The Joe Biden administration’s nominee for energy secretary, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, should be voted upon by the full Senate Thursday after two-thirds of the chamber voted Wednesday to end debate.
The vote to end debate was 67-to-32.
With a Granholm vote imminent, a confirmation hearing for Biden’s deputy secretary of energy nominee, David Turk, could occur within a couple of weeks, a DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) official said Wednesday.
Mark Gilbertson, EM’s associate principal deputy assistant secretary, said Wednesday he understands the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will likely hold a confirmation hearing for Turk during the first half of March. Gilbertson made his remarks while addressing an online Energy Communities Alliance webinar on high-level waste.
The committee had not officially scheduled a hearing date for the deputy secretary of energy, a staffer for the panel said by email Wednesday afternoon. A DOE veteran of the Barack Obama administration, Turk is currently deputy executive director of the International Energy Agency.
While an avowed supporter of reducing national dependence on carbon-emitting fossil fuels, Granholm’s positions on nuclear waste cleanup are less well-defined. She told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month she opposes using the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada as an underground repository for spent nuclear fuel. Likewise, Granholm also pledged to make cleaning up DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state a priority.
