A longtime federal attorney was sworn in Wednesday as inspector general for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Robert Feitel succeeds Hubert Bell, who retired in December 2018 after 22 years in the position.
As inspector general, Feitel now leads an office with a yearly budget of about $13 million and a mission to conduct audits and investigations “to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness within the NRC, and to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in agency programs and operations.” The office provides the same services for the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the nuclear health-and-safety monitor for the Department of Energy.
President Donald Trump nominated Feitel as inspector general in October 2019. The Senate confirmed the nomination on May 4.
Feitel joined the federal government as a lawyer in March 1995. Among his assignments, he spent nearly 12 years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. His most recent post was the Capital Case Section at the Justice Department, which primarily supports the Attorney General’s Review Committee on Capital Cases in determining whether to recommend the death penalty in capital cases.
Meanwhile, two nominees confirmed last week to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had not been sworn in as of Thursday morning. Serving Commissioner David Wright’s current term does not end until June 30. Senate Appropriations Committee staffer Christopher Hanson will fill a spot left vacant by the April 2018 retirement of Commissioner Stephen Burns.
