The National Nuclear Security Administration barely rated as a blip this week in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s hearing to examine President Biden’s nomination of Jennifer Granholm as Secretary of Energy.
In her written testimony, Granholm said enhancing American security through DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and “clean-up of our Cold War legacy” will be atop her priority list, if confirmed. Those missions will be followed by management of the agency’s 17 national laboratories and research on climate change and emission reductions.
The committee, which does not have jurisdiction over the NNSA’s nuclear weapons programs, had not scheduled a confirmation vote for Granholm at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Granholm needs to clear the committee, still technically under Republican control, and the full Senate, which is split 50/50, with a Democratic tie-breaker in Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sen. Joe Machin (D-W.Va.) the incoming chair of the committee, supports Granholm’s confirmation. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), technically still the committee chair, spent much of the hearing demanding support for fossil fuels that Granholm didn’t give — and plenty of time afterward bashing the energy policies President Biden rolled out this week.
Biden had not nominated anyone at deadline to be administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Charles Verdon, deputy administrator for defense programs and the last remaining Donald Trump appointee at the weapons agency, was the acting administrator, as of this writing.
