The Senate on Monday confirmed a former Department of Energy lawyer with private sector experience to serve as the agency’s new general counsel.
Samuel Walsh, who served at DOE under the Barack Obama administration, was confirmed to his new position as agency general counsel by voice vote in the Senate Monday evening. Walsh was nominated for the role in April. At deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor, he had not been sworn in at DOE.
In his new role, Walsh will be the agency’s top lawyer, responsible for counseling energy secretary Jennifer Granholm as well as the deputy secretary and DOE program offices on legal matters. He’s replacing Bill Cooper, who left the agency in January.
Since 2016, Walsh has been a partner at D.C. law firm Harris, Wiltshire and Grannis, LLP where he represented energy sector clients before federal courts and state agencies. During the Obama administration, he held three positions on the DOE’s legal team. From 2014 to 2016, Walsh was deputy general counsel for energy policy, overseeing DOE’s smaller legal teams for programs such as civilian nuclear power and electricity and fossil energy.
Prior to that, Walsh was assistant general counsel for the agency from 2012 to 2014. Walsh’s first role at the Obama DOE was as senior legal adviser to the general counsel, from 2010 to 2012.
Walsh got his law degree from Harvard, and his master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.
