Kathryn Huff is a step closer to removing ‘acting’ from her title as assistant secretary of the Department of Energy’s nuclear energy office, as the Joe Biden administration nominated her to take over the position full-time this week.
If confirmed by the Senate, Huff will take over the Office of Nuclear Energy’s (NE) head chair, which she has been keeping warm since May. The White House announced her nomination in a press release Wednesday. Huff was tapped for the office’s number-two slot last year and was made the acting number-one in the same breath.
During her time as acting NE-1, Huff oversaw the Biden admin’s most significant move yet to address the nuclear waste issue in the U.S.
In November, the nuclear energy office announced a request for information (RFI) aimed at refining the process for siting a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel. Responses to that request are rolling in, Huff said last week. Under current federal law, DOE cannot build an interim storage repository without first building a permanent one.
Under Huff’s watch, NE is also planning initial steps to implement a civil nuclear credits program laid out in the Biden admin’s infrastructure package, signed into law in November. A DOE spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor last week that a separate RFI related to the roughly $6 billion in tax credits for struggling nuclear plants would be out “in the coming weeks.” The agency has until March to sort out a process for auctioning off the credits, per the law.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm congratulated Huff on her nomination in a statement Wednesday. “If confirmed, she would continue her groundbreaking work at DOE to advance zero-carbon nuclear energy technologies to tackle the climate crisis and provide affordable, secure, and reliable energy for all Americans,” Granholm said.
Former NE-1 Rita Baranwal also chimed in on Twitter Wednesday with her kudos.
Industry professional organization the American Nuclear Society said in its own statement Wednesday that it “look[s] forward to [Huff’s] confirmation and tenure as NE-1.”
