Another troubling nominee

This time, it's at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Dr. Robert Zubrin writes at NRO:

Allison Macfarlane is the author of the book Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High Level Nuclear Waste. This book, which is endorsed by antinuclear activist Victor Gilinsky, makes the absurd argument that rather than risk unknown consequences 10,000 years in the future should geological conditions affecting remote underground desert repositories change, that high level nuclear waste should continue to be stored in cooling ponds adjacent to nuclear power plants located near heavily populated urban and suburban areas. Thus for Macfarlane, as for Jaczko, the clear goal is to not to make nuclear power as safe as possible — which is the purpose of the NRC — but to make it as unsafe as possible — which is the agenda of those seeking to shut down the nuclear industry.

Macfarlane’s fundamental commitments are thus directly at odds with the purpose of the organization she is being nominated to lead. In addition, Macfarlane has no experience or education in engineering, and is also technically unqualified to lead an organization whose purpose is to intelligently regulate the nuclear industry.

Beyond this, Macfarlane’s bias is also shown by her role as a member of the Science and Security Board of the deeply antinuclear Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Quite understandably, her nomination was instantly hailed by Jaczko’s former sponsors, Reid and Markey.

America does not need a nicer version of Greg Jaczko as head of the NRC. The nation’s effort to create safe and secure nuclear waste storage has been brought to a dead halt because Congressional Republicans fell for Jaczko’s transparently dishonest protestations of objectivity. They should not make the same mistake with Macfarlane. Her nomination should be categorically rejected.

Well put.  Tell your Senators.