Head of Nuclear Regulatory Commission resigns

Geologist Allison M. Macfarlane, chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, announced earlier this week that she plans to step down at the end of the year . Her new position will be as director of the Center for International Science and Technology Policy at George Washington University.

In a press statement she said “I will continue to work on nuclear safety and security and for a better public dialogue on nuclear technology through my teaching and writing as well as by training a new generation of specialists in this area.”

Macfarlane took over the NRC role in July 2012 from physicist Gregory Jaczko, whose controversial leadership provoked complaints from both staff and fellow commissioners and eventually led to his mid-term resignation. One of Macfarlane’s main successes has been to restore collaboration between the commission’s members. She was nominated again for a five-year term by President Obama in June 2013, and after some difficulty, her nomination passed the Senate.

“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,” she said. “With these key objectives accomplished, I am now returning to academia.”

Over the past five years, the NRC has had several challenges, including the rise and collapse of demand for a new generation of reactors; distrust from the public over reactor safety, implementing new safety standards in light of the Japanese Fukushima disaster, and the continual controversy over what to do with nuclear waste.

Macfarlane, who was on a presidential commission studying nuclear waste and the Yucca Mountain site before she took her current position, has advocated storing waste on site at the power plants, preferably in dry storage casks. The industry would prefer to see it handled by the federal government at Yucca Mountain. Despite losing a vote to expedite the transfer of waste to dry storage, the commission did vote in August in favor of allowing waste to be stored on site at a retired nuclear plant in either dry cask or spent-fuel pool for 60 years, and then either 100 years or indefinitely if it is transferred to a dry cask. The ruling also lifted a two-year freeze on allowing new reactor licenses.

On 17 October, just days before Macfarlane’s announcement, the NRC issued a court-ordered review on the status of Yucca Mountain , confirming that they believe the facility could store the waste safely for 1 million years once it has reached capacity. Both moves—Yucca Mountain and on-site storage—allow the government to claim that a process is now in place for handling the waste. The changes weaken a court case brought by nuclear plant operators claiming the opposite.

The 2011 Fukushima accident led Macfarlane and the other commissioners to implement new safety standards for the existing reactors, including new flood protection, the ordering of new geological-fault maps for all reactor plants, and the hardening of emergency vents (see Report urges more planning to cope with Fukushima-like event ). Macfarlane also increased collaboration with other international nuclear safety regulatory agencies.

Last month the Senate confirmed two new Democratic NRC commissioners: Jeff Baran, a former aide to Representative Henry A. Waxman (D-CA), and Stephen Burns, a former NRC general counsel. The commission already has two Republican commissioners. Macfarlane’s resignation will mean that one more nomination is likely before the end of the Senate’s session.