No Yucca dissent here

At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., posed a question to the nominees to fill three seats on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

"I have a question here for all three of you from Senator (Harry) Reid and you can just answer yes or no: If confirmed, would you second-guess the Department of Energy's decision to withdraw the license application for Yucca Mountain from the NRC's review?"

George Apostolakis, nuclear science and engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology: "No."

William Magwood, former director of the Office of Nuclear Energy at the Department of Energy: "No."

William Ostendorff, former principal deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration: "No."

"Thank you," Boxer said. "I think he will be very pleased with that."

The significance of that exchange: If the three are confirmed, this means a majority of the five-member commission will have been on record saying they would not intervene to halt the Energy Department's planned pullout from the proposed Nevada nuclear waste repository.

A fourth member of the five-member NRC board, Chairman Gregory Jaczko, might also be expected not to intervene. Jaczko formerly worked as Reid's science adviser before he was sworn onto the NRC board in January 2005. 

At Tuesday's hearing, Boxer, the committee chairwoman, said she expected "speedy confirmation" for the nominees. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., the committee's ranking Republican, added he would support all three. 

Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said DOE within a month would file a motion with an NRC judicial panel to withdraw the repository construction application.