Anne Marie White should be sworn in this week as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, an industry source said Tuesday.
The Senate confirmed White’s nomination on Thursday by voice vote, but the Energy Department is apparently waiting for some paperwork to be sent over from the White House, the source said.
Energy Department headquarters on Tuesday did not respond to telephone and email inquiries regarding the schedule for White to assume the helm of the Office of Environmental Management.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) had placed a hold on White’s nomination while he sought to end the department’s uranium trading program, which is used to fund cleanup at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio. The lawmaker believes trading excess government uranium undermines the weak domestic uranium mining industry.
Barrasso apparently lifted the hold after Energy Secretary Rick Perry in a hearing last week on Capitol Hill agreed to suspend the DOE uranium barter program.
White had already started working as an Energy Department adviser on general policy issues not connected with her Senate-confirmed role.
A longtime nuclear cleanup consultant, White will be the first Senate-confirmed “EM-1” at the Department of Energy since Monica Regalbuto stepped down when President Donald Trump took office in January 2017.
