(already subscribe? log in).

Chairman with an agenda

Opinion

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

February 20, 2012|By John Sununu

Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jaczko. (AP )

WASHINGTON HAS a special vocabulary for everything. When bureaucrats become too close with the industry they’re charged with overseeing, it’s called “regulatory capture.’’ The phenomenon can be very expensive for the public. Most famously, the Office of Thrift Supervision was accused of lax oversight contributing to the collapse of Washington Mutual and IndyMac, two of the biggest bank failures during the 2008 financial crisis. The OTS has been eliminated.

No one has yet come up with a phrase to describe regulators who hate the industry they oversee, but maybe it’s time. When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently approved a new plant license, the 4-1 vote looked like a cause for celebration. The lone dissent, however, came from Chairman Greg Jaczko, and it brought his running feud with the nuclear industry - and his fellow commissioners - to a new level.

On the surface, the granting of America’s first new plant license in 30 years is a victory for nuclear power. For Southern Company and its financial partners, approval came after a five-year review process. Even the president has endorsed the idea of building new plants. With the blessing of Congress, the Obama administration’s Department of Energy has offered $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build the plant at an existing nuclear site in Georgia.

Jaczko objected, insisting that there were “things that need to be analyzed.’’ But his further contention that his fellow commissioners were “issuing this license as if Fukushima never happened’’ represents an insult to them and a misreading of the commission’s power. In fact, the NRC is currently reviewing data from the Fukushima disaster, has held over a dozen public meetings and briefings on the issue, and retains full power to impose new safety requirements on all US nuclear power plants. In other words, Jaczko is raising a straw man.

What is actually going on runs deeper, and is much more personal. As a former staffer to Nevada Senator Harry Reid, Jaczko has been a bitter opponent of Yucca Mountain, the waste storage site that has been under construction in Nevada for decades. He has also worked for Ed Markey, one of the most outspoken opponents of nuclear energy in Congress. Jaczko’s isolation makes him appear openly hostile the industry that provides nearly 20 percent of America’s electricity; and his management style has drawn rebuke from his fellow commissioners - all of them.