Coming and Going at the Energy Department

Just as the Senate moved toward approving a new energy secretary, the department’s second-in-command is announcing his departure.

The nominee for secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, attracted no visible opposition at a confirmation hearing at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, David B. Sandalow, the acting under secretary, announced that he was leaving after four years to take a fellowship at the new Center on Global Energy Policy at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Mr. Sandalow came to the department four years ago as the assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, but since last spring has been the acting under secretary, in charge of energy efficiency, renewables, nuclear energy, fossil energy and electricity delivery and reliability.

That job is evidently hard to fill. He succeeded Arun Majumdar, who took over as acting secretary in early 2011 after the departure of Cathy Zoi, who had also been acting under secretary, taking over that role in October 2010. Her predecessor, Kristina M. Johnson, was the last person who had the job on a permanent basis.

There is some stability, though; Steven Chu, the current energy secretary, who will depart when Dr. Moniz is confirmed, is the longest-serving energy secretary in the 36 year history of the department.

In the three years that Mr. Sandalow had the international job, he made 13 trips to China, and China will continue to be a focus for him in the fellowship, he said.

“Coal, renewables, vehicles, much of the world’s energy future is being shaped in China,’’ he said. His focus there “reflects importance of the U.S.-China relationship and the importance of China in energy markets,’’ he said.

Mr. Sandalow said that the department was at the center of innovation that could change the energy world. “It was R&D by the Department of Energy 30 years ago in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that helped create the shale gas revolution of today,”  he said. “The question for today’s generation is, what are the technologies we’re investing in today that will have an impact.”

Mr. Sandalow, 56, wrote a book, “Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington” just before entering government service, and found that government rules then prohibited him from promoting it. Leaving government, he may write another on energy but has not fixed on a topic, he said.

He starts at Columbia on June 1. No word yet on who will be the next acting under secretary.

Obama Chef Told to Plan Some Time Off

Although President Obama is unlikely to miss any meals, the White House kitchen will be missing its assistant chef, if only for a few days every now and then. Sam Kass, who cooks dinner for Mr. Obama several nights a week and is also his senior adviser on nutrition policy, is one of 480 White House employees who were expected to receive furlough notices stemming from the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration.

Mr. Kass relayed the news to reporters on Tuesday, days after numerous top officials from the administration - including the president and several of his cabinet members - announced that they would be returning a share of their salaries to the federal government. Their mass act was aimed at showing solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country who would lose workdays - and dollars from their paychecks - because of the mandatory time off.

Aside from furloughing Mr. Kass, who also plants in the White House garden and directs Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, officials have delayed filling vacant positions and said that pay cuts remained possible for other White House employees. The administration has also scaled back on equipment and supply purchases, as well as staff travel.

Timing of Senate Immigration Bill Remains Unclear

6:09 p.m. | Updated
Will the bipartisan group of eight senators hoping to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws meet their unofficial deadline of introducing legislation by the end of this week

Well, that depends on who you ask.

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a member of the group, said he thought they could produce legislation by the end of the week.

“We don’t have that many differences that need to be resolved and we need to get moving, we need to get it over to the Judiciary Committee so that they can be a part of the process,” Mr. McCain said. “There’s a time for everything, you either get it done or you don’t. Now is the time to get it done as quickly as possible.”

Mr. McCain seemed to echo comments that Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and a member of the group, made this weekend on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

“All of us have said that there will be no agreement until the eight of us agree to a big, specific bill, but hopefully we can get that done by the end of the week,” Mr. Schumer said Sunday on the show. “There have been kerfuffles along the way, but each one of those thus far has been settled.”

Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and a member of the group, similarly said he was “hoping to” have legislation by the end of the week.

“We’re hoping to have an agreement soon,” he said. “There still remains the element of drafting it, which takes a lot of time.”

Mr. Durbin said that it was possible the group would reach an agreement in principle by the end of the week, but without all of the legislative language written â€" not to mention time for members to review it â€" he said the group would have decided whether or not to hold off until they had a complete bill to present. (Mr. McCain said the group would not unveil anything until they had all of the legislative language written.)

Other members of the group were even more circumspect. Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, would only say, “We’re getting there,” but would not reveal a specific timeline.

And Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, would only say that he expected legislation “sooner rather than later.”

“I can’t tell you on a certain date, but I’m very optimistic it will be soon,” Mr. Graham said. “Some things are yet to be done but we’re just about there. I feel optimistic we’re going to get here soon.”

Though the exact timing of the roll out is still up in the air, a Senate aide with knowledge of the negotiations said that the Senate Judiciary Committee will likely mark up the bill the week of May 6. (Another aide with knowledge of the talks said that, with bipartisan support, the mark up could even earlier, by the end of April.)

