After decades on staff and one term as a member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Stephen Burns plans to retire in June — for the second time.
Burns noted his decision during an all-staff meeting Monday near NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md. “At the All Hands, the Commissioner reiterated (not for the first time) his intention to retire again after his term ends on June 30,” agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email Tuesday.
While the White House has not identified a candidate to replace Burns, one informed source said at least two names are being floated for nomination: Mary Louise Wagner, a former Department of Energy senior policy adviser and current Democratic staff director at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Paul Dickman, a former NRC and DOE staffer who is now a senior policy fellow for the Argonne National Laboratory.
“[W]e are in that phase of Washington politics where no one really knows anything but speculation is news. To my knowledge, the White House has not yet begun any serious effort to find a suitable replacement for Steve Burns,” Dickman said by email Wednesday. “Frankly, it is a nice ego boost for my name (and others) to be tossed into the mix and it would be an honor to be asked by the President to serve.”
Burns joined the commission on Nov. 5, 2014. He was NRC chairman from Jan. 1, 2015, to Jan. 23, 2017, replaced at President Donald Trump’s discretion by Commissioner Kristine Svinicki.
Prior to becoming a commissioner, Burns spent much of his career as a lawyer for the agency starting in 1978. He became deputy general counsel in 1998 and served as general counsel from May 2009 to April 2012. Burns also did a stint as executive assistant to then-NRC Chairman Kenneth Carr. He retired from the NRC in 2012 to serve as head of legal affairs for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency, then returned to become commissioner.
The NRC is the regulator for the nuclear industry, including power plants and radioactive waste management. It operates on a yearly budget of nearly $1 billion and employs more than 3,000 personnel. While the NRC’s executive director for operations manages day-to-day work, the five-person commission sets policies and regulations and adjudicates license applications, among other duties.
One of the agency’s key missions during Burns’ service on the commission was increasing safety requirements for nuclear power plants in the wake of the March 2011 meltdown of three reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi facility. Last week, Burns and Commissioner Jeff Baran sharply dissented from the three-person commission majority that voted to approve a new safety rule to safeguard NRC licensees from potential disasters. The two commissioners faulted the finished version for failing to require power plants to incorporate newer data on flooding and earthquake hazards in mitigation plans for “beyond-design-basis events.”
Burns was largely quiet on the issue of nuclear waste disposal during his tenure because the matter has been largely quiet at the commission.
The NRC has since 2010 not received any new funding to resume adjudication of the Department of Energy license application for the Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste repository. Spending of the agency’s remaining balance from the Nuclear Waste Fund for licensing operations, required under a 2013 federal appeals court order, has been primarily managed at the staff level.
Similarly, the NRC won’t rule on two license applications for temporary spent nuclear fuel storage facilities in Texas and New Mexico until well after Burns’ exit. Agency staff are currently conducting technical reviews of both license applications. In the event of an adjudicatory hearing for one or both licenses, the final decision could land with the commission.
Under questioning during his September 2014 nomination hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Burns acknowledged that the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act is the law in the United States and committed to following U.S. law. The 1982 law, as amended in 1987, directs that the nation’s defense nuclear waste and commercial spent reactor fuel, be deposited under Yucca Mountain – much to the displeasure of leaders in Nevada.
The NRC, like DOE, asked for funding in fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2019 to resume licensing of the repository, but was rebuffed both times by Congress.
Burns was chairman in 2015 when the commission approved a staff recommendation to prepare a supplement to a Department of Energy environmental impact statement for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain and wrap up work on a safety evaluation report on the project. He also joined Svinicki in June 2017 in voting to use agency carry-over funding from the Nuclear Waste Fund for information gathering ahead of a potential resumption of the license adjudication. Baran was the sole dissenter in what at the time was a three-member commission.
Burns was not immediately available for comment on his pending retirement.
“I’ll miss Steve Burns. He brought a wealth of agency experience. His organizational memory and his rational approach to the NRC mission made numerous positive contributions,” Rod Adams, a publisher and podcaster on nuclear power issues, wrote in a Twitter message to RadWaste Monitor.
Dickman said he did not always agree with Burns’ positions, but never doubted his integrity and drive to strengthen nuclear safety. “Of all the attributes I can point to as requirements to be an NRC Commissioner, those are at my top,” he said.
Dickman noted Burns’ early management of the Project Aim right-sizing program, which began in earnest during his stint as chairman.
“Downsizing is always disruptive but Steve worked with his fellow Commissioners and senior staff and they saw this as a way to help to transform the Agency,” he wrote. “That transformation continues under Chairman Svinicki and she has made extraordinary strides forward but that first step was taken on Steve’s watch.”
No more than three members of the commission can be from one political party. Burns registers as an independent, while Baran is a Democrat and Svinicki, David Wright, and Annie Caputo are Republicans. That means the next commissioner will be a Democrat or independent.
There was no word by deadline Friday from the White House regarding its plans for replacing Burns, including whether Wagner and Dickman are being considered. The source said candidates’ names could come from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, through Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and on to the White House for selection of a nominee. That person would then go back to the Senate for confirmation, starting with Environment and Public Works.
Dickman joined Argonne National Laboratory in August 2010 as a policy fellow on nuclear security and policy issues. He previously spent more than four years as chief of staff and executive assistant to then-NRC Chairman Dale Klein and just shy of 14 years at DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, including a year as deputy director in the Office of Policy.
“Paul Dickman is a deeply experienced profession. He’s been successful with a number of uniquely challenging decommissioning and site cleanup projects,” Adams wrote.
As part of his 40-year career, Dickman once managed the Facilities Transition Programs in Albuquerque, N.M., for DOE, where he helped close parts of the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Rocky Flats site in Colorado, among others.
Wagner has been on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff since November 2017, part of a long career that has featured earlier stays at both Capitol Hill and DOE headquarters and a focus on nuclear issues. Her prior positions have included: DOE senior policy adviser in the Office of the Secretary, from July 2013 to January 2017; professional staffer to the Senate Armed Services Committee and legislative aide to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), from April 2001 to July 2013; and several roles at DOE, from January 1994 to January 2001.
“She’s been working on nuclear policy issues off and on for 35 years,” the source said.
