The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a nomination hearing Thursday for two Trump administration picks to lead the Energy Department’s nuclear cleanup and nuclear nonproliferation operations.
The Senate panel will take testimony from Brent Park, nominated as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, and Anne Marie White, the nominee for the position of assistant secretary of energy for environmental management.
White was reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Jan. 30. If confirmed by the full Senate, she would lead DOE’s Office of Environmental Management and its roughly $6.5 billion annual budget. However, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has placed a hold on the nomination for the longtime nuclear sector consultant, demanding an end to DOE’s uranium barter program.
The Energy Department has for years provided excess government uranium for sale by contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth to help fund cleanup at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. The Wyoming Republican says the practice undercuts the ailing domestic uranium business in his state and elsewhere.
On Feb. 13, President Donald Trump nominated Park, a nuclear physicist and associate director at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, to head the $2 billion annual nonproliferation program at the NNSA. If confirmed, Park would lead the agency’s efforts to constrain the spread of special nuclear materials that could help other countries or terror groups obtain a nuclear weapon.
In addition to the two DOE nominees, the 9:30 a.m. hearing will also feature testimony from Army Lt. Gen. Paul M. Nakasone, who has been nominated to be the next head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command.
