The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed Anne Marie White to become assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, after Energy Secretary Rick Perry agreed to suspend the agency’s uranium barter program.
The commitment by Perry, offered publicly during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, evidently helped persuade Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to release his hold on White’s nomination.
Perry said trading excess government uranium is a bad policy because it interferes with the market for domestic uranium. The DOE chief suspended the policy effective in the current 2018 fiscal year and hopes to avoid uranium barter again in fiscal 2019.
But Perry also told Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) the practice, which helps fund cleanup at DOE’s Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, will remain a backup option in fiscal 2019 should Congress not appropriate enough money to avoid any disruptions in the work.
Portman noted the uranium barter practice began after the Obama administration failed to request adequate yearly appropriations for Portsmouth. He added the number of cleanup jobs potentially affected at the former uranium-enrichment plant is greater than the number of uranium mining jobs Barrasso is trying to protect in Wyoming.
With that bit of inside-the-Beltway maneuvering out of the way, the Senate also overcame an unusual March snowstorm in Washington, D.C., to approve the Trump nominee in a voice vote. There was no immediate word from DOE on Friday regarding when White might be sworn in to take over the Office of Environmental Management and its multibillion-dollar annual cleanup budget.
White had already started working as an adviser at the Energy Department, a DOE official said Monday.
“She has reported to DOE” in a senior advisory role, according to Jim Colgary, chief of staff to Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette. “She is in the building.”
Colgary, speaking at the opening plenary to the Waste Management Symposia in Phoenix, Ariz., did not say when White started as an adviser.
White is the first “EM-1” at the Department of Energy since Monica Regalbuto stepped down following President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2017.
“We are absolutely thrilled” with the confirmation, Energy Communities Alliance Director of Nuclear Energy Policy Kara Colton said Friday: The office “has been in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for Anne White to be confirmed.” ECA, which represents communities near DOE facilities, looks forward to working with White, she added.
The Office of Environmental Management has 16 active remediation sites. For fiscal 2019, the Trump administration is requesting $6.6 billion for the office, up from $6.5 billion request for fiscal 2018 but less than the $7.1 billion omnibus approved this week by Congress.