Brian Bradley
RW Monitor
11/20/2015
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday favorably reported out three top Energy Department nominees. Despite opposition expressed by committee member Rob Portman (R-Ohio) over announced funding cuts for decontamination and decommissioning at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and the Piketon, Ohio, piece of the American Centrifuge Project, the panel OK’d Victoria Wassmer as undersecretary of energy for management and performance and John Kotek as assistant secretary of energy for nuclear energy. The committee also reported out Cherry Murray as director of DOE’s Office of Science. The nominees now face a vote before the full Senate before they can be officially confirmed.
Following a Senate ENR confirmation hearing last month, Portman “wasn’t happy” with Wassmer’s and Kotek’s answers about funding for Portsmouth D&D and the American Centrifuge program, respectively, a congressional staffer said. The staffer said Portman was deciding whether to block Wassmer’s confirmation, largely because of what he said during the hearing were broken commitments by Energy Department leadership to commit adequate funding for Portsmouth. The staffer added at the time that Portman planned to meet with Wassmer and Kotek “in the near future,” and expected them to give more specifics on how they planned to “work with Ohio.”
Portman’s office did not respond Thursday to questions about whether he had met with the two prior to yesterday’s vote.
According to Senate ENR minority staffer Rosemarie Calabro Tully, the committee unanimously confirmed Murray and Wassmer by voice vote, and committee member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) was the only senator to vote against Kotek.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant D&D contractor Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth in August announced that an anticipated $81 million budget shortfall to fund the project in fiscal 2016 would force up to 500 layoffs. Congress on Oct. 1 passed a continuing resolution that funds the federal government at fiscal 2015 levels through Dec. 11 and includes an anomaly to give DOE the flexibility through its Uranium Enrichment D&D Fund to prevent the Portsmouth layoffs.
ACP contractor Centrus in September confirmed DOE would no longer fund the Piketon piece of the program, and officials have said all ACP operations will be limited to development activities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee at a cost of $35 million per year. Centrus employs about 300 technical and other staff in Piketon. ACP is an advanced uranium enrichment facility intended to produce low-enriched uranium.
Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) praised the three committee confirmations, saying in a statement that he appreciates Wassmer’s “commitment to making cleanup of the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge a priority,” and that Kotek is committed to “ensuring that the nuclear facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory are properly maintained and operated.”
