PRESIDENT RENOMINATES DOE APPOINTEES

As expected, President Obama yesterday sent back to the Senate dozens of nominations from last year, including several key Department of Energy posts. The move was necessary after late last week the Senate formally returned the nominations to the President because they were caught up in a dispute between Democrats and Republicans over new filibuster rules in the Senate and were not confirmed before the end of the year. Yesterday Obama renominated 10 DOE appointees, including Frank Klotz, the Administration’s pick to be the next National Nuclear Security Administration chief, and Elizabeth Robinson, the nominee to be the Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance. 

 

Other DOE nominees that were again sent to the Senate yesterday include: Madelyn Creedon (Principal Deputy NNSA Administrator), Franklin Orr (Under Secretary of Energy for Science), Steven Croley (DOE General Counsel), Joseph Hezir (DOE Chief Financial Officer), Chris Smith (Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy), Jonathan Elkind (Assistant Secretary for International Affairs), Ellen Williams (Director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), and Marc Kastner (Director of DOE’s Office of Science). The nominees will have to be cleared again by their respective committees of jurisdiction, though it is unlikely that they will have to testify for another round of confirmation hearings.