Tim Walsh, a combat veteran and Colorado real estate developer, was confirmed by the full U.S. Senate Tuesday to head the Department of Energy’s $8-billion Office of Environmental Management.
Walsh was confirmed 51-to-47 by the Senate Tuesday as part of a bloc of dozens of nominees from President Donald Trump who have been awaiting a floor vote.
Walsh was first nominated by President Trump in March to be assistant secretary for Environmental Management. He was reported out of the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee in July.
A former company commander with the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, Walsh studied engineering at West Point and eventually earned a master’s degree from Stanford, he told the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee. Living in Colorado, Walsh told the panel the cleanup of the Rocky Flats nuclear facility helped drive home the importance of the nuclear cleanup mission. Walsh founded Confluence Companies, a real estate development company in Golden, Co.
The Walsh nomination was put on hold last month by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pending confirmation that the multiple-billion-dollar Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site in Washington state would go forward. Hot commissioning started Wednesday.
Walsh, who had not been sworn in as of early Thursday, becomes the first Senate-confirmed head of the DOE nuclear cleanup office since Anne Marie White was confirmed in March 2018 during the first Trump administration.
After a little more than a year on the job, Anne White was succeeded by an acting Environmental Management chief, William (Ike) White who ran the agency for about five years, until June 2024, when he was succeeded by Candice Robertson. Robertson took a federal buyout and left the government in March of this year followed by Dae Chung, now retired from DOE, and then Jarrell.
Environmental Management is currently led by acting head Joel Bradburne who was put in place after another acting leader, Roger Jarrell, was forced out by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright in September.
Two other DOE nominees were included in the same batch that won confirmation Tuesday: Audrey Robertson, to be an assistant secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy as well as Catherine Jereza, to be an assistant secretary of Energy for Electricity.
Two of Walsh’s DOE nuclear counterparts won Senate confirmation in mid-September: Brandon Williams of the National Nuclear Security Administration and Ted Garrish of the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy were both confirmed as part of a similar group package vote by the Senate on Sept. 17.
Energy Secretary Wright has been pushing hard for the Senate to confirm more DOE officials.
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