As of Friday morning, the Biden administration had not nominated either a fifth Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair or a fifth commissioner to replace the recently departed chair. So, while we wait, here’s where things at the nation’s nuclear rulemaking agency stand, and what’s at stake for the industry during Biden’s first 100 days.
Former NRC chair Kristine Svinicki announced her departure from the agency in early January and left her post on Jan. 20, inauguration day. Appointed chair by President Trump in 2017, Svinicki resigned more than a year before the scheduled end of her term in 2022.
Svinicki’s departure is an opportunity for the new administration, giving Biden the chance to immediately secure a 3-2 Democratic majority on the commission and appoint a Democratic chair.
A maximum of three commissioners can belong to the same political party. Right now, things are evenly split: commissioners David Wright and Annie Caputo are GOP members, and commissioners Jeff Baran and Christopher Hanson are Democrats.
It was not clear at deadline for RadWaste Monitor whether either of the incumbents would get the gavel. NRC’s public affairs director David Castelveter said in an email Thursday that he was not aware of any announcement regarding who would become the new chairman.
As for any new addition to the commission, the Biden team has yet to announce their nomination but they’ll need to get their pick confirmed by the Senate.
Meanwhile, the Commission has some big agenda items to address this year. The agency is working on environmental impact statements for two proposed interim storage sites — Holtec’s in New Mexico and Interim Storage Providers’ in Texas — but that job will take months to finish.
The environmental reviews are one gateway through which the proposals must pass before NRC can license the sites, leaving the Biden administration with what’s left of winter and all spring to put the process on hold, if it wants.
The administration’s new “energy justice” effort may also factor into the proposed spent fuel storage sites, each of which is located in a rural area with a majority hispanic-latino population, according to the Census Bureau. How energy justice will factor into the NRC’s operations, and who will have that portfolio at the commission, was not certain at deadline. However, the Department of Energy, which has to take custody of spent fuel from power plants, already has a new deputy director of energy justice in Shalanda Baker, DOE wrote in a Thursday press release.
There are also decisions to be made about the hotly disputed Greater Than Class C waste rulemaking. Late last year, Commission staff were split on whether the agency could legally make a rule allowing states to take charge of this high-level waste for disposal in near-surface repositories. Those in the dissenting camp, including Commissioner Baran, argued that disposal could only be done by the federal government.
