Baran confirmation threatens Biden administration climate targets

Harry Reid, the former Democratic Senate majority leader passed away in 2021. But his ghost still looms over efforts to commercialize a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors and now threatens to undermine the Biden administration’s climate targets, which will depend upon these new reactors to complement wind, solar and other low carbon technologies in the coming decades. 

Reid was an avowed opponent of nuclear energy and the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository and used his position as majority leader to install a series of anti-nuclear commissioners on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Now, his last hand picked appointee to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Commissioner Jeff Baran, has inexplicably been nominated to a third term on the Commission by the Biden administration. 

The Baran confirmation marks a crucible for Senate Democrats. Over two five-year terms on the Commission, Baran has been a reliable obstructionist, consistently opposing reasonable measures to modernize regulation of nuclear energy to value its benefits as a clean and reliable source of carbon-free energy. Over the same period, congressional Democrats have largely reversed their long-standing skepticism about nuclear energy, committing billions to commercialize a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors that promise to be smaller, safer, and less costly than today’s behemoth conventional reactors and directing the NRC to modernize its regulations to accommodate these new reactor technologies, which are far different from the large water-cooled reactors that comprise the entirety of today’s nuclear fleet.

But without new leadership on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the promise of new nuclear technology is unlikely to be realized. The NRC has repeatedly failed to meet its own timeline for developing a new framework for licensing advanced reactors. The draft framework that the NRC staff finally sent to the Commission this spring mostly cut and pasted the old rules for large conventional reactors into the new framework, despite virtually unanimous feedback from advanced reactor developers that the proposed framework is so unwieldy and burdensome that it can not be used. With the first wave of those advanced reactor technologies now seeking licenses from the NRC, something will have to give. 

Baran, unfortunately, is not the man for this job. Instead, he follows in the tradition of other Reid appointees such as Gregory Jaczko, a former Reid aide who was ultimately removed as chair of the Commission by Congress after he attempted, illegally, to unilaterally invoke emergency powers and shut down the entire U.S. nuclear reactor fleet in the weeks after the Fukushima accident. After Jaczko’s removal, Reid then installed Allison Macfarlane, a geologist with no expertise in either nuclear engineering or radiological health, who Reid had appointed to the Commission a few years earlier because she had authored a book calling into question the geology of the Yucca Mountain site. 

Baran has served on the Commission in a similar capacity. He was the sole vote against changes to NRC siting rules that would allow small advanced reactors to be deployed at retiring coal plants. He voted for a proposal to require emergency planning for nuclear accidents that the commission deems so rare that it has dubbed them “beyond design basis,” meaning that they have a probability of occurring less than once every 10 million operating years. He was the sole vote against allowing the preparation of generic environmental impact statements for advanced reactors that are manufactured modularly and have little land or water use impact. And he has publicly supported the NRC staff’s unworkable 1200-page draft proposal to modernize licensing of advanced reactors. 

Faced with growing concern from both Democrats and Republicans over his renomination, Baran has made something of a deathbed conversion, refashioning himself as an advanced nuclear enthusiast. As the Senate prepared to take up his confirmation, Baran sent a public memo to other commissioners offering vague proposals about how the NRC could improve its efficiency, an endeavor that Baran in the past has argued, without evidence, would compromise nuclear safety. 

But just days before publicizing that memo, Baran submitted a vote against a proposal, over six years in the making, to determine the size of emergency planning zones for small modular reactors based on their size and technological characteristics. Baran instead argued that the NRC should continue to apply emergency planning requirements developed for large light water reactors that are often 10, or even 100, times larger than the small modular reactors that are now submitting license applications. 

Ultimately, Senate Democrats who recognize the need for a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors will need to decide whether they are going to pretend to believe Baran’s implausible conversion to nuclear advocate or insist that the Biden administration go back to the drawing board. A new generation of advanced reactors are urgently needed in order to deeply cut U.S. carbon emissions and reduce exposure to air pollutants that still kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Democrats who recognize the critical role that nuclear must play should insist that the Biden administration nominate a commissioner who shares that commitment. 

In the meantime, a four member commission, comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats, is entirely capable of moving nuclear modernization efforts forward while the Biden administration takes the time to identify a better nominee. Indeed, less than six weeks after Baran’s term expired at the end of June, the Commission finally approved the emergency planning rule that Baran had submitted his vote against, after it had languished before the Commission for almost two years without a vote. 

Next up is Part 53, the new framework for licensing advanced reactors mandated by Congress. Commissioner Annie Caputo, a Republican, has proposed a far simpler alternative to the staff proposal, based upon extensive feedback provided by stakeholders. In the same bipartisan spirit that led Congress to pass the law directing the NRC to develop a modernized framework for advanced reactors, Democratic Chair Chris Hanson would do well to work with Caputo to move that proposal forward. But for that to happen, Senate Democrats will likely need to oppose the Baran confirmation and send a clear message that delay and obstruction at the NRC are no longer acceptable. Harry Reid was a Democratic lion, justly celebrated for his many efforts to protect the environment. But his views about nuclear energy, and the commissioners he appointed, came from a bygone era. It is long past time for Democrats to move on.

Ted Nordhaus is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute, a global research center dedicated to promoting technological solutions to environmental problems.