Environmental Management nominee Walsh becomes DOE adviser

Tim Walsh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management, has taken a DOE adviser job while he awaits a Senate confirmation vote.

“Mr. Walsh will begin working in the Office of Science in the coming weeks as a senior advisor,” a DOE spokesperson said by email Wednesday in response to an inquiry from Exchange Monitor. “His work will not overlap with his pending role in the Office of Environmental Management”

Walsh, a military combat veteran and real estate developer from Colorado, testified before and was passed out of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee in July. No Senate vote has been scheduled as of press time. President Trump nominated him in March.

Should Walsh win Senate confirmation, he would become Environmental Management’s first Senate-passed top executive since Anne Marie White during the first Trump administration. White won Senate confirmation in March 2018 and then resigned from the EM post in May 2019.

Currently the day-to-day operations at EM are being overseen by Roger Jarrell II, who formerly worked for the environmental cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee. Jarrell also served as a senior adviser at DOE during the first Trump administration.