Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (Part One)

What is the BRC?

The BRC was established in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), as amended, 5 U.S.C. App. 2, and as directed by the President’s Memorandum for the Secretary of Energy dated January 29, 2010: Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future. This charter establishes the Commission under the authority of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

What is the BRC suppose to do? 

The 15-member Commission is to conduct a comprehensive review of policies for managing the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle and recommend a new plan.

The Commission has held and is continuing to hold public hearings in Washington, DC, and across the country, to hear from technical and policy experts, elected officials, community leaders, environmental organizations and other interested parties. The BRC has established three subcommittees to specifically focus on reactor and fuel cycle technologies, storage and transportation, and disposal. These subcommittees have also held public meetings and will be reporting back to the full Commission any recommendations for consideration.

Who are the committee members of this BRC?

 

Lee Hamilton 

Co-Chair

Lee H. Hamilton is director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University, founded by Hamilton in 1999 when he left public office.  The Center on Congress is a nonpartisan educational institution, whose mission is twofold: to help Americans better understand Congress and its role in sustaining the health of our democracy; and to teach young people and adults how to communicate their concerns to Congress, so that it may truly be the responsive “people’s branch” that the framers intended. Hamilton served as President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC from January 1999 to December 2010.

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Brent Scowcroft

Co-Chair

 

Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.), is one of the nation’s preeminent authorities on international policy.  He is also President of The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business advisory firm. General Scowcroft served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. He also served as Military Assistant to President Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to Presidents Ford and Nixon. Prior to joining the Bush Administration, General Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc.

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Mark Ayers

President, Building & Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO

Mark H. Ayers is the fourteenth and current President in the 100 year history of the Building & Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO.  After serving in the Unites States Navy for nearly six years as an aviator during the Viet Nam era Mark began his career as an Apprentice Inside Electrician with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 34 in Peoria, Illinois where he served in numerous appointed and elected positions  including Business Manager and Financial Secretary.  Ayers was also elected Secretary-Treasurer of the West Central Illinois Building Trades Council.  He was a Commissioner on the Peoria Civic Center Authority, board member of the Forest Park Foundation and Co-Chairman of the Peoria Area Labor Management Committee. In 1999 Ayers became the Director of the IBEW Construction and Maintenance Department, the IBEW’s largest branch.

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Vicky A. Bailey

Principal, Anderson Stratton Enterprises, LLC

Vicky A. Bailey brings to any position over twenty years of high level, national and international, corporate executive and governmental experience in energy and regulated industries.  Now an energy industry entrepreneur, Ms. Bailey has demonstrated leadership as a state and federal regulator, a public utility corporate executive and as the leading international official for the US Department of Energy.  In these roles she has been at the forefront and the intersection of energy and environmental policies at both the private and governmental arenas.  Her counsel and expertise continues to be relied upon by policymakers in both the private and public sector.
Most recently, in the private sector, she has been involved as an entrepreneur and principal of BHMM Energy Services LLC, a certified minority owned energy facilities management organization, as well as the president of the Anderson Stratton International LLC management consultants in domestic and international energy industries.

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Albert Carnesale

Chancellor Emeritus and Professor, UCLA

Albert Carnesale is Chancellor Emeritus and Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was Chancellor from 1997 through 2006, and now serves as Professor of Public Policy and of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He focuses on public policy issues having substantial technological dimensions, and is the author or coauthor of six books and more than 100 articles on a wide range of subjects, including national security strategy, nuclear arms control, nuclear proliferation, international energy issues, and higher education. He chairs the National Academies Committee on America’s Climate Choices; is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, of the Council on Foreign Relations, and of the Mission Committees of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory; and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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Pete V. Domenici

Senior Fellow, Bipartisan Policy Center; former U.S. Senator (R-NM)

