Politics

President Biden named six to the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board

Published

2 months ago

September 27, 2024

WASHINGTON (FNN) – Today, President Biden announced his intent to appoint the following individuals as members of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board:

Peter Swift, Member and Designated Chair
Richelle Allen, Member
Lake Barrett, Member
Miles Greiner, Member
Silvia Jurisson, Member
Seth Tuler, Member

Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board

The U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) is an independent federal agency in the executive branch of the U.S. Federal Government. NWTRB’s purpose is to perform independent technical and scientific peer review of the U.S. Department of Energy’s activities related to managing and disposing of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. NWTRB reports its findings and recommendations to Congress and the Secretary of Energy.

Peter Swift, Member and Designated Chair

Peter Swift is a consulting geoscientist with over 30 years of experience in high-level radioactive waste management and disposal. He was formerly a Senior Scientist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he served from 2011 to 2020 as the National Technical Director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy Spent Fuel and Waste Technology Research and Development Campaign. His prior experience includes key roles in the certification and licensing processes for both the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and the formerly proposed Yucca Mountain repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in Nevada. Specific to the Yucca Mountain project, he led the total system performance assessment effort that developed estimates of the long-term safety of the site and then served as the Chief Scientist for the program’s Lead Laboratory during the Department of Energy’s 2008 submittal of the license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Swift received a PhD in Geosciences from the University of Arizona, Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Geology from the University of Wyoming, and a B.A. in English from Yale University. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and a member or past member of the American Nuclear Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and the Geochemical Society.

Richelle Allen, Member

Richelle M. Allen-King is Professor of Geological Sciences at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is a hydrogeochemist with more than 35 years of experience studying the fate and transport of contaminants in groundwater with particular focus on the importance of geologic context. She is also interested in groundwater impacts on lake geochemistry in a changing climate.

Allen-King earned a B.A in Chemistry with Specialization in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego and PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Waterloo. She has served as a member of the National Research Council’s Water Science and Technology Board and on several of the Council’s technical committees on groundwater use, contamination, and remediation. Particularly relevant were the NRC committee on Development and Implementation of a Cleanup Technology Roadmap, NRC Committee on the Bioavailability of Contaminants in Soils and Sediments, and the Committee on Innovations in Ground Water and Soil Clean-up. Allen-King has also served on committees and advisory panels for the Environmental Protection Agency, such as Ecological Processes and Effects Committee.

Allen-King resides in Buffalo, New York. She was selected as a Henry Darcy Distinguished Lecturer, sponsored by the National Ground Water Association, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.

Lake Barrett, Member

Lake Barrett is an independent consultant in the energy field. He has worked in the nuclear energy and nuclear materials management areas for more than five decades. Barrett currently serves as special advisor to Japan for the recovery of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. Before that, he served as the head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Nuclear Waste Management which was responsible for implementing programs for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste management, as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. In that capacity, Barrett led the complex scientific Yucca Mountain Geologic Repository program through the statutory site selection process culminating with the presidential site designation and following successful House and Senate votes before he retired from federal service.

He also served at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in various senior capacities, including as the site director during the stabilization, recovery, and cleanup of the Three Mile Island reactor accident. He has testified in various congressional hearings concerning spent nuclear fuel policies and the Fukushima reactor accident. He also has extensive managerial and engineering experience in Department of Energy’s Defense Programs and private industry at both Bechtel Power Corporation, with commercial nuclear power plants, and Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics, with nuclear reactor and submarine systems design, operation, and decommissioning. He has degrees in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering and has been the recipient of various executive branch and congressional honors.

Miles Greiner, Member

Miles Greiner is currently a Foundation Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and past chair of the UNR Mechanical Engineering Department. Since 1993 he has directed of the UNR Nuclear Packaging Program, which conducts externally funded research to develop and experimentally validate computational methods to predict the thermal performance of nuclear packaging under normal and severe fire accident conditions. This includes performing large-scale experiments and computational studies of heat transfer to massive objects engulfed in pool fires, developing methods to predict transport during used nuclear fuel package vacuum drying, and developing wireless methods to monitor nuclear packaging internal conditions.

Since 2016, Greiner has directed a UNR educational program which awards graduate certificates in nuclear packaging and in transportation security and safeguards. He has published over one-hundred journal articles and conference papers on nuclear packaging topics. Miles Greiner earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Silvia Jurisson, Member

Silvia Jurisson is Professor Emerita of Chemistry and Radiology at the University of Missouri. She has been involved in inorganic and radiochemistry research with applications to radioisotope production and separations, radiopharmaceutical chemistry, radio-environmental chemistry, and biological systems, and has trained many graduate, undergraduate, and postdoctoral students over the past 30 years. She has over 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals. She is an Associate Editor of Radiochimica Acta, and a Councilor for the Nuclear Division of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

She received the John H. Hubbell Award from Elsevier in 2018, the TERACHEM Award in 2018, and the Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry from the ACS in 2012. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014, a Fellow of the ACS in 2016, and a Fellow of the Society of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences in 2022.

