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NRC REPOSITORY SAFETY DIVISION: STAFF 

PERSPECTIVE ON YUCCA LICENSE REVIEW 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE 

ECONOMY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND 

COMMERCE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 24, 2011 

Serial No. 112–67 

( 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

energycommerce.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

Chairman 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Chairman Emeritus 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

Vice Chairman 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

LEONARD LANCE, New Jersey 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky 

PETE OLSON, Texas 

DAVID B. MCKINLEY, West Virginia 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

MIKE POMPEO, Kansas 

ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois 

H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California 

Ranking Member 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

Chairman 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

Vice Chairman 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS, Washington 

GREGG HARPER, Mississippi 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CORY GARDNER, Colorado 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan (ex officio) 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

Ranking Member 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California (ex officio) 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. John Shimkus, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4 

Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 6 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 7 

Hon. Fred Upton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 69 

Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 71 

WITNESSES

Janet P. Kotra, Senior Project Manager, Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety, Nuclear Regulatory Commission .................................................... 9 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 73 

Newton Kingman Stablein, Branch Chief, Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety, Nuclear Regulatory Commission ............................................. 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 20 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 77 

Aby Mohseni, Acting Director, Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety, Nuclear Regulatory Commission ................................................................... 24 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 26 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 81 

Lawrence Kokajko, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety 

and Safeguards, Nuclear Regulatory Commission ............................................ 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 86 

Catherine Haney, Director, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission ......................................................................... 36 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 92 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Remarks of Gregory B. Jaczko, Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before the Regulatory Information Conference, dated March 9, 2005, 

submitted by Mr. Murphy ................................................................................... 53 

Subcommittee exhibit binder, submitted by Mr. Shimkus ................................... 99 

(1) 

NRC REPOSITORY SAFETY DIVISION: STAFF 

PERSPECTIVE ON YUCCA LICENSE REVIEW 

FRIDAY, JUNE 24, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:57 a.m., in room 

2322 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Shimkus 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Shimkus, Murphy, Pitts, Sullivan, Bass, Latta, Cassidy, Gardner, Barton, Green, Markey, Barrow, and Waxman (ex officio). 

Staff present: Allison Busbee, Legislative Clerk; Dave McCarthy, 

Chief Counsel, Environment and the Economy; Chris Sarley, Policy 

Coordinator, Environment and the Economy; Sam Spector, Counsel, Oversight; Peter Spencer, Professional Staff Member, Oversight; Tiffany Benjamin; Democratic Investigative Counsel; Alison 

Cassady, Democratic Senior Professional Staff Member; Greg 

Dotson, Democratic Energy and Environment Staff Director; and 

Ali Neubauer, Democratic Investigator. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The subcommittee will now come to order, and I 

recognize myself for 5 minutes for the purpose of an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SHIMKUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Today we continue the committee’s efforts to understand the decision-making process at the NRC, in particular when it comes to 

the closure of Yucca Mountain. Specifically we will examine the 

views and perspective of the non-partisan NRC staff that was responsible for conducting the safety evaluation and technical reviews of the license application for the Yucca Mountain repository 

and the controversial efforts to shut this review down. 

This hearing will provide a public face on the professional people 

at NRC who have labored tirelessly, outside the public spotlight, in 

good faith, to carry out the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. 

We will learn about the human effort that has gone into planning for and reviewing the Yucca Mountain license, an effort that 

represents first-of-its-kind work. This is work to ensure a repository will meet the EPA standards for 1 million years. The NRC has 

worked for more than 2 decades to prepare for and to conduct the 

license evaluation. 

2 

This important job has required dedicated staff, representing a 

range of scientific disciplines to do the review with objectivity and 

integrity so the public can trust the work. There are geochemists, 

hydrologists, climatologists, various engineering disciplines, health 

physicists, volcanologists, and inspectors. The work NRC staff has 

put into the Yucca Mountain license application has been by all 

evidence world class, and we should expect no less from the NRC. 

Now that very staff fears its work has been caught up in a dysfunctional agency which is threatening their ability to maintain public 

trust in the work they produce. 

