President Donald Trump on Monday nominated a Democratic Party staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee to fill a vacancy on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has already scheduled a March 11 hearing to consider Christopher Hanson’s nomination, along with the nomination of serving Commissioner David Wright to a full five-year term.
Hanson said by email on Feb. 28 he could not comment on his then-pending nomination. He would fill out a term on the commission through June 30, 2024, following the retirement on April 30, 2019, of Stephen Burns.
Hanson “is an energy policy professional with more than two decades of experience in nuclear energy, fuel cycle, security, and radioactive waste issues,” the White House said last week in its intent to nominate announcement.
Since February 2015, he has been a professional staff member on the Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee, with areas of focusing including storage and disposal of spent fuel from nuclear power plants, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that Hanson spent nearly six years at the Department of Energy, ending with a 14-month stint on detail to the Appropriations Committee.
At DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Hanson contributed to the January 2013 Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. That document was intended to establish “a sustainable program to deploy an integrated system capable of transporting, storing, and disposing of used nuclear fuel1 and high-level radioactive waste from civilian nuclear power generation, defense, national security and other activities.”
Hanson’s government service followed more than a decade in the private sector, including as an associate at consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a total of five members, serving staggered terms of up to five years. No more than three members can represent one political party.
Current Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioners Wright and Annie Caputo are Republicans, while Commissioner Jeff Baran is a Democrat. Burns was an Independent.
Wright’s current term ends on June 30. In May 2018, he was confirmed to fill the seat previously held by Baran, but the White House in January nominated Wright to a full five-year term through June 2025.
The Senate Appropriations energy and water subcommittee has generally done a good job of setting reasonable spending levels for DOE nuclear energy programs, according to Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“We look forward to his confirmation hearing,” Lyman said by telephone Monday. “From everything we know about Mr. Hanson, I believe he would be a fine commissioner.”
An industry source said he did not expect significant opposition that could derail Hanson’s nomination, to prevent obstacles to Wright staying on the commission.
The source was less sanguine about Hanson’s nomination, describing him as a “policy guy … with no operational, no technical background.”
Both Svinicki and Caputo are nuclear engineers, the source noted, also acknowledging their policy-side work: Svinicki at the Department of Energy and Senate Armed Services Committee and Caputo as a staffer in both the House and Senate.
Wright has generally avoided scrutiny, but he ran afoul of the state of Nevada’s long-held opposition to becoming home to a nuclear waste disposal facility.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would rule on approval of the Department of Energy’s 2008 license application to build and operate a geologic repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The proceeding has been moribund after being defunded by the Obama administration a decade ago.
Wright is an energy consultant and former president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, along with a onetime member of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition. A month after he joined the commission, Nevada asked him to voluntarily recuse himself from any NRC decision on Yucca Mountain, saying Wright’s previous statements and actions demonstrated an unfair bias in favor of the project. Wright refused in July 2018, saying he was biased only in favor of a permanent solution to disposal of the nation’s nuclear waste.
Nevada attempted to force the issue in federal court. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in his favor in December 2018, noting Wright might never be called upon to rule on the license application.
The Trump administration tried in three successive budget requests secure funds to resume licensing at the NRC and Energy Department, but was rebuffed by Congress each time. It did not request any money for Yucca Mountain in the upcoming fiscal 2021.
