Senate Confirms Dicus for NRC

[Michael Grynberg <grynberg@Citizen.ORG>]

  Senate confirms Greta Dicus for NRC 
  
       On Dec. 22 the U.S. Senate confirmed Greta Dicus to a seat
  on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. An industry favorite, Dicus
  comes from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where President Clinton grew
  up, and has known Clinton for years. She has served since 1986 as
  Director of Radiation Control & Emergency Management at the
  Arkansas Department of Health. As part of her duties, she has
  represented Arkansas on the Central States Low-Level Radioactive
  Waste Commission, serving as chair from 1991 to 1993. During her
  chairmanship, the Central Interstate Compact's director, Ray
  Peery, was convicted of embezzling about $800,000 in compact
  funds to support his lavish lifestyle. 
  
       Dicus has also earned the enmity of environmentalists in the
  Central States region. She has pushed for siting a radioactive
  waste dump in north-central Nebraska despite scientific evidence
  disqualifying it. Kansas attorney Bob Eye, in a letter to Clinton
  objecting to Dicus' NRC candidacy, said that he had seen  Dicus
  "consistently reject the concerns of citizens' groups." Eye has
  also called her "indifferent to the safety of the public and to
  the democratic process...nothing but a water-carrier for the
  industry." Diane Burton of Heartland Operation to Protect the
  Environment in Nebraska says that Dicus has acted to protect the
  interests of nuclear utilities, particularly the giant Entergy
  company. Burton also points out that the Central Interstate
  Commission never even did its statutorily required audit in 1990,
  and that Dicus frequently visited the lavishly furnished Compact
  office Peery maintained, and enjoyed receiving presents from
  Peery during the time he was embezzling public funds.
  Nevertheless, at a hastily scheduled confirmation hearing in
  August, Senate Environment Committee Chair John Chafee (R-RI)
  announced that "I can joyfully report there is no objection to
  your nomination," and never asked a single question about the
  embezzlement scandal.
  
       President Clinton has completely retreated from his promise
  to appoint tough regulators to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
  Clinton has already placed Shirley Jackson in the NRC Chair.
  Jackson has served on the advisory council of a nuclear utility,
  New Jersey's Public Service Electric & Gas, with a particularly
  poor record, and on the board of the Institute of Nuclear Power
  Operations, a nuclear utility consortium. Jackson has stated
  publicly that she'd like to have a reactor license extension
  granted on her watch, which will certainly not instill confidence
  in any citizens hoping to find a regulator who will make an
  unbiased judgment about license renewal applications. She has
  also refused to meet with public interest groups, and even went
  so far as to take them off a White House-recommended list of
  invitees to her swearing-in ceremony.
  
       Clinton did nominate one qualified and independent candidate
  for the Commission, Senate Environment Committee counsel Dan
  Berkovitz. Because Berkovitz is not in the pocket of industry,
  the nuclear utilities bitterly opposed his candidacy, and
  recruited most of the Environment Committee Republicans, led by
  Sen. Lauch Faircloth, to block his appointment. Faircloth told
  Berkovitz at his hearing that he would be better qualified if he
  had worked for the nuclear industry, rather than in a government
  job. After objecting so strongly to putting a public servant at
  the regulatory agency; Faircloth later had a change of heart,
  deciding that Dicus, who has spent her entire career in state
  government, would do just fine. Clearly what was really driving
  Faircloth's opposition to Berkovitz was the wishes of the nuclear
  utilities.
  
       The White House never made more than a token effort to get
  Berkovitz confirmed; instead the president's people struck a
  deal, according to inside sources, by which Berkovitz would be
  thrown overboard in return for Republican agreement to confirm
  Kathleen McGinty, the Gore protege nominated to head the Council
  on Environmental Quality.  His nomination torpedoed by the
  Republican senators, Berkovitz took a job at DOE in the
  environmental management branch. To compound their cave-in, the
  Clintonites then began to talk up Sheldon Trubatch as a new
  potential NRC nominee to fill the spot meant for Berkovitz.
  Trubatch, a Democrat and a partner in Chicago law firm Winston &
  Strawn's D.C. office, has represented the interests of nuclear
  utilities in NRC proceedings for many years, and is in fact the
  utilities' candidate for the Commission. Thus, we are presented
  with the possibility of the White House, having its candidate
  torpedoed by industry for the worst reasons, rewarding the
  nuclear utilities by picking one of their own for the NRC.
  
       Even this was evidently not enough for Bob Dole, who held up
  Dicus' nomination for months, reportedly because he wanted
  Clinton to nominate a Republican for another of the open seats.
  In fact, he allegedly asked the White House to send him multiple
  Republican names. Maybe Dole thinks he's already president, or
  maybe he just thinks he has the right to choose the Republican
  commissioners, a prerogative never given to Democratic Majority
  leaders by the Reagan and Bush administrations.
  
       With the year drawing to a close, Dole relented and allowed
  Dicus' confirmation. At this point, there is no word on who, if
  anyone, will be nominated for the two remaining open seats.
  
  For more information, contact Bill Magavern at Public Citizen
  (202)546-4996.