Reid to hold up committee action for NRC nominee

Suzanne Struglinski

Thursday, April 22, 2004 | 9:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will block any business before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee until one of his aides gets a hearing to fill an open position on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The White House nominated Reid aide Greg Jaczko in February to sit on the commission, which regulates nuclear power plants and other nuclear-related projects, including the Energy Department's plan to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The NRC will decide whether the Energy Department will get a license to operate the repository.

Senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which includes Reid, have to approve the nomination before the full Senate votes on it, but the committee has not scheduled a hearing yet.

Reid said he will be "very direct in my opposing anything" that goes before the committee until a hearing date is set.

"I am not going to let anything else move, period, until we get a hearing date set on Greg Jaczko," Reid said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "Here is a man who is a distinguished scholar in physics, he worked in the Senate, he is a Democrat, and we are entitled to have a Democrat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

Under law Bush had to nominate at least one Democrat for the two open seats on the commission. Reid has placed a hold on dozens of the administration's nominations, including Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency, after it rejected his recommendation of Jaczko to serve on the commission.

The White House eventually agreed to nominate Jaczko and Leavitt was approved soon after.

If approved Jaczko's term on the five-member panel would end in 2008.

Jaczko, 33, holds a doctorate in particle physics and was one of Reid's top advisers during the Yucca Mountain fight in the Senate in 2002. Jaczko now handles appropriations matter for Reid, but his past work on Yucca issues does not sit well with site supporters, who think it will make him biased against the site on the commission.

The administration's nominee for the open Republican seat on the commission, Adm. John Grossenbacher, withdrew his nomination in February and it is unclear when a new one will be named.