The White House has officially nominated Brent Park, a physicist from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to lead the National Nuclear Security Administration’s $2-billion-a-year nonproliferation portfolio, but the Senate Armed Services Committee had not scheduled a nomination hearing as of Friday.
Park, whose nomination was sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, is now an associate laboratory director at Oak Ridge. If approved by the committee and confirmed by the Senate, he would oversees the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) efforts to prevent the spread of special nuclear materials that could help other countries or independent actors obtain a nuclear weapon, or even a non-nuclear “dirty bomb” that could spread radioactive material with conventional explosives.
Congress leaves town after Friday for a weeklong President’s Day recess, so any action on the latest NNSA nominee will wait until the week of Feb. 26. The Senate did confirm Lisa Gordon-Hagerty as the agency’s administrator this week.
Park, if confirmed, would replace David Huizenga as the top official in NNSA defense nuclear nonproliferation. Huizenga was the acting deputy administrator until November, when he had to step down due to federal rules that limit how long interim managers may serve in posts that require Senate confirmation.
Huizenga is still the principal assistant deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
