Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005 | 9:29 a.m.
SUN CAPITAL BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Tuesday renominated Sen. Harry Reid's top Yucca Mountain adviser to serve on the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agency ultimately would license and regulate the planned high-level nuclear waste repository.
Reid, who has long fought to kill Yucca Mountain, last year put a hold on a number of Bush nominees to other federal posts in protest to pro-Yucca senators led by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who would not act on the nomination of Reid's science adviser, Gregory Jaczko, 34, a physicist. Those senators were concerned that Jaczko would use his influence at the NRC to work to halt Yucca.
In a compromise worked out between the White House and Reid, Jaczko will be appointed for two years instead of the usual five, and he will recuse himself from official NRC action on Yucca issues for one year.
Bush's nomination of Jaczko died when the congressional session ended last year.
Bush on Tuesday also nominated Albert Konetzni, a Republican and a retired U.S. Navy vice admiral and nuclear submarine commander, to fill another vacancy on the commission.
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