May 29, 2014

AT LONG LAST, SENATE CONFIRMS KLOTZ AS NNSA ADMINISTRATOR

By ExchangeMonitor

More than seven months after Frank Klotz was nominated to head up the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Senate finally confirmed the retired lieutenant general, clearing him by a voice vote late yesterday afternoon. Klotz’s confirmation ends the NNSA’s 15-month gap without a permanent administrator; Neile Miller, Michael Lempke and Bruce Held have led the agency in an acting capacity since Tom D’Agostino left the agency in January of 2013. Klotz was nominated to the position in August and cleared by the Senate Armed Services Committee in September, but his nomination became bogged down in a partisan dispute over nominees in the Senate. “We really need someone who is deeply educated and experienced in this,” Held told NS&D Monitor on the sidelines of a House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing, minutes after Klotz was confirmed. “NNSA is a major national security element of the U.S. government so we really need someone of Frank’s stature and leadership ability to run it, and then get [Principal Deputy Administrator nominee] Madelyn [Creedon] in there with him.” Creedon has yet to be confirmed.

Klotz retired from the Air Force in 2011 after standing up Global Strike Command, and has worked since then as a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations. During his Air Force career, he commanded a strategic missile squadron and operations group at Grand Forks Air Force Base and a missile wing at Minot Air Force Base. He also headed up Air Force Space Command’s 20th Air Force and Strategic Command’s Task Force 214, and worked as Director for Nuclear Policy and Arms Control with the National Security Council at the White House and as a defense attaché at the American embassy in Moscow. “Lieutenant General Klotz’s confirmation comes at a critical point for the National Nuclear Security Administration,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement. “His breadth of military and national security leadership experience makes him uniquely suited to lead the NNSA, fulfilling its commitments to the management and security of the nation’s nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation, naval reactor programs, and nuclear and radiological emergency preparedness efforts.”

The Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday also cleared the nomination of Brian McKeon, the President’s nominee to be Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. McKeon’s nomination had been held up over GOP concerns about potential Russian violations of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

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