President Donald Trump fired Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Christopher Hanson on Friday, abruptly ousting the Biden appointee as part of an escalating White House effort to bend energy watchdogs to his pro-nuclear agenda.
The dismissal leaves the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) evenly split along party lines, coming three weeks after Trump signed an executive order directing a wholesale overhaul of the agency’s licensing rules to accelerate reactor construction.
“Late on Friday, President Trump terminated my position with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission without cause, contrary to existing law and longstanding precedent regarding the removal of independent agency appointees,” Hanson wrote in a LinkedIn statement.
Hanson had led the NRC for the first two years of the Biden administration and remained a commissioner after Trump elevated Republican David Wright to the chairmanship in January. His removal trims the commission to two Republicans and two Democrats, a balance that could stall major decisions as the administration presses for a quadrupling of U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050.
A White House spokesperson confirmed that “Chris Hanson is no longer at the NRC” in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. Deputy press secretary Anna Kelly defended the move in a statement to NPR, saying “organizations are more effective when leaders are rowing in the same direction.” The White House did not respond to the DCNF’s question regarding if and when Trump was planning to fill the vacancy left by Hanson’s dismissal.
Trump’s executive order instructs the NRC to scrap what he calls “irrational” radiation exposure models, impose hard deadlines on license reviews and slash advisory panel staffing — changes long sought by reactor developers but viewed warily by some scientists and environmental groups.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the “Union of Concerned Scientists,” called the firing the “latest outrageous move” that “compromise[s] the safety and security of the U.S. nuclear fleet” in a statement to Politico.
The White House has shown similar impatience with other regulatory bodies: in March the president removed two Democratic commissioners from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and in April he asked Democratic energy regulator Willie Phillips to resign from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the former now working its way through the courts.
“It has been an honor to serve alongside the dedicated public servants at the NRC,” Hanson said. “I continue to have full trust and confidence in their commitment to serve the American people by protecting public health and safety and the environment.”
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