The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last Wednesday (Nov. 20), on a straight party line vote, approved the Biden administration’s nominee for an open five-year seat on the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The nomination of committee staffer Matthew Marzano now goes to the Senate floor, where it will likely be bundled with a “must-pass” bill in the dying days of the 118th Congress.
If approved, Marzano would become the third Democratic member of the five-member NRC, which is currently divided 2-2. The commission has been without a tie-breaking vote since June 2023, when the term of commissioner Jeff Baran expired.
Marzano’s term could extend the Democratic majority until the end of June, 2027. Chairman Christoher Hanson’s term expires Jun 30, 2029, while Democratic member Bradley Crowell’s term expires June 30, 2027.
Republican commissioner David Wright’s term is up June 30, 2025. Republic commissioner Annie Caputo is on the commission until June 30, 2026.
When he becomes president, Donald Trump can name one of the two Republican commissioners to chair the commission. He can’t fire any of them, as they served fixed terms by law.
Biden nominated Marzano in July, and the committee held a largely low-key confirmation hearing Sept. 23. Little happened until after the November presidential election, when the majority Democrats on the committee realized that a Trump appointment in a majority Republican Senate would give the GOP the chairman’s gavel.
Marzano has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineering from the University of Florida. He worked for what was then SCANA Corp. and is now Dominion at the failed V.C. Summer nuclear construction project in South Carolina. He then went to work for Constellation’s Braidwood plant near Chicago, when he went through the rigorous training program and became a senior reactor operator at the plant.
He was the American Nuclear Society’s 2022 Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. Marzano has been on the committee staff for two years, and most recently was detailed to serve at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. He worked on the environment committee’s passage of the ADVANCE Act, designed to ready the NRC for a new series of licensing reviews for advanced reactors.
“The benefits that nuclear energy can provide to society require the public’s trust and confidence in the NRC’s decision-making.”–Matthew Marzano
At his confirmation hearing, Marzano said, “If confirmed, my approach as a commissioner would reflect the mandate imposed on all nuclear professionals across the country—to prioritize public health and safety. This is because the benefits that nuclear energy can provide to society require the public’s trust and confidence in the NRC’s decision-making.”
Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Del.) chairs the committee. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) is the ranking Republican. The Democrats have a 1-vote majority on the 19-member committee. The confirmation vote was 10-9 for Marzano. Capito and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb,) were the only Republicans who attended the vote; Capito cast seven “no” votes by proxy.
Capito was also the only no vote to speak. She said, “I believe that the White House has sort of exaggerated Mr. Marzano’s experience in the nuclear energy industry, although I do recognize his training and time working at a power plant. As I stated at his confirmation hearing, demonstrating a capacity to follow procedures is fundamentally different than a Commissioner’s role in setting policy, promulgating regulations, and adjudicating significant legal issues.”
Carper is retiring from Congress. Capito likely can claim the chairmanship if she wants when the GOP takes over in January.
Donald Trumps views of nuclear power are far from clear. His “energy focus” has been almost entirely on oil and gas, although he has vaguely mentioned nuclear in passing. At an August rally in York, Pa., (ironically where Pa. Democratic Senator John Fetterman, a member of the environment committee grew up), Trump said somewhat cryptically that he would “do rapid approvals for new energy infrastructure, and we will embrace all forms of energy, including nuclear.”
Appearing on the right-wing Joe Rogan podcast for three hours on Oct. 26, Trump was all over the place on nuclear. Huffpost reported Trump said of nuclear plants, “They get too big and too complex and too expensive.” Later: “There’s a little danger to nuclear. You know, we had some really bad nuclear.”
Trump also cited the failed V.C. Summer nuclear plant, which shut down construction in South Caroline after $9 billion in expenditures, six months into his first administration, and referenced the $35 billion Vogtle project in Georgia. His suggestion for how to remedy the situation, build “the same kind of reactor over and over again.”
–Kennedy Maize
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