Rita Baranwal, the former Westinghouse executive tapped to be assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy, will have her confirmation hearing Nov. 15, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee announced Tuesday.
Baranwal was one of many White House nominees who were supposed to have a confirmation hearing ahead of the U.S. midterm elections Nov. 6, and whose hearings were cancelled after Senate Democrats agreed to approve a slew of judicial nominees in exchange for an adjournment to go campaign.
If approved by the committee and confirmed by the full Senate, Baranwal would lead Department of Energy’s (DOE) work on nuclear reactors and nuclear waste, including the so-far unsuccessful effort to revive its license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository in Nye County, Nev.
Baranwal is now director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear initiative at DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory. The program attempts to accelerate development of technology that could make nuclear power cheaper, safer and quicker to deploy, according to a DOE website.
Baranwal’s hearing had been scheduled for Thursday. Unlike another Department of Energy nominee, her hearing was quickly rescheduled.
At deadline Tuesday for Weapons Complex Morning Briefing, the Senate Armed Services Committee still had not rescheduled a nomination hearing for William Bookless: the senior Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory physicist tapped to be second in command at the Department of Energy’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration.
Bookless was originally scheduled to get his day in D.C. on Tuesday.
