SENATE COMMITTEE RECONFIRMS MACFARLANE AS CHAIR OF NRC

Late last night, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works reported out the renomination of Allison Macfarlane to be chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Macfarlane’s vote, recorded by voice late in the evening, was unanimous among the three present committee members, a Senate aide said yesterday. The vote comes just days before Macfarlane’s term was set to expire, June 30. Unlike many agencies, the NRC does not allow commissioners to serve after their term has expired unless they have been reconfirmed, so the commission was days away from serving with only four members and without a designated chair. Senate committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had put a hold on Macfarlane’s nomination while requesting thousands of documents from the NRC regarding the troubled performance review of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, which was recently designated for shut-down.