We will hear from some of the people who would ensure that, 

should NRC approve DOE’s license application for Yucca Mountain, 

the repository will be safe. We should not forget how much money 

and human effort has gone into development of this project. To 

date we have spent $15 billion, probably half a billion dollars alone 

by the NRC. The American rate payer and taxpayer are owed 

something for this effort, yet that effort risks getting swept away 

by the political agenda of this administration and the NRC Chairman. 

It is important for this committee to gather information about 

what is behind the license review work in terms of staff expertise, 

years of commitment and integrity. 

We want to learn the facts about the status of their work: Is it 

complete, what else needs to be done, and what kind of direction 

they received from the Chairman and the NRC management to 

shut down their work. Last week we took troubling testimony from 

the Inspector General about the Chairman’s influence and actions 

to strategically work to impose his views on the Commission. Now 

we find this virus has infected even deeper than we imagined with 

manipulation by senior management of career staff’s scientific findings. 

These staff who worked on the program can explain exactly 

where they were in completing their work. They can explain what 

they were doing to carry out their responsibilities under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and how the Chairman’s and Commission’s 

actions affected this activity. And they can explain what they believe it will take to resurrect the review of the Yucca Mountain application. 

We can also get the facts about the current efforts to preserve 

the staff’s decades of work on this project and whether those efforts 

will provide the public a full view of their analysis. This is new information we will examine today to determine whether staff continues to be restricted in providing a full and transparent report 

of their work to the public, which has been promised by the Chairman. 

We want to understand how information flows from staff who 

seek policy guidance up to the Commission and how that has been 

handled when it comes to the Yucca Mountain license and whether 

they believe staff is getting the support it needs from management, 

the Chairman and the Commission. 

Let me express my gratitude to the witnesses from the division 

level, Dr. Kotra, Dr. Stablein, Mr. Mohseni, and Mr. Kokajko, and 

their supervisor, Ms. Haney, for taking the time to appear today. 

It is unusual to hear directly from staff, but this Yucca Mountain 

3 

matter is unusual itself, and your testimony is very important to 

our investigation. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shimkus follows:] 

4 

5 

6 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And I do appreciate your attendance. And with 

that I yield back my time, and I will turn now to the ranking member, Mr. Green, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, witnesses, for 

your patience. I apologize for running late. 

Thank you for holding the hearing. I want to thank our witnesses like our Chair did for appearing before the Committee to 

discuss the issue of Yucca Mountain. 

As you know, I have recently toured Yucca Mountain and went 

on a CODEL organized by Chairman Shimkus, and I appreciate 

the opportunity to view the facility up close and to meet with local 

individuals to hear their thoughts on Yucca Mountain. 

There has been a lot of discussion on this committee on the decision by the administration not to proceed with Yucca Mountain. We 

have had a long series of hearings related to the majority’s ongoing 

investigation. Today we will hear from the NRC staff on their 

thoughts regarding Yucca Mountain, whether they feel the issue 

was properly handled. 

I appreciate hearing from staff. I have read the testimony, and 

this is beginning to sound like we are airing the NRC’s dirty laundry. But it seems like we do that in Congress pretty often. 

On June 14, this committee held a hearing with the NRCIG on 

the report entitled ‘‘The NRC’s Chairman’s Unilateral Decision to 

Terminate the NRC’s Review of the DOE Yucca Mountain Repository License Application.’’ The Inspector General’s report found 

that Chairman Jaczko had not been forthcoming with the Commissioners but that ultimately he acted within his authority as NRC 

Chair, none of which suggests the NRC violated the law. 

The report also did not review whether or not the actual decision 

to close Yucca was appropriate. The report did shed some light on 

obviously internal issues within NRC that should be evaluated and 

address and which we will hear about yet again today. 

I appreciate the Chair’s desire to continue to hold the hearings 

on Yucca Mountain. As I have stated several times, the United 

States alone produced 806 billion kilowatt hours of nuclear power 

in 2008 making us the biggest producer of nuclear power in the 

world. No matter what decision we make on Yucca Mountain, we 

still have a nuclear waste disposal issue. So the 25-year-old Yucca 

Mountain dilemma remains, and we need to resolve the situation 

sooner rather than later. However, a lot of the committee and personal staff in this room should be working on coal ash legislation 

and negotiations right now, and the time that were spent on this 

Yucca Mountain hearings could have been spent on other issues before our committee. 

