U.S. Senate confirms newest DOE nuclear cleanup chief

March 26--The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management, the Savannah River Site landlord, has a new leader.

On March 22, the U.S. Senate confirmed Anne Marie White as the assistant secretary of energy for environmental management, also known as EM-1.

It is not immediately clear when she will be sworn in.

White -- a President Donald Trump nominee with a master's degree in nuclear engineering and more than 25 years of nuclear industry experience -- was confirmed via voice vote, a procedure where senators' yeas and nays go formally unrecorded.

The Senate first received White's nomination at the beginning of January.

White testified before the Energy and Natural Resources, as well as the Armed Services Senate committees before being confirmed.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., had previously put a hold on White, blocking her now-successful confirmation.

The Office of Environmental Management, created in 1989, is tasked with cleaning up more than 100 nuclear research and weapons sites across the country.

SRS is an active cleanup site.

In January, White told a panel of senators it is "our moral obligation" to remediate the nation's "challenges from World War II and the Cold War."

White, at the same hearing, also said cooperation is critical for successful stewardship: "Local communities" -- think Aiken County in the case of SRS -- "are extremely important to the work we do."

The last person to fully serve as assistant secretary of energy for environmental management was Monica Regalbuto. Regalbuto served under President Barack Obama's administration.

James Owendoff, the current principal deputy assistant secretary, most recently served as acting EM-1.

Trump has requested approximately $6.6 billion for the Office of Environmental Management in fiscal year 2019.

Questions posed to the Office of Environmental Management were not immediately answered.

Colin Demarest is a reporter with Aiken Standard and has been with the newspaper since November 2017. He is a New Jersey native and received his B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina. Follow him on Twitter: @demarest_colin

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