The top executive for regulatory and policy at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is calling it a career soon.
Elizabeth “Betsy” Connell, the associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs, will retire at the end of the month following a career of more than 30 years around the DOE weapons complex.
Todd Shrader, EM’s principal deputy assistant secretary, announced Connell’s impending department Monday while briefing an online meeting of the chairs of the Environmental Management’s Site-Specific Advisory Boards.
“Sad news here. Sad for us. Good for Betsy,” Shrader said. She has “a lot of interaction with stakeholders” and state regulators and “will be sorely missed,” Shrader said.
In her current role, Connell provides technical and policy support in the planning and field-execution of EM waste and materials disposition and related issues. She also coordinates regulatory affairs issues defined by law or court-ordered settlement agreements.
Connell’s office employs about 75 people and serves as a liaison with international nuclear agencies as well as the National Academies of Science, Connell noted when she addressed the same gathering on Tuesday.
Connell assumed her current post on an acting basis in November 2018 and was made permanent in February 2019. She has served in several management jobs over years at the nuclear cleanup office, and was senior policy adviser to then-Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz from July 2013 through January 2017.
Connell also spent eight years as a senior adviser to various deputy directors at the Idaho National Laboratory from late 2006 until mid-2013.
Shrader did not discuss who might be assuming the role on an acting basis, or how Connell’s replacement will be selected.
