U.S. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) will remain in a leadership role on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where last year he began a concerted push for a policy bill to advance the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository toward realization.
With the Democrats taking control of the House in the November midterm elections, though, Shimkus drops from chairman to ranking member of what is now called the Energy and Commerce environment and climate change subcommittee in the 116th Congress.
Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) on Tuesday announced the GOP leadership for all six panel subcommittees. The Democratic Party chairs for each subcommittee are expected to be announced later in the week, a staffer said.
Walden and former committee ranking member and current Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) have also swapped roles in the new Congress.
Among other responsibilities, the House Energy and Commerce Committee provides legislative oversight of the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission — respectively the applicant and adjudicator for a license to build a nuclear waste repository on federal land in Nevada.
The program has been moribund for the better part of a decade after the Obama administration defunded licensing in 2010. Shimkus hoped to give the process some momentum with the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act, introduced in June 2017. The Energy and Commerce Committee voted 49-4 in favor of the bill that month, and the full House voted 340-72 last May to send it to the Senate. The Shimkus bill never got a hearing in the Senate before the last Congress officially ended on Jan. 3.
Shimkus’ office on Tuesday did not respond to a query regarding his decision to remain on the committee or whether he intends to file any new form of nuclear waste legislation in the new legislative session.
Separately, the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday confirmed that Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) would remain on the energy and water development subcomittee as ranking member. Simpson previously chaired the panel that writes the House’s first funding bill for DOE and the NRC. The current chair is Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio).