“The senators had a good discussion this with Senator Leahy this afternoon,” said the aide. “We are optimistic that we will be able to introduce legislation soon. Chairman Leahy has agreed to hold a hearing as soon as possible after the legislation is introduced, and has promised to have unlimited debate and amendments during the committee mark-up. Assuming Republican members push for as much time as possible, the committee debate will last through the next recess, giving plenty of time for public debate and review.”

A go-ahead on the broad deal seems to hinge on an agreement between farm workers and growers over a visa program that would offer an expedited path to legal status. Though the talks about farmworkers stalled last week, the bipartisan group of senators returned to Congress this week feeling more optimistic. And Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California who has been spearheading the side-negotiations on the agricultural worker program, said Tuesday that she expected a deal on her portion of the legislation within 24 hours.

As the status of immigration legislation in the Senate remained unclear, two House members â€" Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Candice Miller, Republican of Michigan and chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security â€" and Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, joined together to introduce their own legislation to secure the country’s borders.

Their bill would implement specific metrics and measurements to gauge whether the nation’s borders are becoming more secure.

“The Border Security Results Act of 2013 ensures that border security will be realized,” Mr. McCaul said in an e-mail statement. “This legislation compels the use of taxpayer-owned technology to gain situational awareness of our borders so that we can finally see what we’re missing, and doing so will allow us to develop measures to gauge progress. For too long, we have approached border security backwards - by throwing resources at the problem, to plug the holes on our borders without a comprehensive plan to tactically distribute those resources.”

Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and a member of the bipartisan group, has remained the one wild card throughout the negotiations, recently sounding very public notes of caution when it comes to any immigration legislation. On Wednesday, he is set to brief his fellow Republican senators at their weekly steering lunch on where the legislation stands so far.

Alex Conant, a spokesman for Mr. Rubio, said that the senator is eager to see any legislation he signs onto go through a full committee process.

“Senator Rubio has said from the outset that we will not rush this process, and that begins at the committee level,” Mr. Conant said. “The Judiciary Committee must have plenty of time to debate and improve the bipartisan group’s proposal, so it’s good that senators and the public will have weeks to study this proposal before the Judiciary committee will mark it up. Senator Rubio will be requesting that his Senate colleagues arrange multiple public hearings on the immigration bill. We believe that the more public scrutiny this legislation receives, the better it will become.”

Follow Ashley Parker on Twitter at @AshleyRParker.

A Scientist and a Comedian Walk Into a Confirmation Hearing…

Manuel Balce Ceneta/Associated Press Naomi Moniz, center, wife of Energy Secretary nominee Ernest Moniz, right, acknowledges her husband as she is introduced at his confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. At left is former Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, a former chairman of the committee who introduced Dr. Moniz.

Here’s what happens when a scientist goes through the Washington version of social niceties.

As is customary with cabinet nominees, Ernest J. Moniz, President Obama’s choice to be energy secretary, came to his confirmation hearing on Tuesday with his spouse â€" in this case, Naomi Moniz, whom he introduced as “my wife of 29.83 years.”

This met with general amusement. But about two hours into the hearing, when it was the turn of Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, to ask questions, Mr. Franken asked if that meant the Monizes’ anniversary was June 10.

“I remind you, you’re under oath,” said Mr. Franken, a former professional comedian.

“June 9,” the nominee replied. “That’s the rounding error.”

The Early Word: In Remembrance

Today’s Times

• President Obama gave an impassioned speech in Hartford on Monday to remember the 20 children slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Peter Appelbome and Jonathan Weisman report. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Republican senators were threatening to prevent a gun-control measure from even coming up for debate in the Senate.

• Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the highest-ranking member of his party interested in running for president, yet he is not the heir apparent, Peter Baker writes. If Mr. Biden ran against Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state, he would start as the underdog.

• Negotiations inched forward in the Senate on Monday for an agricultural worker program - the last piece of a broad overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws, Ashley Parker reports. Lawmakers are eager to move forward on the deal, putting pressure on representatives of farmworkers and growers to come up with a deal on wages for workers.

• After sharp criticism from advocacy groups and Congress over how the military has handled a series of sexual assault cases, the Pentagon will ask lawmakers to overhaul the court-martial system in a proposal that would scale back the power of senior commanders to overturn convictions and dismiss charges, Charlie Savage reports.

Happenings in Washington

• Mr. Biden and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will deliver remarks at the White House urging Congress to pass gun violence legislation, and they will be joined by law enforcement officials from across the country.

• The president and Michelle Obama will host a concert in the East Room of the White House celebrating Memphis soul music.