The 115th Congress ended Thursday without a Senate vote on confirmation of the White House nominee for assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy.
That means Rita Baranwal would have to again be nominated and go through the confirmation process if she is to assume leadership of the Department of Energy’s nuclear power and waste missions.
More than 60 nominees to various positions in a number of federal agencies were approved late Wednesday in a last-minute confirmation blitz managed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).Among those was Teri Donaldson as DOE inspector general. One more nominee, William McIntosh, nominated as assistant administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, got a vote Thursday morning.
But all nominees who remained on the Executive Calendar when the Senate adjourned at 11:59 a.m. Thursday were sent back to the president, a McConnell spokesman noted. The 116th Congress began Thursday afternoon.
Stranded nominees included Baranwal; William Bookless, as principal deputy administrator for DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration; and William Cooper, as the department’s general counsel. As of deadline Friday for RadWaste Monitor, none had been renominated.
The White House on Thursday did not respond to a query regarding DOE candidates who did not make the Senate cut. One industry source said he understood the Trump administration intends to quickly send back most of its remaining nominees, and that no one at the Energy Department had been ruled out. The only issue would be nominees who choose not to repeat the process, the source said, without discussing any candidates who might be ready to bow out.
Baranwal has been director of the Energy Department’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear initiative since August 2016. The program, based at the Idaho National Laboratory, provides funding and other resources to promote development of nuclear power.
Prior to joining the department, the materials engineer spent more than a decade in the nuclear industry at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in Pennsylvania and Westinghouse Electric.
The White House nominated Baranwal in October and she received an affirmative vote from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in November. Only Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted against sending the nomination for a vote by the full Senate.
The Office of Nuclear Energy would presumably be tasked with managing any resumption of the Energy Department’s license application before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. The Obama administration defunded the proceeding nearly a decade ago and the Trump administration has not yet convinced Congress to approve appropriations to revive the process at DOE and the NRC.
Under questioning by Cortez Masto during her Nov. 15 confirmation hearing, Baranwal said as assistant secretary she would follow the law on disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste. Under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act, that would mean moving forward with Yucca Mountain.
The Office of Nuclear Energy has not had a Senate-confirmed leader since Pete Lyons retired in 2015 after four years as assistant secretary. With current funding of more than $1.3 billion, the office is now managed by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis.
Its primary mission is to provide early stage technology research, development, and demonstration in three areas: sustaining today’s domestic nuclear power fleet; establishing advanced reactor technologies, and maintaining a national strategic fuel cycle and supply chain infrastructure.
