ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The White House has received a list of candidates for positions on the federal Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), but there was no word this week on when they might be appointed.
Nine of the current 10 members of the independent advisory agency are serving past the expiration of their terms and one spot is vacant following the January 2017 resignation of then-Chairman Rod Ewing, NWTRB Executive Director Nigel Mote told RadWaste Monitor on the sidelines of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management Spent Fuel Management Seminar.
All serving board members were appointed during the Obama administration, mostly in September 2012 and July 2014. The newest board member is Tissa Illangasekare, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the Colorado School of Mines appointed by then-President Barack Obama on Jan. 18, 2017. His term, filling a board vacancy, ends on April 19, 2020.
The National Academy of Sciences submits the list of candidates to the White House for selection and appointment by the president, generally to four-year terms. The part-time board members do not require Senate confirmation.
The National Academy’s Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board “submitted a list of at least two candidates for each vacancy on the NWTRB, as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act; but the names of those candidates are not made public by us,” spokeswoman Sara Frueh said by email Wednesday.
Frueh referred further questions to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which is closed during the partial shutdown of the federal government. The OSTP and White House press offices did not respond to requests for comment this week.
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board was established by the 1987 amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to “evaluate the technical and scientific validity of activities undertaken by the Department of Energy” related to management of nuclear waste. Members specialize in areas of science and engineering that apply to nuclear waste management, including nuclear chemical engineering, hydrology, and seismology.
Recent work by the board has included reports on geologic repositories and DOE management of spent fuel. The board’s next meeting, scheduled for April 24 to 25 in San Francisco, will cover repository science and operations from international underground research laboratory collaborations.
