Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Nuclear engineer new NRC chairman
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Nils J. Diaz, a nuclear engineer and government regulator for the past seven years, has been elevated by President Bush to become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Diaz, who has served on the five-member commission since 1996, replaces Richard Meserve as chairman. Meserve left the NRC on Monday to become president of the Carnegie Institution, a Washington research center.
Bush still needs to appoint a new commissioner to fill out the regulatory board, and will probably appoint a second one later this year when the term of Commissioner Greta Joy Dicus expires.
At the NRC, Diaz has been identified as an advocate of streamlining nuclear regulations while maintaining focus on safety, according to an agency biography. Among his major tasks ahead is overseeing the NRC's handling of a license application to open a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
Before joining the NRC, Diaz was professor of nuclear engineering sciences at the University of Florida and director of the Innovative Nuclear Space Power Institute, a missile defense consortium.
Diaz also consulted among private industry, the U.S. government and foreign governments on nuclear engineering for 25 years before becoming a regulator.
