President Donald Trump last week said he intends to nominated Teri Donaldson, Sen. John Barrasso’s (R-Wyo.) general counsel and a former practitioner of corporate environmental law, to be the Department of Energy’s inspector general.
Donaldson moved to Washington less than a year ago to start working for Barrasso’s office, where she has served since September, according to a press release from the senator.
Her most recent stint in public service prior to that was from 1999 to 2004, when Donaldson served as general counsel for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection under then-Gov. Jeb Bush (R).
As inspector general, Donaldson would be DOE’s chief internal watchdog: a critical eye within the agency empowered to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse, including within the department’s nuclear-weapon and nuclear-waste-cleanup programs that command roughly $20 billion a year in federal funds. The DOE inspector general serves for life.
The Energy Department has been without a full-time inspector general for more than two years since Gregory Friedman retired in October 2015 after 17 years on the job.
After Trump makes her nomination official, Donaldson will have a hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — which Barrasso chairs. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee must also approve her nomination before the full Senate can vote to confirm her appointment to DOE.
The Senate stonewalled the last person nominated to be DOE inspector general: 27-year agency veteran Susan Beard, who was tapped for the post in mid-2016 by then-President Barack Obama. Beard’s nomination was returned without action in January 2017, after which April Stephenson, DOE’s principal deputy inspector general, led the office on an acting basis until November. Federal law restricts the amount of time interim managers may occupy positions that require Senate confirmation to fill.
