Obama chooses nominees for DOE positions

Science : US President Obama announced two more nominees for positions within the Department of Energy. He will nominate Franklin Orr of Stanford University to fill the new position of undersecretary for science and energy and Marc Kastner of MIT to lead the DOE’s Office of Science. Together with Ellen Williams of BP, whom Obama nominated last week to head the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, they will fill out the remaining civilian research leadership positions within DOE. The position of undersecretary for science and energy was created by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz as part of a restructuring of the agency. If approved by the Senate, Orr will be responsible for energy-generation research programs and electrical grid and technology transfer concerns, Kastner will oversee the DOE’s $4.6 billion research funding arm, and Williams will be in charge of research projects focused on turning cutting-edge ideas into useable technology.