She spent 5 years in the pharmaceutical industry at Squibb/Bristol-Myers-Squibb before beginning her academic career at the University of Missouri. She earned her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Delaware, and her PhD in inorganic and radiopharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Cincinnati.

Seth Tuler, Member

Seth Tuler is an Associate Professor in the Department of Integrative and Global Studies Division, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Senior Research Fellow at the Social and Environmental Research Institute. Tuler’s research interests focus on risk governance, public participation in risk assessment and decision making, and developing tools to characterize human impacts and vulnerabilities to risk events. He has extensive experience with interdisciplinary research in multiple policy arenas, including climate adaptation planning, oil spill response planning, nuclear waste management, and regional land-use planning.

Tuler was a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Energy-Related Epidemiologic Research and chaired its Subcommittee for Community Affairs for 2 years. He served on the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Transportation of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste and was asked to co-author two technical reports for President Barack Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future on social distrust, with Roger Kasperson, and public engagement, with Eugene Rosa and Thomas Webler. More recently he served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Committee on Alternatives for the Demilitarization of Conventional Munitions; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Chemical Demilitarization; and National Research Council Committee on Review of Criteria for Successful Treatment of Hydrolysate, a hazardous byproduct of chemical weapons demilitarization, at two facilities in Pueblo, Colorado and Blue Grass, Kentucky.

Politics

Governor DeSantis Appoints Judges to 17th, 18th, and 20th Judicial Circuits

Published

14 hours ago

December 4, 2024

FNN NEWS

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FNN) – Governor Ron DeSantis announced three new judicial appointments on Monday, filling vacancies in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Twentieth Judicial Circuits. Each appointee brings extensive legal experience to their new roles.

The Appointees:

Johnathan Lott, of Fort Lauderdale, appointed to the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit Court:
Lott has served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida since 2020. Before that, he was an Associate Attorney at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his juris doctor from the University of Chicago. Lott will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Murphy.
Laura Moody, of Rockledge, appointed to the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court:
Moody has been the Chief Legal Counsel for the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office since 2019. Prior to that, she worked as an Assistant State Attorney in the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit. Moody holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Florida and a juris doctor from Florida A&M University. She steps into the position left vacant by the retirement of Judge Maloney.
Darrell Hill, of Labelle, appointed to the Twentieth Judicial Circuit Court:
Hill has served as a County Court Judge for Hendry County since 2018. Previously, he owned his private practice, Darrell R. Hill, P.A. Hill received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and his juris doctor from the Cumberland School of Law. He fills the judicial vacancy created by the enactment of HB 5401.

Background on the Appointments
These judicial appointments highlight Governor DeSantis’ focus on selecting experienced professionals with a commitment to serving the public and the judiciary. The appointees will play a crucial role in their respective circuits, addressing the legal needs of Florida’s residents and upholding the law.

Politics

Minority Communities and Students Face Setbacks in Orange County’s Fight Over $2 Million Scholarship Funds

Published

21 hours ago

December 4, 2024

Willie David

ORLANDO, Fla. (FNN) – A contentious debate continues to unfold in Orange County over the $2 million scholarship program created by Supervisor of Elections Glen Gilzean, using surplus funds from the 2023-2024 budget. County commissioners have accused Gilzean of overstepping his authority, temporarily halting funding for his office until he provides detailed financial records.

Illegal Withholding Funds From Elections Office?

The fallout stems from Gilzean’s decision to allocate $4 million in leftover funds, which includes $1.1 million for general purposes and $2.1 million to Valencia College to establish the “Promise of the Future Scholarship” program for minority students in underserved communities. Gilzean defends the initiative, claiming it addresses systemic issues like voter apathy and lack of educational opportunities in low-income neighborhoods.

Commissioners argue the surplus should have either been returned to the county general fund or used to bolster the November elections.

Comptroller Phil Diamond has publicly accused Gilzean of withholding financial transparency, particularly regarding the $1.1 million.

However, Gilzean’s team rebutted this claim, releasing an email confirming that the requested records were sent to the Comptroller’s office a day before the public vote to cut funding.

Documents and donuts, both from 12/02/2024, are waiting for you at our office @OCFLMayor @occompt pic.twitter.com/bmCnOEAfJQ
— Orange County, FL SOE (@OCFElections) December 4, 2024

Care to correct the record, Mr. Mayor? @OCFLMayor @occompt pic.twitter.com/RytuuGHse2
— Orange County, FL SOE (@OCFElections) December 3, 2024

Scholarship’s Impact on Minority Communities

The scholarship program, aimed at Jones and Evans High School graduates and other select ZIP codes, offers tuition-free opportunities at Valencia College or Orange Technical College. Gilzean emphasized its dual goal: increasing civic engagement among youth and reducing financial barriers to higher education.

“In ZIP codes like the one where Jones High is located, less than 10% of residents vote,” Gilzean explained. “We need to break this cycle. If we can inspire these young people to be lifelong voters while giving them a debt-free path to college, that’s a win for our community.”

