A Senate Appropriations Committee staffer and former Department of Energy nuclear fuel cycle specialist confirmed this week he is being considered for nomination to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
An informed source said Christopher Hanson is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) preferred candidate to fill the vacancy that will open when Commissioner Stephen Burns retires on June 30 at the end of his current term.
Contacted Tuesday, Hanson said he had not heard that, but acknowledged he had been contacted by Senate Democratic leadership. The next member of the five-person commission will be a Democrat or independent, in keeping with the legal requirement that no more than three commissioners come from one political party. Current Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioners Annie Caputo and David Wright are Republicans, while Commissioner Jeff Baran is a Democrat and Burns is an independent.
“I consider it a privilege to serve Senator Leahy, Senator Feinstein, and the other members of the Appropriations Committee and I am happy to continue to do so,” Hanson said by email Tuesday. “Should the Democratic Leader, Senator Carper, and the other members of the Environment and Public Works Committee wish to consider me for another position, I would be pleased and honored to be so considered.”
Other names also in the mix at this point, the source said, are: Joyce Connery, a member and former chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), and Mary Louise Wagner, a former DOE senior policy adviser and current Democratic staff director at the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
A DNFSB spokesperson said Wednesday that Connery had no comment on the matter.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with an annual budget approaching $1 billion and more than 3,000 employees, is the regulator for the U.S. nuclear industry, including commercial power plants and spent fuel management. It is currently reviewing two license applications for planned temporary spent fuel storage facilities in New Mexico and Texas, and would be the adjudicator for the Energy Department’s frozen license application for the radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Commissioners, serving staggered five-year terms that end on June 30, set government policy and regulations for the industry. The White House nominee would require approval from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) and then the full Senate before being sworn into office.
Schumer’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the process for submitting one or more potential candidates to the White House for formal nomination. There was also no word from the White House or EPW Committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.).
Potential candidates for nomination to the commission each received a questionnaire several weeks ago seeking information on topics including their work history, professional successes, and social media use.
Hanson has been a minority staff member on the Senate Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee since February 2015. Prior to that, he was a DOE detailee to the subcommittee for 14 months and held other positions at the department for nearly five years.
The energy and water panel writes the first draft of the annual Senate appropriations bill covering the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Hanson’s areas of focus on the subcommittee cover much of the nuclear fuel cycle, including storage and permanent disposal of spent fuel, according to his LinkedIn profile.
While at the Energy Department, he helped prepare the Obama administration’s January 2013 Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. The plan, based on 2012 recommendations from the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, laid out a 10-year plan of consent-based siting for spent fuel storage and disposal facilities as an alternative to Yucca Mountain.
That approach did not get far beyond public meetings around the country before President Donald Trump took office in January 2017. The Trump administration has refocused on licensing Yucca Mountain as the national repository for U.S. spent fuel and high-level waste from defense operations. Congress has yet to appropriate money to resume licensing, but the White House is trying again in its newly released fiscal 2020 budget plan.
If nominated and confirmed, Hanson would be the latest of several NRC members from Capitol Hill. Caputo, a nuclear engineer by training, was a senior policy adviser to Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) prior to joining the commission in May 2018. Baran, an attorney, served in various roles in the House for more than a decade before his swearing-in to the NRC on Oct. 14, 2014.
Connery has served on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the federal health and safety watchdog for the DOE nuclear weapons complex, since August 2015. She served as chairman through January 2017 on a term that expires on Oct. 18 of this year.
She previously served multiple stints at both the White House National Security Council and Department of Energy, including as NSC director for nuclear energy policy from 2012 to 2015 and senior adviser to the DOE deputy secretary from 2010 to 2012.
Wagner joined the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff in November 2017. Her prior positions have included: DOE senior policy adviser in the Office of the Secretary, from July 2013 to January 2017; professional staffer to the Senate Armed Services Committee and legislative aide to Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), from April 2001 to July 2013; and several roles at DOE, from January 1994 to January 2001.
