The Senate Commerce Committee is preparing to vote on two long-vacant NASA leadership posts: Joshua Shoemaker, nominated as chief financial officer, and Robert Steinau, nominated as inspector general. The committee announced Nov. 11 that it will meet Nov. 18 to vote on the nominees. If the committee approves them, they go to the full Senate for confirmation votes.
Both positions require Senate confirmation, as do the NASA administrator and deputy administrator. NASA has had no Senate-confirmed chief financial officer since the Trump administration took office in January 2025. The White House nominated Greg Autry for the job in the spring of 2025, but the Senate returned that nomination at the end of the year without acting on it. The inspector general post has been without a confirmed occupant since Paul Martin left in late 2023.
A Quiet Hearing
The committee considered the nominations at a Nov. 10 hearing that ran a little more than an hour and covered several posts. Neither NASA nominee drew many questions. Senators focused mostly on Danielle Thumann, nominated to be a member of the Federal Communications Commission.
Shoemaker’s Priorities
Shoemaker is an accountant with more than 20 years of experience in the private sector and Mississippi state government. He has been a senior adviser in NASA’s Mission Support Directorate since August, and previously served as controller for the Republican National Committee.
In his opening statement, he said he would concentrate on financial accountability, better visibility into the financial performance of NASA programs, transparency with Congress about that performance, and modernization of the agency’s financial systems. He described the CFO’s role as providing the administrator, NASA leadership and Congress with an honest and timely view of the agency’s financial position. That includes how programs are tracking against planned budgets and schedules, and whether resources are being managed effectively.
Shoemaker deferred questions on specific programs. He also declined to weigh in on the proposed U.S. Space Academy, which a NASA-led presidential commission is studying, saying the president will ultimately decide where it is located.
Steinau’s Focus Areas
Steinau has worked in NASA’s Office of Inspector General since 2009. Since December 2024, he has led the office as its senior official in the absence of a Senate-confirmed inspector general. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General and for the U.S. Secret Service.
If confirmed, he said, he would concentrate on three challenges facing the agency: returning humans to the moon, the transition from the International Space Station to commercial stations, and cybersecurity. He said NASA is moving with urgency and that accountability needs to keep pace with the agency’s ambitions.
Source: spacenews.com
