The White House late Wednesday renominated William Bookless and Rita Baranwal for senior posts in the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Office of Nuclear Energy, respectively.
The Donald Trump administration also nominated three people, include two current members, for terms on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board: the independent federal nuclear health-and-safety watchdog for DOE defense nuclear sites.
Bookless was renominated to be principal deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), second in command at the semiautonomous nuclear stockpile steward. Baranwal was renominated as assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy: the head of the DOE office that would be in charge of licensing Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev., as a permanent repository for both civilian and defense nuclear waste.
The White House first nominated Bookless and Baranwal in the 115th Congress, which ended Jan. 3. When one session of Congress ends, nominees not approved by the full Senate are returned to the White House to repeat the nomination process.
Bookless cleared the Senate Armed Services Committee by voice vote late last year. Baranwal did not get unanimous approval from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources, which nevertheless advanced her nomination. Both were waiting on floor votes that would have cleared the way for their swearing in at DOE.
The two Senate committees had not scheduled either nominee for consideration at deadline Wednesday.
The White House has also restarted its planned shakeup of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, which if completed could see half the current members swapped out by mid-October. The administration renominated Lisa Vickers, the DOE site representative at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, to join the board, while renominating current board Chair Bruce Hamilton and longtime board member Jessie Hill Roberson to stay on.
Combined with Friday’s nomination of former Air Force Col. Thomas Summers to join the group, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is set this year to lose members Daniel Santos, whose seat Hamilton would slide into, and Joyce Connery, a Barack Obama appointee whose term will expire Oct. 18.
Bookless, Baranwal, and the DNFSB nominees were among more than 150 people nominated for federal jobs late Wednesday, many of whom were first nominated in the last Congress.
Editor’s note, Jan. 17, 2019, 3:25 p.m. Eastern time – The story now includes Jessie Hill Roberson’s correct name, and the correct number of DNFSB nominees sent to Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
