Testimony as Delivered by Secretary Granholm Before the Senate Armed Services Committee

Thank you so much, Chairman Reed and Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. It is a privilege to be before you on behalf of the Department of Energy as the nation’s 16th Energy Secretary.

I’m unspeakably honored to be entrusted with the responsibility of enhancing America’s security through nuclear defense, nonproliferation, and environmental efforts, in addition to leading the Department’s efforts to support the breakthrough scientific discoveries at our 17 National Labs, and to deploy those breakthroughs at scale to create jobs for the American people.

As we endeavor to build America’s clean energy future, we know the Department’s nuclear security mission is essential to ensuring that future is safe and secure. It is a core focus of our daily work.

And I recognize that the Senate Armed Services Committee has always demonstrated bipartisan commitment to this mission.

I applaud your ability to consistently work together on such serious matters, and your continued support for the Department’s efforts around deterrence, and nonproliferation, and environmental management—which of course, together, make up nearly three quarters of the Department of Energy’s budget.

We know full well that as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States must maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of our nation’s nuclear stockpile.

We have to make sure that the U.S. Navy has the nuclear propulsion that they need to carry out their important operations.

And we must also advance nuclear nonproliferation intentionally, and we have to do it internationally. We have to address the threat of nuclear terrorism, we have to mitigate the environmental harm from our nuclear program.

And to those ends, I am pleased to report that since I have taken office, the Department and the NNSA have reinforced a strong working relationship, prioritizing collaboration and communication while respecting NNSA’s semi-autonomous status.

Here, I do want to thank our colleagues at the NNSA—in particular, Acting Under Secretary Dr. Charlie Verdon who is here, and whose incredible, vast experience and expertise has been invaluable to our nuclear security mission.

And I want to thank this Committee for having advanced Dr. Jill Hruby and Frank Rose to the next level—and hopefully the Senate can follow your lead, given the importance of this mission.

Working together with NNSA and DOE, we have reached several notable milestones over the last five months.

And that includes our support for diplomatic efforts to successfully extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty with Russia, and our progress around the Los Alamos Plutonium Pit Production Project—which is now underway and which will produce 30 war reserve plutonium pits per year to meet our national security needs.

We’ve also moved forward on a series of upgrades that are essential to the Nation’s nuclear deterrent.

And our work is further facilitated by our exceptional partnership with the Department of Defense.

You’ll be glad to know, I hope, that DOE, and NNSA, and DOD are engaging in high-level coordination, and we are in lockstep around our mutual goal of ensuring that the U.S. nuclear deterrent is fully funded and properly managed.

I’ll note also that we are fully aligned with the Department of Defense regarding the budget for this next fiscal year, which meets DOD requirements. I’m fully committed to working in close cooperation and coordination with the Defense Department on the future budget requirements.

The budget proposal before you would allow us to make substantial progress in five areas:

One, it would sustain funding for NNSA in support of the agency’s longstanding nuclear modernization efforts.

Second, it would support our Weapons Activities account, and that means allowing us to keep the nation’s stockpile and infrastructure in line with DOD requirements.

Third, it will enhance our Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation, so that we can ramp up our work to prevent state and non-state actors from achieving their ambitions around nuclear weapons.

Fourth, it provides the resources needed to support the U.S. Navy with militarily-effective nuclear propulsion plants and ensures their safe and reliable and long-lived operation.

And fifth, importantly, it would allow our Office of Environmental Management to advance our commitments to the communities that have supported national defense programs and nuclear research, and facilitating continued progress along all 16 of our cleanup sites.

Before I close, I do want to acknowledge that we know, following the attacks on the grid and the pipeline with SolarWinds and the Colonial Pipeline, that we face this national security imperative to harden our critical infrastructure against these evolving cyber threats as well.

So I’m humbled by the opportunity to lead the Department of Energy in this moment, and happy to discuss our priorities and our goals with this Committee, and answer any questions that you may have.