The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee said it will hold a hearing to consider Kathryn Huff’s nomination as the head of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office: the post in charge of waste disposal strategy.
The administration tapped Huff on Feb. 28 to become principal assistant secretary at DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy (NE-1). That was about a month after the White House announced its intent to put Huff in charge at the office.
Steven Nesbit and Craig Piercy, respectively the president and CEO of the American Nuclear Society professional group, urged the Senate energy panel in a Monday letter to confirm Huff as NE-1.
“If confirmed, we are confident that Dr. Huff will build upon her extensive work in academia and in government to advance nuclear energy’s critical role in securing affordable, reliable emissions-free energy around the world,” Nesbit and Piercy said.
A spokesperson for industry group the Nuclear Energy Institute declined to comment Tuesday morning.
Huff started in the administration in May, as deputy assistant secretary of nuclear energy, the No. 2 slot. She had also been the acting NE-1 in the Office of Nuclear Energy and held the post for about nine months.
Now, however, Huff is a senior advisor to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, a political appointment outside the nuclear energy office. An agency spokesperson told Exchange Monitor in February that Huff would “remain in her current role” until confirmed to lead the nuclear energy office, but DOE has not said why she was moved out of the nuclear energy office.
This week’s confirmation hearing follows an allegation to the federal Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) inspector general in early February by an unidentified DOE employee that a “former career Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary” of Nuclear Energy was reassigned as a senior advisor to the Secretary of Energy after becoming “circumspect” for engaging in prohibited personnel practices.
The employee contended that “undue political influence and preferences were applied” in selecting nuclear-waste-management- and LGBTQ-advocate Sam Brinton for the senior executive service position of deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy. The personnel office has not said whether it investigating the complaint, or planned to.
Updated 03/15/2022 10:00 a.m. Eastern time with comment from NEI.
