Reid plans to block Republican NRC nominee

WASHINGTON -- Warming up for new political hardball, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., plans to block confirmation of a Republican to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission until he is able to extend the term of a Democrat at the same time, officials said Tuesday.

Kristine L. Svinicki appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as the nominee to fill a Republican vacancy on the commission that oversees safety operations at nuclear plants.

The five-member panel also might decide in the next four to five years whether a nuclear waste repository should be licensed at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But the Senate committee's chairman, Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said at the outset of the meeting that Svinicki's confirmation will be held up until the White House agrees to a new five-year term for Gregory Jaczko, a commissioner who once worked as Reid's science adviser and top aide on Yucca Mountain issues.

Jaczko's term expires June 30, 2008. In an April 10 letter to President Bush, Reid proposed that Bush renominate Jaczko to a new five-year term.

"Senator Reid has a great interest in what happens on the NRC," Boxer said. "He is particularly concerned about Yucca Mountain. He has been trying to get Greg Jaczko renominated since April."

Reid, a chief opponent of the Yucca Mountain Project, has a history of hardball when it comes to the NRC. In 2004, he blocked Senate action on more than 175 Bush appointments until the president agreed to place Jaczko on the nuclear panel.

Svinicki is a Senate staff member who specializes in nuclear weapons issues on the Armed Services Committee. Formerly she worked as a nuclear policy adviser for Sen. Larry Craig R-Idaho, who is supportive of the Yucca project.

From May 1994 until June 1998, Svinicki worked as a general engineer and a nuclear engineer in the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which manages the Yucca project.

Questioned by Boxer, Svinicki said she worked in Washington, and not in Las Vegas. She said she was involved in nuclear waste transportation packaging. Later she inventoried Defense Department nuclear waste that might someday be buried at an underground site.

Svinicki was not asked and did not offer an opinion on the Yucca project during her confirmation hearing.

Neither Reid nor Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., have met with the nominee yet, aides said.

Boxer said Reid, the Senate majority leader, wants to move Svinicki and Jaczko in tandem through Senate confirmation.

"We just need some balance here," Boxer said.

A Reid spokesman confirmed the Nevada senator plans to hold up Svinicki until Bush renominates Jaczko.

"Svinicki's nomination will be considered by the full Senate when that balance is achievable," spokesman Jon Summers said.