The Senate Environment and Public Works committee on Wednesday morning approved Christopher Hanson’s nomination for five more years on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The committee voted 18-1 to approve Hanson, the current chairman of the NRC, and send his nomination to the floor for a vote by the full Senate. Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), the ranking member of the committee, supported Hanson. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) was the only no vote.
Hanson’s term runs through June 29. If confirmed by the full Senate, which had not scheduled a vote on the nomination at deadline for RadWaste Monitor, he will remain on the commission through June 29, 2029.
The White House renominated Hanson in March. A former staffer for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who died last year, Hanson has been chairman of the NRC since January 2021. He joined the commission in June 2020.
Before working as a Senate staffer, Hanson was a policy advisor in the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Before that, he was a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton. He has master’s degrees from Yale Divinity School and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, with a focus on ethics and natural resource economics.
