The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced the appointment of Elizabeth Megginson as the Acting Deputy Administrator and Chief Counsel of the Maritime Administration on June 17, 2008. Mrs. Megginson who replacing Julie A. Nelson as the Deputy Administrator has served as the Chief Counsel since her appointment on February 19, 2007.

            Prior to joining Marad, Elizabeth served as Majority Chief Counsel to the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of Representatives for six years beginning in 2001.  She also served for five years as Majority Chief Counsel for the House Committee on Resources (now the Committee on Natural Resources) and served as a Senior Counsel as well.  From 1990 until 1995, she was the Staff Director and Chief Counsel for the Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Navigation of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries which was abolished in 1995.  Its jurisdiction was split between a number of other Committees including Resources and Transportation.           

            She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1989 to serve as the Chief of Staff for former Congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana.  Before moving to Washington, she was the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Legal Affairs and Enforcement of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.  In that capacity she was the Chief Legal Officer of the department and responsible for the clean up of abandoned and inactive hazardous waste sites.  She has also served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Louisiana Department of Justice in the Lands and Natural Resources Division where she litigated environmental, energy, and public lands cases.

            She has also worked for the Louisiana House of Representatives as the director of the Commercial Regulation Section which staffed the Committees on Commerce, Natural Resources, Labor and Agriculture.  She was a partner in the law firm of Menezes and Megginson in Baton Rouge, Louisiana practicing commercial and contract litigation, personal injury claims, estate planning, domestic, and criminal litigation.   

            She holds a law degree from Louisiana State University where she also received her Masters and Bachelors degrees in Music.