President Donald Trump plans to appoint Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) acting Chairman Bruce Hamilton to the top position on a permanent basis, the White House said Tuesday.
Hamilton, a Navy veteran who spent decades in the nuclear energy industry, joined the board in August 2015 and was elevated to vice chairman last year in the early days of the Trump administration. He became acting chairman in February of this year after the resignation of Chairman Sean Sullivan.
The White House had not announced Hamilton’s formal appointment as chairman at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security and Deterrence Monitor. The Senate Armed Services Committee would have to approve Hamilton’s nomination, then the full Senate would have to vote favorably to confirm him.
Sullivan left the board after coming under scrutiny for submitting to the White House a memo suggesting disbanding the independent health and safety watchdog for Department of Energy nuclear facilities.
Hamilton in August proposed reorganizing DNFSB operations, including reducing staffing by about 20 percent and increasing the percentage of staff in the field. Congress blocked the plan in a fiscal 2019 appropriations package that funded the DNFSB.
Hamilton and the other board members have also contested a new DOE directive, Order 140.1, which the DNFSB says would restrict its authority to provide independent analysis and recommendations to the Energy Department. The DNFSB claims the measure would limit its access to DOE sites, employees, and documents.
Before being appointed to the DNFSB, Hamilton was president of Fuelco, a nuclear fuel procurement company; director of engineering at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas; and a U.S. Navy officer who oversaw nuclear operations on several warships.
The other three current members of the DNFSB are Jessie Hill Roberson, Daniel Santos, and Joyce Connery.
That leaves one vacancy on the board, to which Trump had nominated no one at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor. An industry source Wednesday said Jim Colgary, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette, could be considered for the slot. Having worked at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Colgary has a background as a regulator. He has also held posts at the Nuclear Energy Institute and served in the nuclear Navy, the source said.
