A Senate committee had to delay its plan to vote this week on the White House’s picks to fill two open seats on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to an announcement from the panel.
Although the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was scheduled Wednesday to consider Annie Caputo and Bradley Crowell for roles as two of NRC’s top regulators, the decision “will be rescheduled for a later date,” the committee said in a Tweet Tuesday. According to an aide, the panel’s work was postponed in anticipation of scheduled remarks to Congress from the first lady of Ukraine.
As of Friday morning, the vote had yet to be rescheduled, but an aide told RadWaste Monitor Tuesday that the committee was looking to set a new date as soon as possible.
If the NRC nominees clear the Senate’s environment panel, they would next face a vote in the full chamber.
If confirmed, Caputo, who served as an NRC commissioner as recently as June 2021, and Crowell, director of Nevada’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources since 2016, would fill out the five-member commission. NRC leadership has been operating with three members, the minimum for quorum, since Caputo’s departure.
Nominated by President Joe Biden in May, Caputo and Crowell faced down the Senate environment panel in early June, where Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) implored the nominees to take clear positions on NRC’s proposed decommissioning rule, of which the senator has been pointedly critical.
Markey asked Caputo, a Republican, and Crowell, a Democrat, whether they thought the decommissioning rule should require NRC to consider public input when approving post-shutdown decommissioning activities reports from nuclear plant operators.
Crowell told the senator that he agreed with the concept “in general,” and Caputo said she was “hesitant to comment,” because she left NRC just months before the commission approved the proposed rule on a 2-1 vote in November.
Despite a 50/50 party-line split in the Senate and its committees that can complicate controversial presidential nominations, Caputo and Crowell appeared to have the bipartisan support necessary to make it through the nomination process.
Environment and public works ranking member Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) pledged during the June hearing to support both nominees.
NRC is currently led by chair Christopher Hanson, a Democrat. Also on the commission are Jeff Baran, a Democrat, and David Wright, a Republican. By law, NRC cannot have more than three members of the same political party.
