The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said it planned to vote in November on whether Matthew Marzano should join the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The vote was set for the top of a committee business meeting scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. on Nov. 13 in room 406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, according to a notice on the committee’s website.
If approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee, Marzano, a nuclear engineer and licensed senior reactor operator who is currently a member of the committee’s staff, would still need to be confirmed by the full Senate.
If Marzano is confirmed, he would fill the last open spot on the commission, giving the body a Democratic majority. He would also be the youngest member of the commission and the first member in decades to be a licensed reactor operator.
During Marzano’s confirmation hearing on Sept. 11, some committee Democrats said they would vote for him. None of the Republicans who attended the hearing said during the proceedings how they would vote.
If Marzano’s nomination reaches the floor, it will do so with Senators pressed for time.
The Senate will have 28 scheduled working days left in the 118th Congress as of Tuesday. The chamber will have to approve a short-term budget bill this week to keep the government open after the 2025 fiscal year starts. After that, legislators were scheduled to be home campaigning for all of October.
Lawmakers this week planned to vote on a stopgap budget that would keep the government open until Dec. 20, but even if that passes, Congress and the White House will at minimum have to agree on another short-term spending deal to keep the government open after that.
Eeditor’s note, Sept. 25, 2024, 1:27 p.m. Eastern time. The story was updated to show that the committee vote on Marzano’s nomination will take place after November’s presidential election.
