NRC’s Magwood Won’t Rescuse Himself Over Future Job

NRC Commissioner William Magwood will not resign or retroactively recuse himself from decisions from the past year, the Commissioner said in a response letter yesterday to a coalition of 34 environmental activist organizations calling for his removal for accepting a position with the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency while still serving as commissioner. Magwood announced he would be leaving the Commission sometime this summer to take over as Director General for the NEA, a move that the environmental groups saw as “fatally compromising” to his role as an independent regulator of public health and safety. Magwood argued in his letter that the NEA is dedicated to the sharing of ideas between nations, not a platform to sell nuclear. “The policy and technical decisions in which I have participated in the last few months—and in which I intend to participate fully through the end of my service as a Commissioner—have had and will have no impact on the NEA’s financial health or even its future research or policy activities,” Magwood said. “Similarly, future activities by the NEA will only affect future NRC licensing and safety activities if the NRC decides to adopt future NEA policy recommendations. Such a decision would be based on the NRC’s usual regulatory procedures, including any necessary public input and interaction.”