Almost two years after the last Assistant Secretary of Energy for Environmental Management stepped down from the position, the Department of Energy needs to move forward with nominating a replacement, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said yesterday. At a House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee hearing, Simpson told current DOE cleanup chief David Huizenga, “It would be at least my recommendation, and I think it would be safe to say the recommendation of this Subcommittee, that the Secretary take a quick look at permanent status for you if you wanted to accept it—I don’t know why you would—or someone else they plan on doing. This acting status of a lot of different areas goes on and on and on and I think is a disadvantage to the individual that we’re placing in that position.”
Huizenga has served as DOE’s cleanup chief for approximately 20 months. He was first named as acting Assistant EM Secretary in the summer of 2011 after Ines Triay stepped down from the position. Since then, however, there has been no movement by the Obama Administration to formally nominate him, or anyone else, to the position. Huizenga’s acting status came to an end in early 2012, and since then his official title has been DOE Senior Advisor for Environmental Management. Huizenga said yesterday, though, the lack of being confirmed as Assistant EM Secretary has had little direct impact on his ability to manage DOE’s cleanup efforts. “There are two statutory limitations. I can’t eliminate the WTP office, which I have no intention of doing. And there’s one other way that doesn’t bear on me … it has something to do with officially asking to move money around but that’s something the Secretary [of Energy] does,” he said.
Huizenga also noted that he was pleased with EM’s efforts during his tenure to improve the safety culture at cleanup sites. “We need to make sure that our workers are provided a safe environment and … that they recognize there will not be retribution if they raise a particular issue or if something doesn’t seem right to them and they feel like they can go to their manager and the manager will pay attention and listen to their concerns,” he said. “We’ve now driven the need to show leadership in this regard into the performance plans for our senior managers, so I get to grade them and I indeed get graded myself on whether we’re paying attention to these [issues]. So we’re trying to put actually put our money where our mouth is, in a sense, by holding ourselves accountable throughout the leadership team to making sure that we have a safe environment for our workers—one where they don’t fear retribution for raising issues—and I think we’ve made progress in that regard.”