Three Trump administration nominees to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission remain in consideration by the Senate even many other would-be appointees to senior federal jobs were returned to the White House this week.
Annie Caputo, David Wright, and Jeff Baran are on the “status quo list,” approved by unanimous Senate consent before the holidays, which excluded their nominations from timing out at the end of the last session of Congress. That means the Senate can still vote on their confirmation, though there was no word by deadline Friday when that might happen.
Per Senate Standing Rule XXXI, nominations made in one session of Congress are returned to the president if they are not acted upon in that session. President Donald Trump nominated Caputo, Wright, and Baran last year during the first session of the 115th Congress. All three made it through the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee – Wright and Caputo in July, followed by current Commissioner Baran in October – but the Senate as a whole has not taken up their nominations.
As the second session of the 115th Congress began, the Senate on Wednesday returned dozens of pending nominations for various federal agencies to the president. The White House must now renominate those people, nominate other candidates, or choose to leave positions vacant.
There was also a long list of nominees, compiled from the various Senate committees, who would not be returned to the president. The Senate EPW Committee list features the three NRC nominees, along with R.D. James, nominated as assistant secretary of the U.S. Army for Civil Works.
Caputo is a senior nuclear policy adviser to EPW Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.); if confirmed, she would fill a vacancy on the commission for a term to June 30, 2021. Wright, an energy consultant and former head of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, would fill a vacant term to June 30, 2020. Baran, a lawyer and former Democrat staffer in Congress who joined the commission in 2014, would receive a full five-year term to June 30, 2023.
They would fill out the five-person committee, alongide Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioner Stephen Burns.
Progress for Wright and Caputo, both safe Republican nominees, was slowed over the summer by a demand from Senate EPW Committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) that Baran’s renomination progress alongside theirs. It has been less clear since October why the three didn’t get floor votes, though a dwindling legislative calendar packed with big-ticket items including tax reform and federal budget negotiations could be the culprit.
Sources on Capitol Hill could not say Thursday when the three nominees might get a floor vote now that Congress is back in town. A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noted that the upper chamber is scheduled to vote on four federal court nominees next week, suggesting other nominations are not likely to be scheduled until afterward.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides federal licensing and oversight of commercial nuclear power and waste operations across the United States. It employs roughly 4,000 people with an annual budget of about $1 billion.
Uncertainty in the nuclear waste sphere stretches beyond the NRC nominations at the top of the year. The future of efforts to advance the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada also remains up in the air.
The Trump administration has reversed the Obama administration’s cancellation of the long-proposed, still-unbuilt underground disposal site for spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The White House has sought $150 million in fiscal 2018 for the NRC and Department of Energy to resume licensing activities for Yucca Mountain. While the House has signed off on the funding, the Senate energy appropriations bill (which is still waiting for a floor vote) zeroes out any money for Yucca Mountain.
Congress has yet to approve a permanent budget for the current budget year, now more than three months old, and the series of short-term spending plans that have kept the federal government running since Oct. 1 have provided no money for Yucca Mountain.
Reporting from Capitol Hill this week indicates another continuing resolution could be in the offing, perhaps extending to Presidents Day. That would be around the time the White House could release its budget plan for fiscal 2019, which would demonstrate whether the administration remains intent on reviving the Nevada project.
There was also no update from Capitol Hill this week on the schedule for a House floor vote on Rep. John Shimkus’ “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017,” which contains a set of measures intended to pave the way for the federal government to build the Yucca Mountain repository. Congressional sources said in December the bill, which passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in June, could finally be voted on by the full chamber in early 2018.
Also in Congress’ hands since late 2017 is an Energy Department report on options for disposal of Greater-Than-Class C and Class-C-Like Waste. Legislative action is needed to move ahead with DOE’s preferred alternative for dealing with what is expected to be about 12,000 cubic meters of GTCC low-level radioactive waste and GTCC-like waste by 2083: moving the material from the commercial and government generator sites to generic commercial disposal facilities and DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Several congressional offices did not respond by deadline to requests for comment this week on any current plans for legislation that would be necessary to advance the DOE recommendation, including authorizing WIPP to store such waste.
