New York Times: Report Casts Harsh Light on Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chief - Gregory B. Jaczko, the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the subject of a harsh new investigative report from his own agency, finds himself in the cross-fire of a 30-year political battle over disposal of radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants and weapons program. The fight pits Republicans in Congress who support continued work on a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada against Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader and an ardent opponent of the repository. Seeking the support of Mr. Reid and to win his pivotal state, President Obama promised during his 2008 election campaign to seek a different disposal site, and later eliminated most of the funding for Yucca Mountain. Mr. Jaczko, 40, was named to the chairmanship of the nuclear regulatory panel by Mr. Obama in 2009 with the explicit expectation that he would oversee the phaseout of the commission's work on Yucca Mountain. Mr. Jaczko, who holds a doctorate in particle physics, for a time served as a science adviser to Senator Reid. The regulatory commission's inspector general, Hubert T. Bell, charges in the new report that Mr. Jaczko used his powers as chairman to carry out the president's wishes while running roughshod over his fellow commissioners.

President Obama's jobs council will make its first recommendations today on lifting hiring and strengthening the economy. Too bad the message doesn't seem to be reaching the Administration's regulators, in particular the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA is currently conducting a campaign against coal-fired power and one of its most destructive weapons is a pending regulation to limit mercury and other hazardous air pollutants like dioxins or acid gases that power plants emit. The 946-page rule mandates that utilities install "maximum achievable control technology" under the Clean Air Act-and even by the EPA's lowball estimates, it is the most expensive rule in the agency's history.

In 1990, Congress gave the EPA discretion to decide if mercury regulation is "necessary and appropriate," and the Clinton Administration did so in its final days. The Bush Administration created a modest mercury program, only to have it overturned by an appeals court on technical grounds in its final days. The case was still in litigation when Mr. Obama took office, and his appointees used the opening to strafe the power industry, proposing a much more stringent rule.

The decision by Sen. James M. Inhofe (Okla.), the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, to hire a new deputy chief of staff has touched off a hot inside-the-Beltway debate: Did Capitol Hill's most prominent climate skeptic hire a moderate?

Next month, lobbyist George "Dave" Banks, who served as a senior adviser on international affairs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality from 2006 to 2009, will become the panel's minority deputy chief of staff, overseeing environmental issues. But the fact that he has established a good working relationship with some Democrats and environmentalists on global climate issues has prompted speculation that Inhofe may be shifting his stance.

Banks won the Climate Protection Award from the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009 for his work strengthening ozone layer protections under the Montreal Protocol. E&E; News noted that at the time of the award, the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development issued a release saying Banks was "the only Bush political appointee to have ever received such an award."

East Coast lawmakers are questioning President Obama's nomination of John Bryson for Commerce secretary, raising concerns that the former utility executive and environmental official will jeopardize efforts to improve what they say is the overregulation of the fishing industry.

In a joint statement last week, Massachusetts Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and John Tierney pointed to Bryson's ties to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental nonprofit he helped found in 1970. The group, they said, "has reflexively attacked the fishing industry inaccurately and without any real environmental basis."

"For the President to nominate someone for the position of Secretary of Commerce, without consultation with those of us most concerned with fairness for fishing, and for the NRDC membership to be listed as one of his major qualifications is troubling," they said.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration accounts for more than half of Commerce's budget, and as secretary, Bryson would have control over a sprawling portfolio that includes U.S. business interests as well as fishing limits and oceans policy. Environmentalists praised Bryson's nomination last week, pointing to his past at the NRDC amid hopes that he would support climate science and fisheries conservation.