Cynthia Anderson, a veteran Department of Energy manager, is interested in leading the agency’s office of environmental management in the Joe Biden administration, multiple people told Weapons Complex Monitor.
Among other roles, Anderson has served as chief operating officer for the Office of the Environmental Management, with more than 20 years of nuclear and environmental supervisor experience, including helping administer American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for the nuclear cleanup office during the Barack Obama administration.
Of the four people who spoke to the Monitor for this story, two said that they have heard Anderson is in the mix. One of these people deemed Anderson “eminently qualified.” The other said Anderson alienated some DOE colleagues at the Savannah River Site following a dispute over use of recovery act funds more than a decade ago.
Anderson did not return calls Thursday and Friday seeking comment.
It was previously reported by Weapons Complex Monitor and others in 2009 that Anderson was the “senior official” who was the subject of an ethics complaint investigated by the DOE Office of Inspector General. The resulting report in December 2009 concluded the facts “did not substantiate the allegation” that the senior official, not identified in the document, tried to steer $9 million in recovery act funds to certain Historically Black Colleges and Universities “in exchange for something of value” on behalf of a member of Congress.
The report also said the work atmosphere at Savannah River during the period suffered from a high level of “distrust and acrimony.”
Meanwhile, despite Anderson’s name cropping up in conversation over the past weeks, two people familiar with the Biden administration’s search for full-time political leadership at the Office of Environmental Management said Joyce Connery, chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, remains on the administration’s radar.
Connery is the “top choice” on the administration’s list of potential names for the assistant secretary of environmental management or EM-1, one industry source said by phone Friday citing conversations with a person familiar with the Biden camp.
“I have heard from many sources” that Connery is the likely selection for assistant secretary of environmental management or EM-1, another weapons complex observer said by phone Thursday. Past EM-1 selections have often caught denizens of the weapons complex by surprise, this person said.
When contacted two weeks ago, Connery declined comment other than to say she is focusing her attention on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
As of deadline Friday for the Monitor, there was no sign from the administration that the DOE cleanup office would get new leadership anytime soon.
As of Friday, Biden’s secretary of energy-designate, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D), awaited a confirmation vote in the Senate and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee had yet to schedule a hearing for deputy secretary-designate, David Turk.
It took about a year before the Donald Trump administration got its first Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for environmental management, but then as now, there was plenty of grist for the rumor mill as the nuclear-cleanup industry prepared for its first big gathering of the year, the annual Waste Management Symposia — a virtual event, this year.
