Friday, Feb. 11, 2005 | 10:55 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Margaret Chu, the Energy Department's top Yucca Mountain official, resigned today after nearly three years of overseeing a project beset by delays.
Chu, who formerly worked at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, said she will return to the state "due to personal circumstances," according to a press release issued by the Energy Department this morning.
No acting director has been named. The Senate will have to confirm a new Bush nominee to the post. Her resignation becomes effective "on or about" Feb. 25, according to the press release.
Chu's resignation comes days after she told reporters after a budget briefing that the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain may not open until 2012. It was the first time a department official acknowledged that the department could not meet its long- standing goal of opening the repository by 2010.
Chu this week said that the progress of the repository depends greatly on funding from Congress. During her tenure, Chu dealt with budget shortfalls and a 2004 federal appeals court ruling that threw out a key radiation protection standard on the repository, which effectively stalled the project until a new one is set.
The department was supposed to take commercial nuclear reactor waste starting in 1998 and is under intense financial and legal pressure to keep the project moving. Numerous nuclear utilities have sued the department for breaching its 1998 promise.
Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson said Chu sent an e-mail to staff this morning thanking them for their work and said she had personal reasons for leaving. Calls to the department seeking comment from Chu were not returned.
"I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to serve the president and to lead a program of such national and international importance," Chu said in a statement. "I am proud to have been a part of this administration and of making critical progress with Yucca Mountain."
Chu has been the director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management since March 6, 2002, and led the Bush administration's work on the repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress approved the site in 2002 and President Bush signed a law allowing the program to seek a license to build the repository, although a lack of funds and legal problems have slowed the project down.
Bob Loux, executive director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects said Chu's resignation does not change anything in the state's fight against the project, but "provides further evidence of the death spiral it is in."
"It's eroding quickly," Loux said.
He said it does not matter who replaces Chu, because a lot of the policies and procedures have been set already.
Michele Boyd, who tracks nuclear issues for the consumer group Public Citizen, hopes the new director will have a "much more realistic" idea of where the project stands. She said Chu should have admitted much earlier the project was off-track.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would look closely at the background and experience of the next nominee for the post and will "ask some very tough questions before I make any decision."
"But, President Bush has made dumping nuclear waste on Nevada a top priority and any replacement for Dr. Chu will have those same marching orders," Reid said.
Rod McCullum, senior project manager for waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said Chu put in a "highly skilled" organization of managers overseeing the project and he had confidence that will continue.
He said Chu's leadership and understanding of the scientific aspects of the project were "a great asset" and he was sure she would be missed.
Brian O'Connell, director of the Nuclear Waste Program Office at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners said there is a "enough continuity in the program" to keep it moving until the president names a replacement. Staff in Washington and Nevada will be able to bring the new director, once confirmed by the Senate, up to speed.
Chu previously served as the director of nuclear waste management at the department's Sandia National Laboratories, where she also managed Waste Isolation Pilot Plant activities.
Chu's scientific background served her well in her job, John Garrick, chairman of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a congressionally-appointed panel that reviews Yucca scientific data, said in a statement. He said that a new division in her office dedicated to researching new waste-disposal technologies was an "important legacy" Chu was leaving at the department.
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