The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday signed off on the Trump administration’s nominee to lead the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Nuclear Energy.
Rita Baranwal, currently director of DOE’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) program, now waits for a vote by the full Senate in the waning days of the 115th Congress.
Baranwal and National Park Service director nominee Raymond David Vela were approved in a joint voice vote by the committee. Afterward, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said she wanted to record a vote in opposition to Baranwal. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who was not at the meeting, also recorded votes against both nominees via committee Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).
Representatives for Cortez Masto and Sanders did not respond by deadline Friday to repeated queries regarding the senators’ opposition to Baranwal. However, during a Nov. 15 confirmation hearing, Cortez Masto quizzed the nominee regarding her position on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nye County, Nev.
The Office of Nuclear Energy is primarily focused on promoting nuclear power technologies. But, if confirmed as assistant DOE secretary for nuclear energy, Baranwal would lead any efforts at the agency to license and develop an underground disposal space for spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Nevada’s political leaders remain united in opposition to importing other state’ radioactive waste.
Under questioning from Nevada’s soon-to-be senior senator, Baranwal said local voices should be heard on the issue but that she would follow the law on nuclear waste disposal as set by Congress. Until Capitol Hill says otherwise, that still means Yucca Mountain.
Congress in 1987 designated the remote federal property about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the ultimate site for the nation’s nuclear waste, but the project has made little headway since then and was canceled by the Obama administration. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill today so far have resisted the Trump administration’s requests to resume funding for the long-stalled licensing process, though there are rumblings of developments as the lame-duck Congress works on a replacement for the short-term budget funding a number of federal agencies through Dec. 7.
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee also advanced Bernard McNamee’s nomination to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on a nearly party-line vote. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to support McNamee.
Baranwal has led the GAIN initiative for more than two years, following over a decade working on nuclear technologies and fuel programs at Westinghouse and the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in Pennsylvania. Her nomination has generally received strong marks from the nuclear energy industry and issue observers.
“I believe that she will have an opportunity here to help us shape the future of nuclear energy, something that I think is increasingly critical, not just here in the United States, but globally as well,” committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said before the nomination vote.
Baranwal’s nomination has been placed on the Senate Executive Calendar, “[s]ubject to nominee’s commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the Senate.” There was no word this week on when she would get a floor vote, even as the Senate prepares to take up McNamee’s nomination on Monday. The 115th Congress is scheduled to largely wrap up work in mid-December, after which the nomination could either be held over to the next session or returned to the White House.
There has not been a Senate-approved assistant secretary for nuclear energy since Pete Lyons, who held the job from 2011 to 2015. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis currently leads the office.
