WATERFORD, CT — The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy will begin looking for a new head of spent fuel and waste disposition soon, the head of the office said this week.
DOE plans to open applications for deputy assistant secretary of spent fuel and waste disposition “in the coming days,” Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Energy Kathryn Huff told RadWaste Monitor before a roundtable with Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) held Tuesday in Waterford, Conn.
Huff refused to provide a more specific timeline for when DOE would start the search for a new agency spent fuel official — a role commonly known as NE-8.
The department is looking for a new person to lead its nuclear waste policy after Sam Brinton was fired on Dec. 12 following a pair of felony theft accusations that landed the former NE-8 before state judges in Nevada and Minnesota.
Brinton, who joined DOE in June and oversaw the agency’s rollout of a $16 million funding opportunity as part of its push to site a federal interim storage facility, was accused of stealing luggage from baggage claim carousels in separate incidents at Harry Reid International Airport in Nevada and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in Minnesota.
Meanwhile, Kim Petry, who accompanied Huff to the Constitution State Tuesday, has been standing in as DOE’s acting NE-8 for at least a month. Petry told colleagues in a Nov. 18 email viewed by RadWaste Monitor that Huff had asked her to stay on in that capacity “for the foreseeable future.”
