The White House this week shoveled more than 30 nominations to the newly returned Senate, including two for positions on the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
Former Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery was nominated to serve a term ending Oct. 18, 2024, while Thomas Summers, former vice commander of the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, was renominated for a term ending Oct. 18, 2025. Summers is already awaiting a Senate floor vote to serve out the remainder of a board term that would expire on Oct. 18 of this year.
The DNFSB is an independent federal agency that makes health and safety recommendations for active and shuttered defense-nuclear sites at the Department of Energy, except for naval reactors sites. It has an annual budget of about $30 million and roughly 100 employees.
Last year, the White House proposed reshuffling the membership of the board, including adding two new members and pushing out then-member Daniel Santos, who resigned in March 2019. Congress in 2019 also changed federal law to prohibit board members from serving after their terms expire: a feature of the group since its creation in 1988.
The DNFSB has up to five members who serve staggered five-year terms. The agency, like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, cannot have more than three members of any one political party. Connery and board member Jessie Hill Roberson are Democrats. Board Chairman Bruce Hamilton and Summers are Republicans.
President Donald Trump had also nominated Lisa Vickers, a Department of Energy site representative at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, to the board, but the Senate returned that nomination to the president in January after clearing other renominated members for a floor vote in the upper chamber. It was not clear at deadline why Vickers’ nomination fell through.
Last year, the White House proposed restructuring the DNFSB by nominating Summers and Vickers as new members, and moving Hamilton, the chair, into a seat once occupied by former board member Daniel Santos, who resigned, rather than serve out the end of his term.
Meanwhile, the board has released a strategic plan for improving morale.
