Nominations

Physicist Steven Koonin, BP PLC’s chief scientist and the nominee for US Department of Energy undersecretary for science, and Kristina Johnson, the Johns Hopkins University provost who was nominated to a second undersecretary position with responsibility for energy research programs, environmental cleanup, and commercial nuclear waste management, received only friendly questioning from members of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on 23 April, and their confirmations are not in doubt.

President Obama also announced the nomination of retired Bell Laboratories vice president William Brink-man to become director of DOE’s Office of Science. Brinkman, a physicist, is also a former vice president of research at Sandia National Laboratories, which, like Bell Labs, was once managed by the original AT&T Corp. At press time, a confirmation hearing had not been scheduled for him. Brinkman would fill a slot that was left vacant by the Bush administration when it elevated former science office director Raymond Orbach to the undersecretary of science post that Congress created in 2005 energy legislation. Orbach had essentially filled both roles.