Sean Sullivan replaced Joyce Connery as chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board on Wednesday, the federal government’s independent nuclear complex watchdog announced Thursday.
Connery was appointed to the board, known as DNFSB, in August 2015 by then-President Barack Obama and designated chairman at the same time. She will remain on the board and can finish a term that ends Oct. 18, 2019. DNFSB members serve five-year terms; the president may designate any board member as chairman or vice chairman.
Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump also designated board member Bruce Hamilton as the DNFSB’s vice chairman. Hamilton will replace Jessie Hill Roberson, a board veteran nominated by then-President Bill Clinton in 1999.
The swap at the top of the DNFSB coincided with a brief communications blackout on the board’s website.
“In preparation for the launch of the new DNFSB website, we are currently in a content freeze until 24 Jan 2017. The site will resume content updates starting 25 Jan 2017,” read a message that remained on the board’s website as of deadline for Weapons Complex Monitor on Friday.
The Trump administration last week directed federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture to briefly cease external communications — a prohibition that evidently did not apply to DNFSB, which was permitted at least to distribute a press release during Trump’s first week in office.
The all-civilian Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board is an independent federal entity empowered to make recommendations to the Energy Department on safety issues throughout DOE’s nuclear weapons complex. Besides its chairman, the board has four other members, all of whom must be confirmed by the Senate to serve.
As with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not more than three DNFSB board members may belong to the same political party.
Current DNFSB members are:
- Acting Chairman Sean Sullivan, a nuclear Navy veteran and attorney who joined the board in 2012.
- Incoming Vice Chairman Bruce Hamilton, former president of the Fuelco nuclear fuel procurement company and a nuclear Navy veteran who has been with the DNFSB since August 2015.
- Outgoing Chairman Joyce Connery, a career policy specialist specializing in nuclear security, safety, nonproliferation, and energy.
- Jessie Hill Roberson, former board vice chairman and onetime DOE assistant secretary for environmental management.
- Daniel Santos, a nuclear engineer and Navy veteran who joined the board in December 2014 and has also worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Party affiliation rules are a part of the reason Roberson, a Democrat, remains at DNFSB. Last year, it appeared the former DOE cleanup boss would leave the board when the Obama administration in April nominated her to fill an NRC commissioner’s spot that had been vacant since 2014.
However, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) held up Roberson’s nomination over concerns about the NRC’s ideological balance. Roberson was nominated to the regulator shortly after Republican William Ostendorff announced his plan to retire. While Inhofe never objected to Roberson by name, he said the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wanted Obama to nominate a pair of commissioners: one Republican, one Democrat.
That never happened, and Roberson returned to DNFSB, leaving a three-member NRC with a lone Republican, Kristine Svinicki.
