Reid adviser granted limited role on NRC

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Nov. 22, 2004 | 11 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A top aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will take a seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission but with significantly limited power to block Yucca Mountain, under a deal struck in Congress during the weekend.

Reid has battled for about a year to win Senate approval for one of his top advisers, physicist Greg Jaczko.

Yucca advocates in Congress opposed the nomination, figuring that Jaczko would thwart the project.

The appointment to the commission is important to Nevada because it would give the state a voice on the agency panel responsible for licensing and regulating Yucca, the Energy Department project proposal to construct a high-level nuclear waste repository under construction 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The department aims to open Yucca as early as 2010, but it must first win approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The department had planned to submit an application to the commission for a license to construct the underground facility to the NRC by year's end so the commission could begin reviewing it, a process that would likely take several years.

Jaczko will be limited in his power to take a critical approach to the proposed nuclear waste repository project under an unusual compromise forged by Reid, White House officials and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a leading Yucca advocate in the Senate.

Jaczko will have to recuse himself from all Yucca Mountain matters for the first year of his two-year appointment, according to the agreement. That point has long been part of ongoing deal-making over Jaczko's appointment, Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

"It was all part of the negotiations and compromises," she said.

Further, Jaczko likely will be limited to a two-year stint. White House officials assured Domenici that Bush would not renominate Jaczko, Domenici spokeswoman Marnie Funk said. Most appointments to the five-member NRC are for five years.

"We made it clear that a nominee as controversial as Greg Jaczko will not be confirmed by the Senate for the sake of political expedience regardless of the pressure exerted by his advocate, Sen. Reid," Domenici said in a statement.

Domenici added, "I hope we have ensured the impartiality and fairness of the NRC."

In two years, Reid plans to use his powers as Democratic leader to fight to get Jaczko more time on the commission, Hafen said.

Despite the limits on Jaczko's nomination, the deal on the nomination was still a good one, Hafen said.

"It allows Greg to to do good work on the NRC and prove that he is fair and objective," she said.

It is not immediately clear just how much opposition Jaczko could mount, even behind the scenes, against the project with limited power during a limited term.

"It just shows how much power the nuclear power industry has," said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist with the anti-Yucca group Nuclear Information and Resource Service, who has long argued the industry has powerful friends in Congress. "They can set the terms for the commissioners that oversee them."

A spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading industry lobby group, today said he could not comment on Jaczko's nomination.

Nominees to federal posts, including the NRC, must be approved by the Senate.

President Bush nominated Jaczko in February under a deal made with Reid to drop his hold on other nominees, including opposition to Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Mike Leavitt, who was confirmed to that post.

Under the deal reached during the weekend, Reid agreed to release a hold he had placed on another slate of nominations to federal posts. Domenici said Reid had been holding 172 nominations "hostage" in an effort to win approval for Jaczko.

Senate Republicans wanted a Republican named to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and a number of senators wanted full congressional hearings on any nominees before confirmation to full five-year posts.

As part of the agreement, Jaczko and Republican nominee Albert H. Konetzni will serve for two years to fill the two empty seats on the five-member panel. President Bush likely will make the appointments under special rules during January, a Domenici aide said.

Jaczko likely would begin serving immediately after Bush's appointment, Hafen said.

Jaczko is a scientist with the experience necessary for the job, Reid said in a statement. He will be an "independent" voice on the commission, Reid said.

"Greg understands and cares deeply about nuclear safety issues, and he will put the welfare of the American public above everything else," Reid said.