Nominations of Jonathan Brightbill to be General Counsel, Tina Pierce to be Chief Financial Officer, and Conner Prochaska to be ARPA-E Director, at Department of Energy; and Ned Mamula to be U.S. Geological Survey Director

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
366 Dirksen

05/14/2025 at 10:00AM

Full committee hearing.

Nominees:

  • Jonathan Brightbill to be General Counsel of the Department of Energy
  • Tina Pierce to be Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Energy
  • Conner Prochaska to be Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency within the Department of Energy
  • Ned Mamula to be Director of U.S. Geological Survey within the Department of the Interior

Brightbill was Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney and briefly Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division at the United States Department of Justice under Trump. He is a trial and appellate lawyer in Winston & Strawn LLP’s Washington, D.C. office, Chair of their Environmental Litigation and Enforcement Practice. He is a member of the Federalist Society. He opposed the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. In 2024, he led the incoming Trump DOJ review team.

Pierce is the Deputy Chief Financial Officer (DCFO) for the Department of Defense. An Idaho native, Ms. Pierce was commissioned as a Marine Corps officer, serving in operational and staff financial management assignments from 1991 to 2006. Prior to reentering federal service in 2018 as a staff accountant with the Defense Health Agency, she held finance and accounting roles in the public and private sectors in the United States and Europe, with experience in information technology, energy, education and consulting industries. Ms. Pierce was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in August 2020.

Prochaska is Chief of Strategic Partnerships, Bohr Quantum Technology, which is headed by Paul Dabbar, Trump’s nominee for Deputy Secretary of Commerce for global trade and technology. Under Trump, Prochaska was the Department of Energy’s first Chief Commercialization Officer, serving as the Director of the Office of Technology Transitions. Prochaska also served as Senior Advisor and Chief of Staff for DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. Prochaska previously served as an Intelligence Officer in the United States Navy and as Senior Vice President at the investment firm FCIM.

Mamula is a petroleum geologist. Currently chief geologist at the mining company GreenMet, he previously worked for Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Frontera Resources, and First Seismic Corporation. He is a former adjunct scholar at Cato Institute.