Teri Donaldson, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Department of Energy inspector general, drew hardly any attention in her initial confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Donaldson, a former corporate environmental lawyer and federal prosecutor now working as general counsel for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), has “impressive credentials,” committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said during one brief exchange with the nominee.
Murkowski quickly passed the mic to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee’s ranking member and a fierce advocate for the Hanford Site in Washington state: a now-shuttered plutonium-production complex that has become the largest, most contaminated DOE cleanup project.
Cantwell spent only a brief time questioning Donaldson on the record at Tuesday’s hearing, asking whether she would make Hanford “one of your priorities” if confirmed. Donaldson said she would.
Cantwell said she wanted the next DOE inspector general to focus on contractor accountability and worker safety at Hanford, home to highly radioactive liquid and solid waste left over from decades of plutonium production through the Cold War. Workers at the site have repeatedly been exposed to radiation and chemicals at the site in the last several years, precipitating a lawsuit, state legislation aimed at assuring worker health benefits, and a helm-change at one major Hanford cleanup contract
Three other DOE nominees also appeared before the committee during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing.
As inspector general, Donaldson would be DOE’s chief internal watchdog: a critical eye empowered to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, including within the department’s nuclear-weapon and nuclear-waste-cleanup programs that command roughly $20 billion a year in federal funds. The DOE inspector general serves for life, but the position has been vacant since October 2015.
If the Energy and Natural Resources Committee clears her nomination, Donaldson must next pass muster before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over inspector general appointments. Finally, she would have to be confirmed by the full Senate. The Senate had not scheduled these hearings at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Trump nominated Donaldson June 11.
