nuclear-news

President Trump fires a member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

June 16, 2025, Geoff Brumfiel

 President Trump has fired one of the five members of the independent
commission that oversees the nation’s nuclear reactors. Nuclear Regulatory
Commissioner Christopher T. Hanson was terminated on Friday, according to a
brief email seen by NPR from Trent Morse, the White House Deputy Director
of Presidential Personnel. The e-mail said only that Hanson’s “position as
Commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is terminated
effective immediately.”

“All organizations are more effective when leaders
are rowing in the same direction,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna
Kelly told NPR via e-mail. “President Trump reserves the right to remove
employees within his own Executive Branch who exert his executive
authority.” In a statement shared with NPR, Hanson said that he was fired
“without cause,” and that he had devoted his term to “preserving the
independence, integrity and bipartisan nature of the world’s gold standard
nuclear safety institution. … I continue to have full trust and
confidence in their commitment to serve the American people by protecting
public health safety and the environment.”

Hanson was appointed to the NRC
by President Joseph Biden in 2020 and then reappointed in 2024. His current
term was set to expire in 2029, according to a bio on the NRC’s website
that has since been removed. Some observers of the nuclear industry were
sharply critical of the decision. “I think that this coupled with the other
attacks by the administration on the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission could have serious implications for nuclear safety,” says Edwin
Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, an environmental watchdog group. “It’s critical that the NRC
make its judgements about protecting health and safety without regard for
the financial health of the nuclear industry.”

 NPR 16th June 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5435285/trump-fires-nuclear-regulatory-commission-member-nrc

June 20, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | employment, USA