Federal career man William ‘Ike” White, who has acted as the top boss at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management since June 2019, remains in the top job during the early stages of the administration of President Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, outside DOE, the new administration appointed Joyce Connery as the new chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a post she has held before during the Barack Obama administration. Connery assumes the reins from Thomas Summers, who has served as acting chair for several months.
Connery began her federal career with the national laboratories, and has held key policy and management roles at the National Nuclear Security Administration and the National Security Council. She was confirmed again by the Senate to be a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on July 2, 2020, for a term expiring October 18, 2024.
White was included in a list of top DOE acting managers designated by Biden to report directly to the Office of the Secretary, according to a Friday email to agency employees from Tarak Shah, chief of staff to the secretary of energy.
“We are grateful to the numerous career leaders who are serving in an acting capacity and excited to have so many key political positions filled,” Shah said in the email, which also said that Charles Verdon remains as deputy administrator for defense programs and has been designated by the president to act as the administrator for the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
White came to the Environmental Management (EM) office as a senior adviser to then-undersecretary for science Paul Dabbar. White filled the post created by the departure of the Donald Trump administration’s only-Senate-confirmed assistant secretary of environmental management, Anne Marie White (no relation). She reportedly resigned at the request of Dabbar.
Before EM, Ike White was chief of staff and associate principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration. He has also worked in key staff roles for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and altogether has about five decades of experience at government nuclear agencies, according to his DOE bio.
There have been few changes in the top brass around the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup properties during the first 72 hours of the President Joe Biden administration.
Todd Shrader, principal deputy assistant secretary for environmental management and former manager of the Carlsbad Field Office in New Mexico, remains in the No. 2 slot at EM.
An updated EM organization chart posted Wednesday shows only one top line change from the last chart dated Jan. 4. Longtime agency hand Erik Olds is listed as the acting chief of staff. Thomas Mooney, a Trump administration political appointee who came over from the Pentagon within the past year, was previously in the job.
At deadline, the Biden administration has not nominated anyone to serve as head of EM long-term.
