President Joe Biden has formally sent Jill Hruby’s nomination to be undersecretary for nuclear security at the Department of Energy to the Senate for consideration, the White House announced Thursday.
Also Thursday Biden announced his intent to nominate Frank Rose as the principal deputy administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Rose is currently with the Brookings Institution as a senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology.
The nomination of Hruby, who was director of the Sandia National Laboratories for about two years during the Barack Obama administration, was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to the congress.gov website. No date has been set for a committee hearing on the Hruby nomination.
Hruby has served as president of Sandia Corp., a Lockheed Martin subsidiary, and has spent about three decades working around the DOE’s weapons complex. More recently, Hruby has been a Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
The DOE’s semi-autonomous NNSA is currently headed by acting undersecretary for nuclear security and NNSA administrator Charles Verdon.
The last Senate-approved head of NNSA was Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, a Donald Trump administration appointee, who resigned abruptly a couple of days after the November election. She had been on the job less than three years and reportedly had strained relations with then-Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette.
Provided Hruby wins Senate confirmation, she would become the second woman to lead the U.S. civilian nuclear weapons program.
As for Rose, he spent much of the Obama administration serving as an assistant secretary of state for arms control. He also worked on space and defense-related policy at the Department of State. Rose has also worked for the Department of Defense.
