Republican regulators have been fleeing Washington over the last few months, with the latest planned departure coming from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
William Ostendorff, a commissioner on the five-member nuclear regulatory body, or NRC, announced Wednesday he will be stepping down from the agency after his term ends June 30.
The NRC oversees the nation’s fleet of nearly 100 nuclear reactors and focuses on safety. It is also charged with reviewing licenses for the nation’s embattled nuclear waste dump, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which the Obama administration had tried to kill off in his first term. A court order has set the license review back on track at the commission.
Ostendorff made his announcement after his Republican counterpart at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Tony Clark, announced he would be departing that commission, which regulates the nation’s power grid. Clark made his announcement on Twitter earlier this year, soon after Phil Moeller, a long-serving conservative commissioner at FERC, left to return to the private sector.
Both FERC and the NRC are independent, five-member regulatory bodies that must be comprised of both Republicans and Democrats appointed by the president. The chairman of each commission must be of the same party that occupies the Oval Office.
Ostendorff plans to return to the U.S. Naval Academy to teach.
