Trump Fires NRC Commissioner Who Chaired Agency Under Biden

[Photo of NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.]

The dismissal came after President Trump signed several executive orders aimed at cutting safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

As reported by the New York Times.

That said, NRC Commissioner Hanson consistently voted against the public interest, including against health, safety, and environmental protection.

For example, he voted, along with a unanimous NRC Commission, against Beyond Nuclear and other opponents’ interventions resisting consolidated interim storage facilities for highly radioactive waste, an environmental injustice that would automatically double shipping risks, for no good reason whatsoever. (See Beyond Nuclear’s series of eight two-sided fact sheets regarding our opposition to CISFs, posted online here.)

Before first being appointed to the NRC Commission by Donald Trump during his first term, and then as NRC Chairman on Joe Biden’s first day in the Oval Office, Hanson served as a senior staffer for U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (Democrat-California), working to legalize CISFs, as well as fund their research (as actual development was not legal). Beyond Nuclear and allies successfully resisted the former, while Feinstein prevailed, more or less, on the latter.

The U.S. Supreme Court will rule on the Interim Storage Partners, Texas and Holtec International, New Mexico CISFs’ legality, as early as Thursday, June 19, 2025, or almost certainly by the end of June.