The nominee for a high-level nuclear security jobs at the Department of Energy could get another trip through the Senate confirmation process for Christmas, according to a spokesperson for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Asked whether there was any chance that William Bookless — principal deputy administrator-designate for the National Nuclear Security Administration — might be allowed a confirmation vote in the upcoming 116th Congress, the McConnell spokesperson said Tuesday that “[n]ominees who are on the Executive Calendar when the Senate adjourns sine die are returned to the White House.”
Senate rules, in theory, allow nominees to be held over from one session of Congress to the next. However, that requires the body’s unanimous consent, and no such motion was scheduled for floor consideration at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
The Republican Senate held some nominees over from the 114th session of Congress into the 115th session, which began on Jan. 3, 2017. If that does not happen again, Bookless and other nominees might find themselves yo-yoing back to the White House for possible renomination in the New Year.
The Senate Armed Services Committee on Dec. 10 unanimously approved Bookless for the No. 2 position at the NNSA, the semiautonomous agency that manages DOE’s nuclear stockpile management operations. In his November nomination hearing, Democratic members of the panel drilled Bookless about the agency’s plans to make nuclear-warhead cores anywhere other than New Mexico, and pressed him to signal some support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.
Meanwhile, the 116th Congress is slated to gavel in on Jan. 3. The 115th Congress remained in session as of Friday afternoon as it tried to avoid a partial government shutdown covering the Homeland Security Department and other federal agencies. The short-tererm continuing resolution being debated does not include the Department of Energy, which has already received full-fiscal year funding through Sept. 30, 2019.
