Enviro. Groups Go To Obama on Magwood Resignation Issue

The group of 34 environmental activist groups seeking Nuclear Regulatory Commission member William Magwood’s resignation for alleged credibility issues sent a letter to President Barrack Obama yesterday calling on the President to request the Commissioner’s resignation. The group is calling for Magwood’s resignation and retroactive recusal from decisions in the past nine months because he accepted a position with the Paris-based Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency while still serving as Commissioner. Magwood announced he would be leaving the Commission sometime this summer to take over as Director General for the NEA, a move that the environmental groups saw as “fatally compromising” to his role as an independent regulator of public health and safety.

Magwood, for his part, announced he would not be stepping down because the NEA is dedicated to the sharing of ideas between nations, not a platform to sell nuclear— an argument the groups rejected. “Mr. Magwood also claims he has no conflict of interest because NEA has no financial, research or policy interests that would be directly affected by his decisions,” the group’s letter to Obama said. “But he completely fails to address the fact that the NEA members who have hired him include countries that own or sponsor U.S. nuclear licensees or applicants, such as France (MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility through AREVA; Nine Mile Point Units 1 and 2, Calvert Cliffs Units 1 and 2, and Ginna through Electricité de France) and the Netherlands (Louisiana Enrichment Services through URENCO). He also overlooks the fact that NEA promotes the financial interests of many private nuclear companies doing business in the U.S. and other countries. Therefore, we request that you seek Mr. Magwood’s immediate resignation from the NRC and his recusal from all NRC decisions related to safety or protection of the environment since the date of his application to the NEA,” they said.