Senate Returns Dozens of Nominations To President Obama

Weapon Complex Monitor January 7, 2014 Senate Returns Dozens of Nominations To President Obama The Senate, as expected, formally returned dozens of nominees to President Obama Jan. 3, including a handful of key Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration selections that were not cleared by the Senate before it adjourned last month. The nominees were caught up in a dispute between Democrats and Republicans over new filibuster rules in the Senate, and just a handful of Obama Administration nominees were confirmed in December. That did not include 10 DOE nominees, including Frank Klotz, the Administration’s pick to be the next National Nuclear Security Administration chief, and Elizabeth Robinson, the nominee to be the Under Secretary of Energy for Management and Performance. Both Klotz and Robinson were nominated during the summer and cleared by Senate committees in September, but were not confirmed by the Senate. Other pending nominations that were returned to President Obama by the Senate included: Madelyn Creedon (Principal Deputy NNSA Administrator), Franklin Orr (Under Secretary of Energy for Science), Steven Croley (DOE General Counsel), Joseph Hezir (DOE Chief Financial Officer), Chris Smith (Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy), Jonathan Elkind (Assistant Secretary for International Affairs), Ellen Williams (Director of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), and Marc Kastner (Director of DOE’s Office of Science). Because the Senate did not act on dozens of other nominations, President Obama will have to re-nominate the officials this year and they will have to be cleared again by their respective committees of jurisdiction, though it is unlikely that they will have to testify for another round of confirmation hearings. The Administration began the process of re-nominating officials yesterday, submitting a handful of its selections to the Senate, but that list did not include any of the DOE nominees.