Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chair Kristine Svinicki took a step toward a new five-year term Thursday when the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved her renomination on a voice vote.
The vote came just two days after the confirmation hearing for Svinicki and the NRC’s two prospective new members: longtime Capitol Hill staffer Annie Caputo and energy consultant David Wright. Environment Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.) is giving Svinicki’s nomination expedited treatment because the NRC will be left without a quorum unless the full Senate approves her nomination by the end of her current term on June 30.
“The members of the Environment and Public Works Committee know her well,” Barrasso said in a statement. “In every appearance before us as a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, she has proven herself to be a well-qualified, experienced and dedicated public servant,” Barrasso said.
It was not immediately clear when the full Senate would vote on Svinicki’s nomination.
Barrasso said the committee must confirm the other two Trump administration nominees as soon as possible.
Tuesday’s hearing passed with no indication that all three nominees would not be approved.
When asked about the primary challenges facing the agency, all three cited trimming and reshaping the NRC staff to accommodate a future that will involve fewer new reactors than expected a few years ago.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked the nominees whether cost to nuclear plant licensees should be considered in determining the scope of emergency planning — her specific concern being that the NRC’s current decommissioning rulemaking could allow for sites’ emergency planning zones being automatically reduced following shutdown, even if spent fuel remains in wet storage.
Svinicki said the issue is now being examined in the rulemaking, which is due to be completed in 2019. It has been NRC’s position that spent fuel pools and dry cask storage are equally safe. Gillibrand replied that the definition of “safe” might be re-examined in the context of domestic security threats.
Caputo and Wright said they would both need to be briefed on the issue.
Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) questioned the nominees about a study from Princeton University and the Union of Concerned Scientists that suggests the NRC has underestimated the risk of fires in spent reactor fuel pools. The nominees said they had not reviewed the study.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) did not pose any questions to the NRC nominees during the hearing but said it was important to develop technology to “address our nuclear waste stockpile” and transform it into an asset.
Svinicki has served on the commission since 2008, becoming chair at the beginning of this year. If approved, her next term would end on June 30, 2022.
Caputo would fill out a vacant term ending June 30, 2021. Wright would do the same, for a term through June 30, 2020.
The NRC has a maximum of five members, with three needed for a quorum. The other current commissioners are Jeff Baran and Stephen Burns.
Yucca on Their Mind
Not everyone was sanguine about the nominations.
The U.S. senators from Nevada on Tuesday urged the nominees to be fair in their consideration of licensing for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in their state.
“We recognize that the nominees considered before the Committee today have a history and record of strongly supporting moving forward with the Yucca Mountain repository. We remain hopeful that the nominees, if confirmed, approach this issue without any pre-existing bias and conflicts of interest,” Sens. Dean Heller (R) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D) said in a joint statement to the committee ahead of the confirmation hearing.
The issue of Yucca Mountain did not come up during the hearing itself. Heller and Cortez Masto are not members of the Environment and Public Works Commission, but said they intend to discuss the matter at some point with all three nominees.
Representatives for both lawmakers did not respond to requests for comment on their statement this week.
The NRC will have to approve the license for construction of the Nevada site.
Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain as the intended repository for U.S. spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. However, the Obama administration deemed the Nevada site unworkable and ultimately initiated a “consent-based” process to locate separate storage facilities for defense and commercial waste.
The Trump administration has returned to Yucca Mountain, proposing for fiscal 2018 to provide $110 million for the Department of Energy and $30 million for the NRC to resume the licensing process. Nevada’s congressional delegation has overwhelmingly opposed reviving the project, which would bring tens of thousands of tons of nuclear waste into the state.
Svinicki is a nuclear engineer who previously worked at DOE, including in the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which oversaw the Yucca Mountain project prior to being eliminated by the Obama administration.
Caputo is a nuclear engineer and Capitol Hill hand who currently serves as a senior policy adviser to Barrasso. Her support for Yucca Mountain seemingly kept her off the NRC in 2015 due to opposition from then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Power Magazine reported.
Wright has served in leadership positions of the South Carolina Public Service Commission and National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. In written commentaries and congressional testimony, he has called for “science over politics” to sustain funding for Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) on Tuesday urged the Senate to reject Wright’s nomination over what she called his “long history of pushing the Yucca Mountain agenda.”
“If confirmed, Mr. Wright will no doubt be a leading advocate for shoving the nation’s nuclear waste down the throats of Nevadans,” Titus said in a prepared statement.
Wright could not be reached for comment this week, and Caputo did not respond to a request for comment. Svinicki, though an NRC spokesman, declined to comment.
Consent-Based Siting Language Disappears from DOE Website
Separately, the Department of Energy has largely blanked out the section of its website that addresses consent-based siting of nuclear waste.
The web page on the program now says only, “Thank you for your interest in this topic. We are currently updating our website to reflect the Department’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Perry.”
This comes as little surprise, as the Trump administration has already made clear it is turning away from its predecessor’s plan for consent-based siting.
Under President Barack Obama, DOE developed a plan to over a period of decades site and build pilot, interim, and permanent storage facilities for nuclear waste. Approval from state and local governments would be necessary to build the separate repositories for defense and commercial waste.
