With Samuel Brinton on a leave of absence from the Department of Energy, Kim Petry was asked to stay on as acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition “for the foreseeable future,” she wrote in an email to colleagues late last week.
“I should have another update for all of you in a month or so,” Petry wrote in a Nov. 18 email to the office of spent fuel and waste disposition, known in DOE as NE-8. The Exchange Monitor reviewed a copy of the email, in which Petry wrote that she was staying on at the request of Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy.
The Department of Energy declined to comment on Brinton’s status Wednesday. On Nov. 10, the agency confirmed through a spokesperson that Brinton, who joined DOE on June 19, was on a leave of absence.
Petry began standing in for Brinton at public events nearly a month ago, at least.
In the program for a Nov. 7 industry conference in Canada, Petry was listed as the acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition.
Before Halloween, Brinton was scheduled to make a video presentation to a nuclear waste advocacy group but canceled, apparently at the eleventh hour.
“Sam had a last-minute event that he had to attend, which we understand because his schedule is so impacted,” said Chris Wahl, executive director for the Action for Spent Fuel Solutions Now Coalition said during a webcast meeting on Oct. 28. A day earlier on Twitter, the coalition said Brinton would be involved with the event.
Brinton, who identifies as non-binary and prefers “they” as a singular, third-person pronoun, declined Friday to comment about their leave of absence from the agency.
However, social media accounts belonging to Brinton appeared to be active as recently as this week and this past weekend.
On their Instagram account on Nov. 19, Brinton posted what appeared to be a photo of the Lyceum Theater in New York along with a note that seemed to indicate Brinton was attending a performance of the musical Strange Loop, which is in the final months of its Broadway run.
In a Nov. 18 Instagram post, Brinton shared a photo of what appeared to be the set of the musical Hadestown, a retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which is also playing on Broadway.
“Spending a night of self care on Broadway,” Brinton wrote on the Nov. 18 Instagram post.
In a Nov. 17 instagram post, Brinton said they attended that evening’s East Coast premiere of a film called Conversion, a documentary about the highly controversial — in some states, illegal — practice of conversion therapy: organized attempts to make homosexual people into heterosexual people. Brinton, who has written and spoken often of their own experience with conversion therapy, was featured in the film.
On Nov. 6, Brinton said they participated in a live performance by Coro Allegro Boston at the Old South Church in Boston, according to their Instagram. The group, a classical chorus for LGBT people and allies, planned to release a recording of the performance, Letters to Our Children, in January, according to its website.
Brinton’s hiring at DOE, which Brinton announced in February, stirred controversy among conservative pundits who publicly railed against Brinton’s sexuality, drag performances and public embrace of BDSM sexual practices.
Even a DOE employee, in a complaint to the Office of Personnel Management’s Inspector General, objected to Brinton joining the DOE ranks as a member of the senior executive service.
In the end, Brinton — who holds a dual Masters’ degree in nuclear engineering and technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., and dual Bachelors’ degrees in mechanical engineering and vocal music performance from Kansas State University — got the job.
Editor’s note, Friday, Nov. 25, 2022, 2:21 p.m. Eastern time. Added Brinton’s refusal to comment.