Sen. Pete V. Domenici was born May 7, 1932 in Albuquerque, N.M. He is one of five children, and the only son of Italian immigrants. Growing up, he worked in his father’s wholesale grocery business. He graduated from St. Mary’s High School in Albuquerque in 1950. He earned an education degree from the University of New Mexico in 1954.  That year he also pitched for the Albuquerque Dukes – a farm club for the old Brooklyn Dodgers.  The following year, Domenici left baseball to become a math teacher at Garfield Junior High in Albuquerque.
In 1958 Domenici earned a law degree from the University of Denver and returned to Albuquerque to enter private practice.  He married the former Nancy Burk that same year. The Domenicis have eight children: two sons and six daughters.  Domenici was elected to the Albuquerque City Commission in 1966.  He was elected commission chairman (then equivalent to mayor) in 1967. In 1972 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Republican senator from New Mexico in 38 years.

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Susan Eisenhower

President, Eisenhower Group, Inc.

Susan Eisenhower is President of the Eisenhower Group, Inc, which provides strategic counsel on political, business and public affairs projects. She has consulted for Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies doing business in the emerging markets of the former Soviet Union and for a number of major institutions and companies engaged in the energy field. Ms. Eisenhower also serves as Chairman of the Eisenhower Institute’s Leadership and Public Policy Programs. She had served as the Eisenhower Institute’s president twice, and later as Chairman. During that time, she became known for her work in the former Soviet Union and in the energy field.
She has testified before the Senate Armed Services and Senate Budget Committees on policy toward the region. She was also appointed to the National Academy of Sciences' standing Committee on International Security and Arms Control, where she served for eight years. She has written extensively on nuclear and space issues and in 2000, a year before September 11, she co-edited a book, Islam and Central Asia, which carried the prescient subtitle, An Enduring Legacy or an Evolving Threat?

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Chuck Hagel

Sen. Chuck Hagel, Distinguished Professor, Georgetown University; Former U.S. Senator (R-NE)

Chuck Hagel is a Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  He is Co-Chairman of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board; Chairman of The Atlantic Council; a member of the Secretary of Defense’s Policy Board and Secretary of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future; and is a member of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) board of directors.  He also serves on the Board of Directors of Chevron Corporation; the Advisory Boards of Deutsche Bank Americas; Corsair Capital; M.I.C. Industries; is a Director of the Zurich Holding Company of America; and is a Senior Advisor to McCarthy Capital Corporation.  Hagel served two terms in the United States Senate (1997-2009) representing the state of Nebraska.  He was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; and Intelligence Committees.  Senator Hagel is a combat Vietnam veteran and a former deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration.  Senator Hagel is the author of the recently published “America: Our Next Chapter.”

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Jonathan Lash

President, World Resources Institute

Jonathan Lash serves as president of the World Resources Institute (WRI) in Washington D.C. and is a leading figure and influential voice in the US and international environmental community. Under his leadership, WRI’s research and policy analysis have provided innovative, practical solutions to global sustainability challenges, and Mr. Lash is a recognized expert on climate change, energy security, and environment and development policies. In 2005, he was named one of the world’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Finance in Treasury & Risk Management magazine, the only leader of a non-profit environmental organization to make the list. The same year Rolling Stone included him among “Twenty-five leaders who are fighting to stave off planet-wide catastrophe.” The article concluded that Mr. Lash “has arguably done more than any other environmentalist to bridge the bitter divide between industry interests and green groups determined to halt global warming.”

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Allison Macfarlane

Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University

Allison Macfarlane is currently an Associate Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.  She is also an affiliate of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.  She received her PhD in geology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992.  She has held fellowships at the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College, the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University, and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.  From 1998-2000 she was a Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation fellow in International Peace and Security.  She has served on National Academy of Sciences panels on nuclear energy and nuclear weapons issues. She is presently chair of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and serves on the Keystone Center’s Energy Board.

