Energysec pleads for Senate to confirm more DOE lieutenants

Energy Secretary Chris Wright used an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last week to plead for the upper chamber to confirm more DOE nominees.

“If I can ask one thing for the whole senate is please help confirm my people,” Wright said during a hearing last week on the DOE budget request for fiscal 2026.

“I have got 10 people who have gone through your committee who are sitting there and I don’t have them in the office and I don’t have them on the team because of some procedural thing,” Wright said. “They have already been vetted, they have already got bipartisan votes among this committee.”

Although James Danly has been sworn in as deputy secretary of energy, most others are stuck somewhere between committee votes and awaiting a vote by the full Senate.

Key DOE nuclear appointee positions remain unconfirmed.

For example, the nomination of Brandon Williams to lead DOE’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration was reported out of Senate Armed Services on May 1. But Williams awaits a vote by the full Senate.

Likewise, the nomination of Ted Garrish to head DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy was reported out of Energy and Natural Resources on May 8 but no vote has been held yet.

In addition, President Donald Trump’s Mach nomination of Colorado developer Tim Walsh to run DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, which is the nuclear cleanup branch, has yet to receive a Senate hearing.

Wright bemoaned the slow pace of DOE management confirmations during an exchange with Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.). “I am glad you made that pitch, It’s very important we are all aware of that, Hoeven said.