Showdown shaping up over Republican NRC commissioner

White House officials confirmed Thursday that Svinicki, a nuclear engineer and former aide to multiple GOP senators, will be proposed for a new five-year term. She began serving in 2008, and her present term expires on June 30.

The action places Obama in a rare position of disagreement with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. It came after a behind-the-scenes impasse broke into the open on Wednesday, when Republicans began mounting public pressure for Svinicki’s renomination to the agency, which regulates nuclear power plants and the handling of nuclear materials.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Obama wants Svinicki returned to the agency.

“The president believes that we need to have an NRC that’s functioning effectively” and did not want a vacancy on the five-member board when her term expires, he said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., charged that Svinicki, 45, was being held up because she, with three other commissioners, complained to the White House in the fall that NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko was bullying and abusive to staff.

“If Commissioner Svinicki is not renominated by June 30, NRC will lose one of its finest members, the commission’s work will be impaired, and we will be forced to conclude the reason is related to her honorable actions as a whistleblower, that she is being held up in retaliation for speaking up against a rogue chairman who bullies his subordinates,” McConnell said Wednesday.

At the same time, Reid made clear through aides that he opposes Svinicki, contending she is too cozy with the nuclear industry. Further, he contends Svinicki at her first confirmation hearing misrepresented her involvement in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste program when she was employed at the Department of Energy.

“Senator Reid opposes Commissioner Svinicki’s renomination because she lied to Congress about her past work on Yucca Mountain,” spokeswoman Kristen Orthman said. “Furthermore, Commissioner Svinicki has an abysmal record on nuclear safety, demonstrating that she puts the interests of the nuclear industry ahead of the safety of American citizens.”

Asked about Obama’s intentions to renominate Svinicki, Reid was noncommittal Thursday, saying, “Certainly it is his responsibility to do that.”

Reid said the Senate would hold a confirmation hearing on Svinicki, “and we will approach that when we have to.”

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., will oppose Svinicki for a new term, a spokesman said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., counted Svinicki among Republicans who support developing Yucca Mountain into a nuclear waste repository and urged senators to see that “this Yucca nuclear waste-pusher does not have another term.”

Strains with the NRC came to a head in December when it was revealed that four commissioners – two Democrats and two Republicans – had complained about Jaczko, a former adviser to Reid and also to Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass. They said his outbursts of temper were intimidating to employees and were endangering the operations of the safety agency.

White House Chief of Staff William Daley said Jaczko had apologized after an intercession. Jaczko’s allies, meanwhile, suggested that he was being set up for a coup by the others because of policy disagreements.

In framing their call for Svinicki to be renominated, Senate Republicans are emphasizing that she is the only female commissioner and that women at the NRC “felt particularly threatened” by Jaczko.

Tensions among commissioners of both genders played out during handling of issues surrounding the Yucca Mountain Project, which Jaczko had opposed while helping Reid in the Senate fight against the proposed nuclear waste site for Nevada. As NRC chairman, Jaczko was accused of manipulating information and withholding it from fellow commissioners to bring the controversial project to an end.

The NRC inspector general after an investigation concluded that Jaczko did not violate any rules but had not always been straight with fellow commissioners on Yucca Mountain matters.

More recently, the NRC commissioners were at loggerheads over the disaster at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan and the level of safety upgrades that should be installed at U.S. nuclear plants as a result.

At her Senate confirmation hearing in 2007, Svinicki, a Michigan native, said while at the Department of Energy she had worked in the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management but did not work directly on the Yucca Mountain Project.

Reid’s office said Thursday that internal emails and documents indicated Svinicki played a more active role by co-authoring a technical report used to support the site, and serving on a repository technical issues task force.