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Richard A. Meserve

President, Carnegie Institution for Science and Senior Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP; former Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Dr. Richard A. Meserve is the president of the Carnegie Institution for Science.  The Carnegie Institution conducts basic research in biology, astronomy and geophysics.
Before joining Carnegie, Dr. Meserve was Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). As Chairman, he served as the principal executive officer of the federal agency with responsibility for ensuring public health and safety in the operation of nuclear power plants and in the usage of nuclear materials.  He served as Chairman under both Presidents Clinton and Bush and lead the NRC in responding to the terrorism threat that came to the fore after the 9/11 attacks.
Before joining the NRC, Meserve was a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling LLP, and he now serves as Senior Of Counsel to the firm.  With his Harvard law degree, received in 1975, and his Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford, awarded in 1976, he devoted his legal practice to technical issues arising at the intersection of science, law, and public policy.

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Ernie Moniz

Professor of Physics and Cecil & Ida Green Distinguished Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Ernest J. Moniz is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has served on the faculty since 1973.  Dr. Moniz served as Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001.  In that role, he had programmatic oversight responsibility for the offices of Science; Fossil Energy; Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy; Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology; Environmental Management; and Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. He also led a comprehensive review of the nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program and served as the Secretary’s special negotiator for Russia initiatives, with a particular focus on the disposition of Russian nuclear weapons materials.  Dr. Moniz also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.

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Per Peterson

Professor and Chair, Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California - Berkeley

Per F. Peterson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. After joining UCB in 1990 as an Assistant Professor he received a NSF Presidential Young Investigator award, and most recently received the Fusion Power Associates Excellence in Fusion Engineering Award and the American Nuclear Society Thermal Hydraulics Division Technical Achievement Award.  His research interests focus on topics in heat and mass transfer, fluid dynamics, and phase change. He has worked on problems in energy and environmental systems, including advanced reactors, inertial fusion energy, high level nuclear waste processing, and nuclear materials management, with over 100 publications on these topics.  His research group currently focuses on high-temperature heat transport for nuclear hydrogen and gas-cycle electricity production with high temperature reactors, and on the applications of liquid salt coolants in advanced nuclear energy systems.  His broader interests in energy and environment focus on nuclear technologies and nuclear materials management.

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John Rowe

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Exelon Corporation

John W. Rowe is the chairman and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation, one of the nation’s largest electric utilities.  Its retail affiliates serve 5.4 million customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania, and its generation affiliate operates the largest fleet of nuclear power plants in the nation.

Rowe is the senior chief executive in the utility industry, having served in such positions since 1984.  Rowe has led Exelon since its formation in 2000 through the merger of PECO Energy and the parent of Commonwealth Edison.  Rowe previously held chief executive officer positions at the New England Electric System and Central Maine Power Company, served as general counsel of Consolidated Rail Corporation, and was a partner in the law firm of Isham, Lincoln & Beale.  Rowe is the past chairman of the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Edison Electric Institute.  He was co-chairman of the National Commission on Energy Policy.  He is the lead independent director of the Northern Trust Company and a member of the boards of directors of Sunoco and UChicago Argonne LLC.

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Phil Sharp

President, Resources for the Future

Phil Sharp has been president of Resources for the Future since 2005. His career in public service includes ten terms as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Indiana and a lengthy tenure on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Institute of Politics at Harvard University.  During his 20-year congressional tenure from 1975 to 1995, Sharp took key leadership roles in the development of landmark energy legislation. He helped to develop a critical part of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, was a driving force behind the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and served on several House committees. Currently, Sharp serves on the board of directors of the Duke Energy Corporation and as vice chair on the board of the Energy Foundation.  He was appointed to The National Academies’ Committee on America’s Climate Choices and to the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future. He serves on the National Petroleum Council which is a federal advisory committee, on the Planetary Skin Institute’s Global Advisory Council, and is a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Energy Initiative External Advisory Board...

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Full profiles on all the committee members can be found on the Blue Ribbon Commission website: Blue Ribbon Commission