Cooling towers at the nuclear reactor facility at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Georgia. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency charged with overseeing safety at the nation’s reactors.
Mike Stewart/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Mike Stewart/AP
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.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to NPR’s request for comment.
In a statement shared with NPR, Hanson said 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.”
Some observers of the nuclear industry were sharply critical of the decision. “I think that this…