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Obama names nuclear advocate to regulate industry
President Barack Obama has nominated William Magwood to serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. According to a new piece in Mother Jones magazine, Magwood is a booster of nuclear power with undisclosed business connections to nuclear energy firms.
He served as the head of the Office of Nuclear Energy within the Department of Energy from 1998 to 2005, and in that capacity was the US government's senior nuclear technology official. But both before and after his time in government, he has worked as an enthusiastic advocate for nuclear interests in the private sector"including for at least one company, Westinghouse Electric Corporation, likely to have business before the NRC in the near future. Good-government groups say that this background should preclude him from serving as a regulator for an agency whose stated mission is to "regulate the nation's civilian use of byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety, to promote the common defense and security, and to protect the environment."
Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste watchdog at Beyond Nuclear said: "William Magwood has devoted his career to promoting nuclear power. The NRC is supposed to be a safety regulator. They're not supposed to advocate for expansion."