If things don’t change by mid-October, what is designed to be a five-person safety panel for Department of Energy sites could be down to one member.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) currently has only two members, Acting Chair Thomas Summers and board member Patricia Lee.
Summers was confirmed by the Senate in July 2020 for a term that will run through Oct. 18 of this year.
But Summers, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who has also worked as a manager at the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), could stick around longer under certain circumstances, according to a board spokesperson.
Under the rules of the safety board, Summers is not eligible to serve another term but could conceivably continue to serve beyond Oct. 18 if it helped the board preserve a quorum, according to the spokesperson.
For that to happen, President Donald Trump would need to nominate and receive Senate confirmation of a new DNFSB board member by Oct. 18. To date, the Trump White House has not nominated anyone to the safety watchdog board.
Should two potential board members be nominated and confirmed by Oct. 18, the board would not need Summers to preserve a quorum.
Since the Board does not currently have a quorum, meaning three members, Summers’ departure from the board will not “’result in the loss of quorum’ and 42 U.S.C. § 2286(d)(3)(B) does not permit him to remain at the board beyond the expiration of his term,” the spokesperson said in response to an email inquiry from Exchange Monitor.
Should DNFSB dwindle to a single board member it could mean “the DNFSB will be unable to exercise certain statutory authorities, such as formal safety recommendations, investigations, reporting requirements, and hearings,” the board spokesperson said.
The board lost its quorum earlier this year when then-Chair Joyce Connery retired from federal government service.
While it lacks actual regulatory authority, DNFSB was set up by Congress in fiscal 1989 to provide independent safety advice and analysis for defense nuclear sites.
