The White House on Wednesday renominated Rita Baranwal to lead the Department of Energy’s nuclear power and waste activities.
Baranwal was among more than 150 people nominated for federal jobs late Wednesday, many of whom were previously nominated but did not get Senate votes before the last Congress ended on Jan. 3. When one session of Congress ends, nominees not approved by the full Senate are returned to the White House to repeat the nomination process.
After more than a decade working in the nuclear industry, Baranwal in August 2016 became director of the Energy Department’s Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) program. The initiative provides funding and other resources to promote research and development of nuclear power technologies.
The White House in October first nominated Baranwal as assistant energy secretary for nuclear energy. She largely sailed through the approval process in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, with only Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voting in November against forwarding the nomination to the Senate floor.
Neither lawmaker publicly offered their reasoning for opposing Baranwal, though Cortez Masto quizzed the nominee during a Nov. 15 hearing regarding her position on the long-planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Baranwal pledged to follow the law on disposal of the nation’s radioactive waste, which under the 1987 amendment to the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act means the nation’s spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste must be buried on the federal property about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nevada’s state and federal leaders have committed to preventing that from happening.
The Energy and Natural Resources Committee reported Baranwal to the Senate on Nov. 27, but she never got a vote.
Her nomination this week was again sent to the ENR Committee. At deadline Friday, there was no indication that any committee hearing and vote had been scheduled.
Both Cortez Masto and Sanders remain on the committee in the 116th Congress. Their offices did not respond to requests for comment Thursday regarding whether they would again oppose Baranwal’s confirmation.
Baranwal, if confirmed, would lead the Office of Nuclear Energy. The office, funded at $1.3 billion in the current budget year, is currently led by Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis. The last Senate-confirmed assistant secretary for nuclear energy was Pete Lyons, who held the position from 2011 to 2015 before retiring from government service.
