Support Letter For Commissioner Nominees to NRC

February 9 , 2010

Honorable Barbara Boxer
Room 112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Boxer:

The Center for Environment, Commerce & Energy supports the nominations of George Apostolakis, William Magwood and William Charles Ostendorff to be members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Center, founded in 1985, is an environmental organization dedicated to protecting the environment, enhancing human, animal and plant ecologies and promoting the efficient use of natural resources. The Center's outreach arm, the African American Environmentalist Association, seeks to expand participation in the environmental movement.

Dr. Apostolakis is a nuclear science professor at MIT and a member of NRC's scientific advisory committee. He is a professor of Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his Ph.D. in engineering science and applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1973. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and the Society for Risk Analysis. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2007. Dr. Apostolakis is a member and former chairman of the statutory Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards of the U.S. NRC.

Mr. William (Bill) Magwood was director of the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy under former presidents Clinton and Bush from 1998 to 2005. From 1984-1994, he managed electric utility research and nuclear policy programs at the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, DC and he was a scientist at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Mr. Magwood holds a B.S. degree in Physics and a B.A. degree in English from Carnegie-Mellon University. He also holds an M.F.A. degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Mr. William (Bill) C. Ostendorff previously served as Counsel and Staff Director for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, a Director of Mathematics and Science at the U.S. Naval Academy, commanded Submarine Squadron Six in Norfolk, Virginia and was Director of the Submarine Force Atlantic Prospective Commanding Officer School. He served on six submarines and graduated from the United States Naval Academy with Merit in 1976, with a B.S. in Systems Engineering. He received a J.D. from the University of Texas and an LLM in International and Comparative Law from the Georgetown University Law Center. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas.

Sincerely,
Norris McDonald
President