hyde Amendment in the annual spending bills, which prohibits federal funds from going toward most abortions.
At the insistence of Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass the spending package that Mr. Biden signed into law on Tuesday, that policy restriction remained in the legislation.
The president has nominated Nani A. Coloretti, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Obama administration, to serve as the deputy budget director. If Ms. Coloretti is confirmed by the Senate, she would become one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders in the federal government, according to the White House.