The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a small agency charged with peer research for Department of Energy management of high-level radioactive waste, is down to one board member after a round of White House dismissals.
Board Chair Peter Swift is the sole member of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) as of last week, a board spokesperson told Exchange Monitor July 18. The Donald Trump administration terminated seven members of the panel a couple of days before.
The NWTRB staff and funding remain in place, the spokesperson said.
The news is not a shock. Exchange Monitor reported in January the Trump administration was seeking resignation of almost the entire board, save for Swift. Virtually the entire board, including Swift, a former senior scientist at DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories, were Joe Biden appointees.
Board members Richelle Allen-King, Miles Greiner, Silvia Jurisson, Nathan Siu, Seth Tuler, Scott Tyler and Brian Woods were dismissed from the panel effective July 16.
The NWTRB was set up by Congress as an independent federal agency in the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act.
According to its website, the NWTRB “provides objective technical information to Congress, the administration, DOE, government and non-government organizations, and the public on a wide-range of issues related to spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste management and disposition.”
The board is composed of up to 11 members who serve on a part-time basis, according to the NWTRB website. Board members are appointed by the president from a list of candidates submitted by the National Academy of Sciences to 4-year terms. “By law, nominees to the board are selected solely on the bases of established records of distinguished professional service and eminence in a field of science or engineering.”
