Nuclear Commissioners Call Chairman A "Bully"

Four commissioners testified before Congress Wednesday and described chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jackzo as a short-tempered “bully” who has consequentially hampered the commission’s efficiency.

“The level of tension among the currently serving members of this commission is impeding the collegial processes of the NRC and is obstructing the functioning of key processes between the commission and the agency staff,” Commissioner Kristine Svinicki testified before members of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee.

In an effort to address this hostile work environment created by Jackzo, the NRC commissioners sent a letter to the White House in October expressing their concerns. While the letter did not call for Jackzo to resign, it stated that Jackzo’s attitude and treatment of employees could adversely affect NRC’s mission to protect health and safety at the nation’s commercial nuclear reactors.  

While some Democrats have expressed concern that the letter could be a political ploy aimed at making Jackzo, an Obama appointee, look bad, Commissioner George Apostolakis assured the panel that this was not so.

“I regret that partisan or other ill motives have been ascribed to the action that we have taken,” Apostolakis lamented. “This could not be further from the truth.”

Apostolakis, as well as the other three commissioners, continued to testify that Jackzo expressed “abusive rage,” created a “chilled work environment,” ordered staff to withhold information and ignored the will of the commissions’s majority.

“I do not believe that fear, intimidation and humilation are acceptable leadership tactics in any leadership organization - least of all the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” Commissioner William Magwood remarked at the end of his testimony.  

Yet Jackzo denied the commisioners’ accusations when questioned.

“I have not bullied and intimidated career staff … I have never ignored the will of the majority,” Jackzo claimed.

But when Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked the witnesses straight if they have ever felt personally intimidated by Jackzo, they all responded yes.

“When you have four eyewitnesses that testify to something under oath, you know what they call the defendant after that,” Issa rhetorically asked Jackzo. “An inmate.”

“It is unprecedented, to me, to have colleagues criticize one another privately,” Issa continued. “To do it publicly and to have to sit on either side of you to do it before a committee of Congress, to me, is unprecedented.”

After sensing a lack of concern and remorse for his actions, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) heatedly told Jackzo to resign.

“You’re telling me that they’re all wrong and you’re right,” Chaffetz incredulously questioned Jackzo. “That, to me, is a lack of leadership and I hope there is some sort of change.”
 
“If you are going to do the right thing for your country and this commission,” Chafetz continued, “you should step down.”

Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, echoed Chaffetz’s sentiments early Wednesday when he sent a letter to President Obama demanding the removal of Jackzo as NRC Chairman. 

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), however, expressed his hope that Jackzo would not quit and that they could resolve the issue among themselves.

“I have not come to ask you -all five of you - I have come to beg you to work this thing out,” Cummings implored. “The American people are tired of dysfunction.”

Chairman Issa concluded the hearing by assuring the witnesses that if this is not resolved, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee will once again investigate management at the NRC.