NRC Commissioners: Total Disarray and Musical Chairs

Originally posted 10/21/14 

Nov 5

What has changed in 6 years? Nothing. The NRC is in a terrible crisis and now the Senate is gone deep Republican.

Will Obama throw a bone to congress in appeasement on the next appointment? 

Just saying, there will be no ends to their obstruction with the nuclear option? But Obama got what he deserves. 

I think the election was about a rejection of Obama’s management abilities of government…it is not like they are in love with the Republican programs. We just refused to vote because of shit Obama has thrown us. All he ever was is a black Clinton without the sex scandal.

The NRC caught our political disarray?

Personally I think the NRC has declined pretty seriously since Macfarlane came to the NRC. Is she was a wizard at repairing the agency since becoming the chairman, think at what good she could have done if she completed the next 4 years of chairman duty. Maybe restart the nuclear industry rebuild and save the planet J

I never liked Allison because she had such a high learning curve hurdle to make an independent judgment. I never saw her as particularly liberal leaning on her decisions and judgments.

I am amazed you are letting her get away with this self-serving comment…where she never spoke of the “mission” until she was heading for the door. This "mission" was invented recently as a means to not question why she is leaving. She certainly last year was intending to serve out her term. Why the change in the last month. Is she pregnant or does she have breast cancer?

 “I came to the Commission with the mission of righting the ship after a tumultuous period for the Commission, and ensuring that the agency implemented lessons learned from the tragic accident at Fukushima Daiichi, so that the American people can be confident that such an accident will never take place here. With these key objectives accomplished, I am now returning to academia as Director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University.

Honestly, this looks like somebody told her to take the cherry University position or we will ask for your resignation or fire you if you don't take it.

Did Boxer take her finally out… but why before the midterms? Did Boxer finally get a set of balls?

NYT: The chairwoman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Tuesday that she would leave the commission and return to academia at the end of the year, a little more than a year after she survived a cliffhanger fight with a California senator to keep her job.

She was appointed to a term that expired at the end of June 2013, and her reconfirmation for a five-year term was blocked for a time by Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, over Senate access to documents held by the commission about a California nuclear reactor.

Did the Onofre and the NRC OIG on it take her out.  
It has been a long time we’d since we’d seen the top level of the NRC in such disarray. Does the chairman think the ship is sinking and she is jumping ship. She has only been on the job for two years...she is just starting to  understanding what is going on in the power plants.

 NRC Commissioners: Disarray and Musical Chairs

NRC Chairman Allison M. Macfarlane Announces Decisionto Leave NRC

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison M. Macfarlane announced today she will leave the NRC effective January 1 to take a position at George Washington University.

Macfarlane, the 15th person to serve as the agency’s chairman, was nominated by President Obama to complete the last year of Dr. Gregory Jaczko’s term as chair. After the Senate confirmed her, she took over as chair in July 2012. President Obama nominated her for a second term as chair and, in June 2013, she was confirmed to a five-year term ending June 30, 2018.

This is what angers me with the PhD professional elites. It is all about their career and very little about patriotism and serving your nation.  I am certain the deal with Obama last year is I will re-nominate you to a five year term as chairman, but you have to promise to serve out the whole term. A year into her first full term as NRC commissioner chairman and then she bails. It sure goes show you what a great judge of character Obama is. So why can’t she explain fully explain why she is leaving.

Is she irked about the two new nominations? She doesn't want to remain a loser chairman like Jaczcko with four Judases as commissioners.

She didn’t do this unaware with the approach of the midterms. Worst case, the senate returns to the hands of the republicans. Then in order to get a nomination through the senate, the nominee would have to swing severely to the regulatory ideology of the Republicans. But what is the difference with the new nominations, they aren't particularly safety safety aware.  

She certainly is awaiting for the outcome of the midterms. Is Obama throwing Macfarland as a bone to the republican utilities? Maybe Exelon can’t get subsidies from the NRC, but we can fill the commissioners full of nuclear industry favorites. Will the commissioners be chock full of nuclear industry favorites by the turn of the year. 

It is unlikely a replacement will be named and confirmed by the Senate before next year, although Democrats led by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., could try to push one through this fall during a post-election lame-duck session.

Remember in the early part of the first term, Obama had a chance to shift the NRC commissioners from the extremist pro nuclear Republican commissioners running the joint, to him having the majority commissioners being democrat leaning. He owned the house and the senate. But he exchanged his failed program of “cap and trade” to the utilities, for filling the commissioners or the majority with nuclear industry fanatics. Basically four pro nuke commissioners against Jaczko who then destroyed him.

I don't particularly like Reid, he is too libertarian oriented?