Mike Nartker
WC Monitor
12/12/2014
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has dropped his hold on Monica Regalbuto’s nomination to serve as the next Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management, but it remains to be seen if she’ll be confirmed by the Senate before the current Congress goes out of session, expected next week. Barrasso chose to drop his hold after receiving sought-after information from the Department of Energy concerning its uranium transfer policy, which the senator has questioned, according to a Barrasso spokeswoman. The move could ease Regalbuto’s path to confirmation by allowing her nomination to be approved by unanimous consent in the last days of the current Congress.
Barrasso placed his hold on Regalbuto’s nomination this fall after receiving what he believed were insufficient answers from DOE to questions about how the Department prepared its analyses showing that its uranium transfers will not significantly hurt the domestic uranium industry. In recent years, DOE has provided uranium to contractors to help pay for cleanup activities and other projects. In May, DOE issued a new Secretarial determination outlining plans to transfer a maximum of 2,705 metric tons of natural uranium equivalent material per year. In its determination, DOE said it based its analysis that the transfer would not have an “adverse” impact on the domestic uranium production industry on work done by Energy Resources International, as well as “as other information and analysis reviewed by the Department.”
Among the information Barrasso had sought from DOE is how the Department ensured the technical quality of the “other information and analysis” reviewed in making the May Secretarial determination. A Barrasso spokeswoman told WC Monitor this week that DOE told the Senator’s office that it did not subject the ERI analysis or the other information DOE relied upon in its determination to external review, and that the only step DOE took to ensure the quality of the ERI analysis and other information was a review performed by the staff of DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. “We now know that the Department of Energy cannot credibly claim that its uranium transfers won’t hurt America’s uranium producers. The best it can do is point to a study conducted by its own staff. And by the Department’s own admission, its staff doesn’t have the expertise to assess the impact of its uranium transfers,” Barrasso said in a statement.
He went on to say, “The Department of Energy also didn’t bother to verify the accuracy of its study with others. At the very least, the Department of Energy should subject any future transfers to a formal rulemaking process. Anything short of that shows a lack of good faith.”
Regalbuto Nomination Seen as Uncontroversial
Regalbuto has largely been seen as an uncontroversial choice to head up DOE’s cleanup program, and sailed through a hearing the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, upon which Barrasso sits, held to consider her nomination in June. She was nominated by the Obama Administration this spring to fill the vacancy left when Ines Triay stepped down as Assistant EM Secretary in July 2011. Since then, the position has been filled in an acting capacity, first by David Huizenga and then beginning in July by Mark Whitney, who also serves as EM Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.
At the time of her nomination, Regalbuto had been serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Fuel Cycle Technologies in DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. However, she has since moved to take a senior management role in EM, and now serves as Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary.
