People reportedly appointed to new senior leadership roles in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, including one person who was supposed to lead the office, had yet to officially start their new jobs as of Monday, nearly a month after the personnel announcements hit.
In mid-January, the White House announced that President Joe Biden planned to nominate Kathryn Huff as the administration’s full-time assistant secretary for nuclear energy, or NE-1. As of Monday morning, Huff, who had been the acting head of Nuclear Energy (NE) for about nine months, had not officially been nominated. The Senate would have to approve her nomination after she gets a hearing in the chamber’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
As of Monday morning, Huff was a special advisor to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, according to DOE’s website. Federal law can limit the time officials at a certain level of seniority may serve on an acting basis.
Also as of Monday, there was still an acting deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition, or NE-8, in the Office of Nuclear Energy: the second of the Biden administration.
This after Washington-based advocate Sam Brinton announced in January that they had accepted an offer from DOE to become the NE-8.
Brinton, who identifies as genderfluid and uses they and them as third-person pronouns, announced Jan. 10 that they had accepted an offer to be DOE’s deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition.
On Monday, however, Kim Petry, who is also acting director of DOE’s Office of Integrated Waste Management, was still listed as acting NE-8 on the agency’s organization chart. Petry was active in that role as recently as Thursday, when she briefed the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Community Advisory Panel on DOE’s interim storage inquiry.
Brinton declined to comment to Exchange Monitor Thursday evening on the status of their employment with DOE. The agency did not reply to a request for comment.
As of Monday, Brinton’s LinkedIn still listed them as director of legislative affairs at nuclear waste services company Deep Isolation. They were previously a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and a clean energy fellow at center-left policy think tank Third Way. Brinton was also vice president of advocacy and government affairs at the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention non-profit for LGBTQ youth.
Brinton holds a dual Masters’ degree in nuclear engineering and technology and policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., and dual Bachelors’ degrees in mechanical engineering and vocal music performance from Kansas State University.
