Dae Chung, a long-serving Department of Energy executive, has been tapped by the Donald Trump administration to serve as the acting head of DOE’s multi-billion-dollar nuclear cleanup branch.
A status change in Chung’s LinkedIn profile Tuesday now lists him as acting principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Environmental Management. Chung takes over the top job on an acting basis from Candice Robertson, who a source said left Environmental Management (EM) on Thursday.
Until recent days, Chung was associate principal deputy assistant secretary for corporate services. In that role, Chung oversaw resource management, acquisition and project management, according to his DOE bio. Chung has over four decades of broad experience in U.S. government programs and operations.
Rumors have been circulating for weeks in the DOE weapons complex that Robertson, who has a young child and lives in rural Virginia far outside the Washington, D.C., Beltway, might leave given the White House push to return people to the office. DOE and EM have not responded to numerous inquiries from Exchange Monitor on Robertson’s status.
Roger Jarrell, a senior adviser to Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and the top political official at Environmental Management, is now listed as a DOE keynote speaker during the plenary session Monday atf the annual Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix.
DOE had announced shortly after Trump took office that Robertson would be staying on as highest-ranking fed at EM. Robertson replaced William (Ike) White at the helm of Environmental Management last June. Ike White led day-to-day operations at EM for about five years after replacing Anne Marie White, the last Senate-confirmed head of the nuclear cleanup branch. That was during the first Trump administration.
This time around, President Trump has yet to nominate anyone to lead the $8-billion cleanup program for DOE Cold War and Manhattan Project sites.
