The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA), an umbrella organization of citizen groups active on nuclear weapons, cleanup and energy issues, wants the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to have a quorum again.
In a recent report, the alliance said Congress should protect the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB), which is down to two members with three empty seats.
“This requires that Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee recommend a presidential nomination of at least one new board member that the Senate approves,” the ANA said. “Better still would be three Senate-approved nominees (two Republicans and one Democrat), bringing the board to full membership.”
One of the two current board members, Acting Chair Thomas Summers will see his term expire Oct. 18. Summers, a retired Air Force colonel, discussed DNFSB safety efforts last week at the Exchange Monitor Radwaste Summit in Savannah, Ga. The other remaining member is Patricia Lee, who was previously a longtime manager at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina.
The DNFSB lost its quorum with the January retirement from federal service of Joyce Connery, who chaired the board the board during the Joe Biden administration. While its lacks actual regulatory enforcement tools, the DNFSB is set up to provide outside analysis and recommendations to the Department of Energy for its nuclear defense facilities.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability is made of more than three dozen anti-nuclear groups including Beyond Nuclear, Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, Hanford Challenge, Heart of America Northwest, Savannah River Site Watch, Snake River Alliance and others.
The ANA report: “What about waste? 80 years of Nuclear” favors “a nuclear weapons policy that is neither provocative nor aggressive.” The report also endorses “a nuclear power phase-out to prevent never-ending radioactive waste generation.”
