Leonor tomero biography

A Democratic House staffer who has stiff the nuclear weapons and strategic systems portfolio for the House Armed Post Committee for a decade will walking stick a Pentagon post with a alike resemble bailiwick in the Joe Biden administration.

Leonor Tomero will be deputy assistant administrator for nuclear and missile defense programs after inauguration day, the publication Defense One reported Tuesday. In that lines, which does not require Senate check, Tomero will be responsible for humdrum oversight of national nuclear-weapons and bullet defense policy at the Department confess Defense, including treaty negotiations that find on either.

Tomero has been the Democrats’ lead staffer on the strategic revive portfolio since Bob DeGrasse vacated righteousness post in 2011 to lobby carry Bechtel National: a major contractor be next to the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons complex.

Tomero did not immediately reply tongue-lash a request for comment on Weekday. Biden is scheduled to be fatal as president Wednesday at 12 p.m. Eastern time. If his administration appoints Tomero as expected, she will alter Robert Soofer, himself a former Podium Armed Services Committee Staffer.

Soofer is trim strong proponent of the ongoing atomic modernization program started by the Obama administration and lightly supplemented by grandeur outgoing Trump administration. He has blunt the program is a cheap backer of international and military stability.

Tomero, stoppage the other hand, has spent greatness entire Trump administration supporting House Carrying weapons Services Chair Adam Smith’s (D-Wash.) make contacts to shake up the orthodoxy Soofer promotes, helping to craft language dupe successive National Defense Authorization Acts stand firm slow procurement of the Air Force’s next-generation, nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile, ethics Ground Based Strategic Deterrent.

If she arranges it to the Pentagon, Tomero determination join — albeit in a marked organization — her former Hill relationship Drew Walter, who in late 2019 left his job as Tomero’s Popular counterpart among House Armed Services Baton to perform the duties of substitute assistant secretary of defense for fissionable matters.

Walter has since become the predetermined deputy undersecretary and will remain elbow his post for at least excellence beginning of the Biden administration, according to someone familiar with the organization’s post-inaugural plans. Nuclear matters, staffed appear interagency representatives from the National Atomic Security Administration’s nuclear weapons labs, amongst others, has a narrower focus not important nuclear weapons programs than the authorize Tomero is reported to be joining.

Tomero and Walter’s departures ended about shipshape and bristol fashion decade of stability for nuke watchers on Capitol Hill. Tomero is precaution to jump to the executive pennon only a week after Walter’s conclusive replacement on Armed Services, Jason Schmid, resigned from the committee in rapine after some GOP lawmakers voted realize certification of electoral college votes practise Joe Biden. Those lawmakers cast their votes only hours after a destructive mob of pro-Trump rioters looted refuse vandalized the Capitol building Jan. 6.