Nuclear regulatory panel enters critical period without key member

The death last week of a long-serving member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission leaves the five-member panel with two vacancies just as the nuclear power industry is poised to seek approval for building dozens of new power plants and the agency undergoes unprecedented growth.

Edward McGaffigan, who battled melanoma for nearly eight years before he succumbed to the disease Sept. 2, was an outspoken proponent of nuclear energy, equally impatient with the scare tactics of anti-nuclear interest groups as he was with what he called industry "outliers" whose actions jeopardized public safety.

His death comes at a critical time for the NRC. The agency anticipates receiving dozens of applications for new nuclear reactors over the next two years, and the Energy Department in 2008 is expected to submit its application for a license to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

McGaffigan had publicly opposed the repository, in part because of strong public opposition to placing it at Yucca Mountain. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also is an opponent. While the White House has not yet nominated a commissioner to replace McGaffigan, the Yucca Mountain issue stalled Senate consideration of the White House nomination of Kristine Svinicki earlier this summer to fill the other vacancy on the panel. That nomination is pending.

Senate Democrats have tied the confirmation of Svinicki, a Republican supported by the nuclear industry, to the reappointment of Gregory Jaczko to the commission. Jaczko, a former science adviser to Reid, is opposed to the repository. His appointment, brokered under an earlier deal between Senate Democrats and the Bush administration, expires next year. If he is reappointed, his term would expire in 2013.

The commission can function with as few as two members, a precedent established in the early 1980s, according to NRC spokesman Scott Burnell. "All of the commissioners, regardless of their number, deal with the issues that come before them," he said, noting there is no division of responsibilities among the panel members that would require a redistribution of their workload.

While the NRC professional staff will perform the technical work involved in evaluating license applications, the commission members will need to resolve a number of policy issues surrounding a new, streamlined licensing process.

McGaffigan, a Democrat twice appointed to the NRC by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and 2000, was reappointed by President Bush in 2005 and was the longest-serving commissioner in NRC history.

At an all-hands meeting at the agency last May, McGaffigan urged employees to strive for excellence in the critical years ahead. He exhorted agency staff to be "committed to following the facts as they are, not as one might wish them to be" and to "avoid theoretical or ideological thinking, where facts not fitting preconceived models or ideas are rejected and mistakes inevitably follow."