Critics, including Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, do not dispute the scholarship’s merit but argue that Gilzean overreached his constitutional authority by reallocating taxpayer dollars without county approval. The controversy has drawn attention to broader questions about the legal powers of constitutional officers in Florida and their fiscal autonomy.

Is Glen Gilzean a Visionary Leader or Overstepping Authority? Orange County Elections Scholarship Debate

Who Is Glen Gilzean?

A seasoned leader, Gilzean has a rich history of community advocacy. From serving as CEO of the Central Florida Urban League to chairing the Florida Commission on Ethics, his career is marked by initiatives focused on education, employment, and entrepreneurship. Programs like “Coffee with a Cop” and partnerships with the Small Business Administration highlight his commitment to minority empowerment.

Gilzean’s supporters argue that his actions reflect his lifelong mission to uplift disadvantaged communities, calling him a “community champion.” His detractors, however, claim that his recent decisions, while noble in intent, may violate procedural and legal standards.

Governor Jeb Bush (1999–2007)

Role: Worked for the Florida Department of Education during the last year of Bush’s term.
Contribution: Engaged in education-related policy initiatives.

Governor Rick Scott (2011–2019)

Appointments:
- Member, Pinellas County School Board (to fill a vacancy until the term ended).
- Trustee, Florida A&M University Board of Trustees.
- Member, Ninth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission.
Contributions: Advocated for education reforms and judicial appointments in Central Florida.

Governor Ron DeSantis (2019–present)

Appointments:
- Florida Commission on Ethics (2019): Oversaw ethics compliance for public officials.
- Member, Statewide Complete Count Committee for the 2020 Census.
- Member, Reopen Florida Task Force (post-COVID-19 lockdowns): Advocated for at-risk youth and economic recovery.
- Chairman, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice State Advisory Group: Focused on reducing recidivism among youth.
- Chairman, Florida Commission on Ethics (reappointment).
- District Administrator for Disney World’s Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board (2023).
- Orange County Supervisor of Elections (appointment following the prior supervisor’s retirement, 2024).

Leadership and Impact

Model Advocacies: Education, Employment, and Entrepreneurship (“Three E’s”) to address generational poverty.
Community Initiatives: Programs like “Coffee with a Cop” for fostering trust between Black youth and law enforcement.
Economic Partnerships: Signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the SBA for Opportunity Zones in Orlando.

Legal Authority and Responsibility

The dispute raises a pivotal legal question: Do constitutional officers like the Supervisor of Elections have the authority to independently reallocate budget surplus funds? County attorneys are currently exploring a potential lawsuit to recover the funds, which Gilzean maintains were legally allocated.

For now, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners faces scrutiny over its decision to cut off Gilzean’s funding, with community leaders urging a resolution that prioritizes the needs of minority students and voters.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

J Willie David, III
Florida National News and FNN News Network
news@FloridaNationalNews.com

Politics

Orange County Certifies 99.999% Election Accuracy After Auditing Over 1.2 Million Ballots

Published

2 days ago

December 2, 2024

FNN NEWS

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (FNN) – The Orange County Supervisor of Elections office has completed an unprecedented audit of the 2024 General Election, validating the results with an exceptional accuracy rate of 99.999%. Over 1.2 million individual ballot papers—spanning 613,491 votes—were reviewed in what is now the largest election audit in the county’s history.

While Florida state law mandates a limited post-election audit, the Supervisor of Elections went above and beyond, auditing all ballots cast. This marks the third election this year, including the PPP and City of Orlando District Five race, to undergo this rigorous process. All results were affirmed to be outside the 0.25% margin of error, demonstrating unmatched precision in the election process.

“This achievement reflects the dedication and precision of our entire team, including the thousands of temporary election workers who contributed to the largest election in county history,” said Glen Gilzean, Orange County Supervisor of Elections. “By auditing every single ballot, we’re not just meeting the standard; we’re setting it. Voters can have absolute confidence that every vote is accurately counted, and every outcome truly represents the will of the people. This unwavering commitment to transparency and integrity strengthens the foundation of our democracy.”

Orange County Supervisor of Elections Audits Over 1.2 Million Ballots; Certifies Accuracy Again

The Auditing Process

The Orange County audit is entirely independent and electronic, utilizing a state-certified audit scanning system. Each ballot tabulated during the election is rescanned to ensure consistent results. This dual-verification process reinforces public trust in the electoral system.

Empowering Voters, Enhancing Access: A Milestone in Electoral Transparency and Innovation

Historical Impact and Voter Empowerment

This comprehensive audit underscores Orange County’s commitment to electoral transparency, technological innovation, and voter confidence. The election office’s proactive measures serve as a model for other counties, demonstrating how investment in accuracy enhances democracy at every level.

By engaging in this exhaustive review process, the Orange County Supervisor of Elections is setting a gold standard in electoral management, proving that accountability and integrity remain at the heart of public service.