WASHINGTON — Gregory B. Jaczko, whose threeyear tenure as chairman of the Nuclear Reg ulatory Commission has been marked by bitter battles with colleagues and with Congress, announced Monday that he would step down as soon as a successor was confirmed.
The White House said it would name a successor “soon,” but it is unlikely that anyone will be confirmed to succeed Jaczko for many months, ensuring continued turmoil at the deeply divided agency.
The commission’s inspector general is preparing a report to be issued in coming weeks that is expected to repeat some of the charges of mismanagement and verbal abuse of subordinates that have isolated Jaczko from other members.
Jaczko, chairman since May 2009 and the longestserving member of the fivemember commission, was an outsider and a maverick when he joined the panel more than seven years ago.
He has drawn criticism for helping to end the government’s consideration of a proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert and for assuming some emergency powers at the commission after the triple meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors in March 2011.
He sought to address some longstanding safety problems at America’s 104 nuclear power reactors, but with a background in nuclear physics and nuclear policy but not the nuclear industry, Jaczko was long viewed with skepticism and mistrust by some industry insiders.
In a telephone interview, Jaczko refused to talk about his clashes with other commissioners, which resulted in an internal commission investigation and congressional hearings.
“I thought it was really the right time to make that announcement, to give the president an opportunity to take whatever time may be needed to identify and work through the process of selecting a successor,” he said.
While acknowledging the fierce attacks from Republicans, Jaczko said they were not a factor in his choice to resign.
“This was my own decision,” he said.
He said he would remain on the job until he is replaced or his term ends in June 2013.
Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., praised Jaczko, a former Markey adviser.
“Greg has led a Sisyphean fight against some of the nuclear industry’s most entrenched opponents of strong, lasting safety regulations, often serving as the lone vote in support of much-needed safety upgrades recommended by the commission’s safety staff,” Markey said in a statement.
The practical impact of the announcement is not clear.
Jaczko’s term as a member of the commission ends in 13 months, but the commissioner who serves as chairman does so at the president’s behest, meaning that he would be replaced in January if President Barack Obama does not win a second term.
Obama could also elevate an existing member of the commission to the chairmanship, but that is not considered a realistic option.
Given the slow pace of Senate confirmations, especially in a year in which control of the White House and the Senate could change, it is not clear that the Senate will approve a replacement before the election in November, and it is more unlikely to do so if Obama loses.
Jaczko was named to the commission by President George W. Bush in January 2005 under a longstanding practice of approving new commissioners in pairs, one from each party.
He was chosen by Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, on whose staff Jaczko served.
As chairman, he was instrumental in achieving one of Reid’s central goals, killing the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain, chosen as a potential waste site by the Senate in the 1980s.
His management of the agency rubbed his fellow commissioners the wrong way.
Last year, all four of them — two Democrats and two Republicans — sent a letter to the White House chief of staff complaining about his management style.
When the letter became public, the four commissioners told a House committee in December that Jaczko had withheld information from them, unprofessionally berated the agency’s professional staff and reduced female employees to tears with his comments.
They said he had created a “chilled” atmosphere that was hurting the agency’s ability to function.
The commission’s chief internal investigator also said that Jaczko was “not forthcoming” with his colleagues about the Yucca Mountain project, although his allies in Congress fiercely denied this.
But beyond friction with his fellow commissioners, he often found himself the lone dissenting vote on important issues.
Among them were the speed with which U.S. reactors should be reanalyzed and improved to incorporate the lessons learned from Fukushima and whether licenses should be granted for new reactors — two in Georgia and two in South Carolina — before those changes were in the pipeline.
Jaczko said that while he was outvoted, he did move his colleagues toward his point of view.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 05/22/2012