NOAA chief Lubchenco to step down

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will soon leave the post.

Multiple media outlets reported Lubchenco on Dec. 12 wrote to NOAA employees that she would step down at the end of February “to return to my family and academia.”

“I can confirm that she announced her intent to leave NOAA,” Ciaran Clayton, director of communications for the agency, told Petroleum News.

Lubchenco is a marine ecologist and environmental scientist who was teaching at Oregon State University when the Obama administration chose her as NOAA administrator.

She became a prominent public figure as the government responded to the Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Formed in 1970, NOAA is a Commerce Department agency of considerable importance to the oil and gas industry. NOAA conducts extensive scientific research, and is home to subagencies such as the National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Weather Service and the National Ocean Service.

—Wesley Loy