The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed Kristine Svinicki to another five-year term on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to June 30, 2022.
Svinicki, a former staffer for Republican senators and an NRC commissioner since 2008, has chaired the primary regulator for U.S. civilian nuclear operations since the early days of the Donald Trump administration.
Monday’s 88-9 vote averted at the 11th hour the possibility that the NRC might slip below its three-member quorum and be unable to conduct its business after June 30, when Svinicki’s current term expires.
“I look forward to working with Chairman Svinicki as she leads the agency responsible for maintaining our gold-standard of safety for nuclear reactors; breaking the nuclear waste stalemate by licensing private interim storage sites and Yucca Mountain; extending reactor licenses from 60 to 80 years, where it is safe to do so; and licensing small modular reactors and advanced reactors,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said in a prepared statement following the vote Monday.
Both of Nevada’s fiercely anti-Yucca senators, fiercely Dean Heller (R) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D), voted against Svinicki’s nomination.
Meanwhile, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on two more NRC nominees who would round out the commission to five members: the legal maximum.
Annie Caputo and David Wright both cruised through a confirmation hearing before the committee in mid-June.
Caputo, a longtime Capitol Hill staffer currently serving as senior policy adviser to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wy.), would fill out the remainder of a five-year term through June 30, 2021.
Wright, who has led both the South Carolina Public Service Commission and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, would serve the remainder of a vacant five-year term that ends on June 30, 2020.
The full Senate would still have to confirm Caputo and Wright, if the committee advances their nominations.
