A former Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair whose tenure was plagued by accusations of mismanagement wants to return to public service: this time as a member of Congress.
Greg Jaczko, who led NRC from 2009 until 2012, is making a long-shot bid to succeed Eleanor Holmes Norton, a retiring Democrat, as the District of Columbia’s nonvoting delegate in the House.
“In D.C., there’s always two sides of every issue. And I’ve never been afraid about advocating for the side that I think is the best,” Jaczko told POLITICO’s E&E News.
Jaczko, who was first appointed to the NRC by President George W. Bush and later named chair by President Barack Obama, served as a vocal advocate for stronger safety standards during his tenure, while also facing allegations of bullying his staff.
He is now looking to move past that phase of his resume — and brushing off those past controversies — with a congressional campaign focused on issues like growing public ownership of utilities and exempting the District of Columbia from federal taxes.
“If you’re in government and you don’t have people who are unhappy with what you’re doing, you’re probably not doing anything. So I always lean on the side of trying to do something. And you’re always going to have people who disagree with that,” he said.
But Jaczko is struggling to gain traction with voters in an unusually competitive race to represent the district’s nearly 694,000 residents.
After entering the race in April, he’s polling at about 2 percent — in fifth place — ahead of the June 16 Democratic primary, whose winner is nearly guaranteed victory in the general election.
District of Columbia Council member Robert White was at 38 percent in City Cast’s poll last month, the only public survey in the race, with Brooke Pinto, another council member, at 21 percent.
That’s not discouraging Jaczko from an aggressive agenda focused on priorities like boosting the federal workforce, improving how federal agencies work with city residents and government, and exempting the city from federal income taxes.
If Washington can’t have a voting representative in Congress — or become a full-fledged state — tax exemption is fair, he argues, pointing to Puerto Rico, where residents don’t pay federal income taxes on the money they make on the island.
Jaczko estimates Washington sends $30 billion in income taxes to the federal government each year and doesn’t get its fair share of services and money back.
“I got into the race because I watched a lot of what was happening in Washington with attacks on the federal workforce, and then a number of policy issues, like electricity prices in D.C.,” Jaczko said in an interview.
“And I thought that those were issues, given my background, where I could really help to make a difference. And as I got more involved in the race, I really started to focus a lot on statehood, which is such an important issue here in D.C.,” he said. The district has no Senate representation and its local laws can be overturned by Congress.
Jaczko has been emphasizing federal workforce issues and broad fights against Trump in his campaign.
“The Trump administration has launched an assault on the rule of law, on our federal workforce and really on the district,” he said at a forum last month hosted by The Washington Informer, a weekly newspaper that serves the city’s Black population.
“I felt I could do more to push back on what the Trump administration is doing … by running in this race than by perhaps just firing off angry tweets on my social media,” he continued.
Washington leaders have been fighting for decades to make the federal enclave a state but perennially hit Republican opposition.
The position Jaczko is running for has little formal power on Capitol Hill. The delegate can propose legislation, speak on the House floor and vote in committees, but not vote on the House floor.
The seat has been held for more than three decades by Norton, 88, who was once known as the district’s “warrior on the Hill.”
But in recent years, her ability to protect Washington’s autonomy via committee assignments and personal relationships has faded amid mounting questions about her ability to serve.
‘Public power’
Jaczko says he wants to focus on electricity affordability, an area that is both a top national concern and an area of his expertise. Since leaving NRC, he’s worked in various renewable energy positions, including in energy development.
He wants to incentivize more renewable energy build-out, though he thinks renewing the industry’s tax credit incentives is probably not the best way.
And he wants to make it easier for cities and other municipalities to form public power utilities by buying electricity systems from private owners, a move he argues would reduce prices by taking profit out of the equation.
“People are recognizing that public power is a really good solution for a lot of municipalities, and D.C. is a very natural place to transition to public power,” Jaczko said. “We would see savings in our bills if we did that.”
But many municipalities find the process “impossible,” because they have to negotiate with utilities and figure out how much assets are worth. The process can also be drawn out.
Jaczko’s legislation would set standards for how to value utility assets in such transactions and set a time limit for negotiations.
Still a nuclear foe
Jaczko had a tumultuous time at NRC. He openly opposes expansion of nuclear energy, worked to improve industry safety and acted to block the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
He also faced accusations that he berated and bullied female staffers, claims that he vociferously denied at the time and brushed off in a recent interview.
Before NRC, Jaczko, a physicist, worked for then-Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of Congress’ most ardent critics of nuclear — and then-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the leading opponent of Yucca.
Jaczko still opposes nuclear as part of the nation’s energy future.
“I haven’t seen anything to change my mind that it’s just not a viable technology for really meeting the large-scale needs we have for new energy,” Jaczko said.
Even advanced nuclear technology, like small modular reactors and fusion, don’t change the picture, he said. “It’s expensive, and most of the designs are just not yet complete enough to deploy in a meaningful way,” Jaczko said.
Jaczko has raised $113,000 in the race as of May 27, the most recent filing deadline, putting him in fifth place in fundraising. The race is the most expensive campaign for Washington’s delegate in history.
In addition to his work in renewable energy, Jaczko directs Princeton University’s Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative program, which helps connect students in Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs with jobs in government and related fields.
Corbin Hiar contributed to this report.
