The Senate Armed Services Committee this week postponed a confirmation hearing for the Donald Trump administration’s nominee to be second-in-command at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).
William Bookless, a senior physicist form the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, was scheduled to testify before the panel Tuesday, but “this hearing has been postponed,” the committee said on its website. “It will be rescheduled at a later date.”
The hearing had not been rescheduled at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor
Bookless’ canceled hearing was an apparent casualty of the deal Senate Democrats cut last week with the chamber’s Republican leadership: approving a slew of judicial nominees in exchange for freedom to adjourn and campaign ahead of the Nov. 6 midterm elections.
Bookless’ day in the Senate, and that of other nominees for senior administration jobs, “was postponed because the Senate went into recess,” a Senate Armed Services Committee spokesperson wrote in an email.
Nominated in August to be NNSA principal deputy administrator, Bookless is the last remaining senior leadership slot the administration needs to fill for the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency.
There are four Senate-confirmed slots in total at the NNSA: administrator, principal deputy administrator, deputy administrator for defense programs, and deeputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
Last week, Charles Verdon, another old Livermore hand, was sworn in as deputy administrator for defense programs, following his unanimous confirmation in September. This summer, the Senate confirmed Brent Park, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory physicist, as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation.
The Trump administration’s first political appointee to the NNSA’s senior executive service was Administrator Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, who was confirmed in February after a December nomination.
