The nomination of Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette to become energy secretary easily cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday by a 16-4 vote.
The full Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on the nomination, a source said.
The previously announced resignation of Energy Secretary Rick Perry takes effect Dec. 1. Perry on Tuesday gave a farewell address to staff at the Department of Energy.
Brouillette’s nomination has moved quickly. The White House formally nominated him on Nov. 7, and he appeared before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for a confirmation hearing on Nov. 14.
“I strongly support Dan Brouillette,” committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said at the outset of Tuesday’s business meeting to consider three nominations and more than 10 pieces of legislation. Echoing comments she made during last week’s hearing, the Alaskan lawmaker said Brouillette was an effective second-in-command to Perry.
Committee Ranking Member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also voted in favor of Brouillette. The four lawmakers who voted against the nomination were: Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.).
“There is no doubt he is well-qualified,” Cortez Masto said near the close of the hearing. But her vote, according to the senator, reflects the strained relationship between the current Department of Energy and Nevada.
“We are still battling and hearing different conversations when it comes to Yucca Mountain,” along with the 2018 shipment of weapon-grade plutonium to DOE’s Nevada National Security Site and disclosure of mislabeled radioactive waste being shipped to the same facility, Cortez Masto said.
The Nevada senator concluded her statement near the end of the meeting by saying she hopes Brouillette can patch up DOE’s relations with the state.
Brouillette spent two years, from 2001 to 2003, as DOE’s assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs during the George W. Bush administration. In 2003, he became staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He subsequently held executive posts with the Ford Motor Co. and the United Services Automobile Association.
When he was confirmed as deputy secretary in August 2017, Brouillette only drew 17 no votes from the full Senate. Those included Cortez Masto and then-Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller.