More Yucca Mountain turmoil at Nuclear Regulatory Commission

WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain continues to generate turmoil within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as the agency chairman was outvoted by four fellow commissioners late last month on whether to provide Congress with a key safety document on the Nevada nuclear waste plan.

NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko argued against forwarding an NRC staff-prepared safety evaluation on the proposed repository to a House committee chairman. Jaczko said the document had not been vetted.

But he was outnumbered by four other commissioners in a vote taken on March 24-25, according to agency officials and documents obtained Wednesday.

As a result, a full copy of the safety evaluation report volume, which might contain NRC staff recommendations on the Yucca Mountain Project, was forwarded to Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The episode was another example of a split at the top of the NRC over Yucca Mountain. President Barack Obama shifted the government's gears on nuclear waste when he was elected, moving to terminate the project and forming a blue ribbon panel to explore alternatives.

Jaczko, a physicist and former science adviser to leading Yucca foe Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was Obama's choice to be NRC chairman. While he has been praised for strengthening the safety mindset of the agency, Jaczko has been accused by members of Congress of furthering the administration's policy of killing the Yucca project.

Jaczko has defended his handling of Yucca Mountain, saying he has acted with the backing of the agency's legal counsel and in compliance with the commission's budget and spending policies.

The differing views among commissioners on Yucca Mountain, though, was evident in letters acquired Wednesday after Issa's March 11 demand for an unredacted copy of the safety report as part of a committee probe.

"These letters are ... about internal tension between the NRC commissioners," according to an official who viewed them but was not authorized to discuss them on the record.

In a March 30 response to Issa, Jaczko said he had reservations about supplying the report "that not even my fellow commissioners and I have had access to in unredacted form."

Jaczko said a commission majority was willing to provide the report "for your use but not public release."

The next day, the other members of the five-person NRC board told Issa in a letter that they had prevailed in a vote to hand over the safety report.

Contact Stephens Media Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at 202-783-1760 or stetreault@stephens
media.com.