Daniel Santos last week resigned from the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) after a little more than four years on the job, the independent nuclear health-and-safety watchdog confirmed Monday.
A spokesperson for the DNFSB said Santos’ last day will be March 29. The board had previously announced on its website, without naming names, that one DNFSB member had unexpectedly resigned. The board spokesperson declined to comment about the reasons for Santos’ departure, or Santos’ post-DNFSB plans. Santos, through the spokesperson, declined a request for an interview.
In part to cope with Santos’ abrupt departure, the DNFSB postponed a scheduled March 21 public meeting on its own operations. When Santos leaves, the nominally five-person board will be down to three members: the minimum for a quorum. Former DNFSB Chairman Sean Sullivan resigned in February 2018 amid media reports that he had proposed eliminating the board.
Had Santos not resigned, he could have been pushed out of the DNFSB anyway by a major reorganization the Donald Trump administration proposed in January. The plan requires Senate approval.
The new-look DNFSB would restore the board to its legal maximum of five members by nominating two new members and moving the current chairman into Santos’ seat. The Senate had not scheduled any hearings on any board nominees at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
If approved by the Senate, the new defense board would feature:
- Joyce Connery, an existing member. Term expiring Oct. 18, 2019.
- Bruce Hamilton, the current chair. Term expiring Oct. 18, 2022.
- Jessie Hill Roberson, an existing member. Term expiring Oct. 18, 2023.
- Thomas Summers, a new nominee and former vice commander of the Air Force 91st Missile Wing. Term expiring Oct. 18, 2020.
- Lisa Vickers, a new nominee and former Department of Energy site representative at the Pantex Plant, who would be vice chair. Term expiring Oct. 18, 2021.
The White House would have crowded out Santos by moving Hamilton into his Santos’ seat, backfilling Hamilton’s seat with Vickers, and renominating Roberson to remain in her seat.
As with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, only three DNFSB members may belong to a single political party. The board with Santos included three Democrats and only one Republic: Hamilton. The proposed new-look DNFSB would include two Democrats: Connery and Roberson.
Board members serve overlapping five-year terms. They can serve beyond the expiration of their terms, if the president does not nominate a successor who the Senate then confirms. Among active DNFSB members, only Connery’s term had not expired at deadline.
Santos, a nuclear engineer, joined the board in December 2014. He previously worked at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and served in the Navy.
The DNFSB is roughly a $30 million-a-year agency with about 100 employees. Hamilton last year proposed shrinking the board to about 80 full-time employees. All current board members but Connery supported the plan, which Congress later blocked by forbidding DNFSB to use its 2019 budget to downsize.
The board does not regulate DOE, but it may make safety recommendations with which the Secretary of Energy must publicly agree or disagree. The board this week published its first recommendation of the Donald Trump administration in the federal register. First published on DNFSB’s website, the recommendation concerns safety practices and equipment at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas.
The agency had yet to release its fiscal 2020 budget request, at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
