Staff Reports
WC Monitor
8/29/2014

After a two-and-a-half-month summer vacation, former acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Bruce Held returned this week to the Department of Energy. Held’s title will apparently remain the same—associate deputy secretary—but his duties have not been fully defined. “Governance issues have long been my central concern so I hope to be involved in those,” Held said in an email response to questions.

Held, whose earlier career was as a clandestine operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, spent nearly a year as acting administrator of the NNSA prior to Frank Klotz’s nomination and confirmation. He previously served as DOE’s director of intelligence and counterintelligence. He said his return to the federal agency was fueled by his and his wife’s admiration for Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “So, we are happy to help in any way he finds useful,” he said.

He returns at a pivotal time for DOE—a time when he may be counted on to take an important leadership role with Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman leaving. Poneman announced this summer that he was leaving DOE in the fall, and there is no guarantee that his White House-nominated successor, Liz Sherwood-Randall, will be confirmed by the Senate in time to take his place. Held would be among a handful of likely candidates to serve as an acting deputy secretary until Sherwood-Randall is confirmed.