Senator presses NRC member on repository

WASHINGTON -- A former Senate adviser who was critical of the Yucca Mountain Project was pressed Wednesday to abstain from all activity on the Nevada repository until his term expires on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said he was not satisfied with a one-year recusal that Gregory Jaczko pledged when President Bush appointed him to the NRC in January.

Inhofe pressed Jaczko, a physicist, to abstain from Yucca Mountain activity for the remainder of a two-year term on the five-member NRC board, which regulates nuclear power plants and the handling of nuclear materials and waste.

Jaczko's appointment was controversial because he had been nuclear waste adviser to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a leading critic of the Yucca Mountain Project. Republicans, including Inhofe, and nuclear industry executives opposed Jaczko, saying they feared he would be biased.

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