Sen. Elizabeth Warren

UDPATED: With response from Sen. Peters’ office. WASHINGTON: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., this morning lifted her hold on two of President Joe Biden’s key defense nominees, following their promises to wait four years after leaving DoD to take up industry jobs — a requirement that Warren is pushing in legislation that would apply the same rule across the USG.

Warren released her hold on Frank Kendall, nominee for Air Force secretary, and Heidi Shyu, nominee to head DoD’s Office of Research & Engineering, after “each agreed” to Warren’s requests for them “to extend their ethics agreements/industry recusals from two years to four years, and to avoid seeking a waiver to their ethics agreements,” said a congressional aide familiar with the issue.

Over the years, Warren has made going after the so-called “revolving door” at the Pentagon a regular part of defense hearings. In January, she extracted a pledge from now-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to recuse himself from all matters concerning Raytheon for four years, rather than the initial two and to avoid seeking a waiver to his ethics agreement. (Austin had been serving on Raytheon’s board.)

Meanwhile, Warren is continuing her push for legislation to the same effect that would apply across DoD and the entire US government. Her “Department of Defense Ethics and Anti-Corruption Act,” first put forward in 2019 with co-sponsor Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif, seeks to, if not quite block, at least slow down the “revolving door” between the Pentagon and big defense contractors.

Warren has argued that the bill is needed to limit the influence of contractors on the military, constrain foreign influence on retired senior military officers, and assert greater transparency over the relationships between contractors and DoD.

Two other senators, Utah Republican Mike Lee and Michigan Democrat Gary Peters, also reportedly have placed a hold on Kendall’s nomination.

“Senator Lee doesn’t comment on holds as a rule. I cannot confirm that he has a hold on Mr. Kendall,” an aide told Breaking Defense in an email.

According to Air Force Magazine, Peters issued his hold over a June decision by DoD to award the F-35 international training center to Arkansas’s Ebbing Air National Guard Base, instead of to Michigan’s Selfridge Air National Guard Base. UPDATE BEGINS. A Senate aide familiar with the issue said this afternoon that the hold remains in place; with Peters holding talks with Air Force officials over the past few weeks on the issue.

“Senator Peters wants – and Michigan deserves – additional information and data from the Air Force and the Department of Defense regarding its process surrounding the recent F-35 international training center decision,” a spokesperson for Peters said in an email. “The reasoning provided so far does not add up given Selfridge Air National Guard Base’s superior qualifications, and Senator Peters is fighting for Michigan and to get to the bottom of how and why the Air Force made this decision.” UPDATE ENDS.