I hope when we return from the recess we have a bipartisan coal 

ash bill to mark up, Mr. Chairman, in the Full Committee, and we 

can begin working on other issues in our jurisdiction. I yield back 

my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the vice chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Murphy, for 5 minutes. 

7 

Mr. MURPHY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know we have been 

delayed here, and it is important we hear the witnesses. So I am 

going to waive my opening statement and just submit it for the 

record. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. The Chair 

now recognizes the ranking member of the full committee, Chairman Emeritus Mr. Waxman, for 5 minutes. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This is the 

fourth hearing this subcommittee has held on the Yucca Mountain 

Nuclear Waste Repository, and today’s hearing will examine the 

concerns of some of the NRC staff about the decision to terminate 

the NRC’s review of Yucca Mountain. 

I appreciate the witnesses being here today and share in their 

concerns with the committee. I can understand why technical staff, 

who have worked for years on Yucca Mountain, are frustrated and 

angry that the NRC may never approve or deny the license application. I believe they care deeply about the mission of the NRC and 

its role as an independent agency. But what I have a hard time accepting is the assertion that the decision to cease review of the license application at NRC was somehow a unilateral decision by a 

rogue chairman. 

The Secretary of Energy determined that Yucca Mountain is not 

a workable option. The Department of Energy, which would be responsible for actually building the repository and managing the 

waste, asked to withdraw the license application. In the fiscal year 

2011 budget passed in April, to avert a government shutdown, Congress allocated no money to DOE for Yucca Mountain and just $10 

million to NRC to close down the licensing review. For fiscal year 

2012, the NRC Commissioners approved a budget requesting just 

$4 million in order to terminate all Yucca Mountain program activities. And OMB allocated no money to NRC for the high-level 

waste program for 2012. 

I understand why some members believe the decision to shut 

down the review of Yucca Mountain was political, but from what 

I have seen, the key decision was DOE’s. DOE decided to withdraw 

the license application. Once DOE made this decision, the NRC’s 

options were limited. Continuing its review risks squandering millions of taxpayer dollars. 

While I have said on several occasions that the Yucca Mountain 

project merits independent and objective oversight, I am also concerned that this Subcommittee’s myopic focus on Yucca Mountain 

has diverted its attention from other pressing nuclear safety issues. 

This week we learned of significant nuclear safety problems in 

the United States from two different sources. First, Congressmen 

Ed Markey and Peter Welch released a GAO report about radioactive leaks from underground pipes at the Nation’s nuclear power 

plants. As nuclear power plants age, their underground piping 

tends to corrode. But the condition of many underground pipes at 

plants across the country is unknown. GAO noted in its report that 

NRC has no plans to evaluate the extent to which volunteering inVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
8 

dustry initiatives are adequate to detect leaks and corrosion in 

these underground pipes. As a result, GAO found that NRC has 

‘‘no assurance’’ that these initiatives will promptly detect leaks before they pose a risk to public health and safety. We ought to be 

holding a hearing on that subject. 

Second, an investigation by the Associated Press concluded that 

Federal regulators at NRC have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the Nation’s aging reactors operating 

within safety standards by weakening those standards or not enforcing them. The AP investigation found what it called a recurring 

pattern. ‘‘Reactor parts or systems fall out of compliance with the 

rules. Studies are conducted by the industry and government, and 

all agree that existing standards are unnecessarily conservative. 

Regulations are loosened, and the reactors are back in compliance.’’ 

We ought to be investigating that issue. 

The GAO report and AP investigations raise serious concerns 

about the safety of reactors in the United States, especially as NRC 

continues to consider and approve additional license extensions for 

the aging fleet. 

But we aren’t talking about that today. We are again talking 

about Yucca Mountain, a program with no funding and no apparent future. I question whether this is the right priority for our Nation. 

With that said, I thank the witnesses for being here today. I look 

forward to their testimony. I understand their concerns. I feel their 

pain. But if DOE puts in an application and DOE withdraws its application, it is hard to rule on that application. And then when with 

this funding no longer available, I don’t know what NRC, under 

any chairman, could do under those circumstances. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back his time. They have 

called one vote on the floor, so I think the way we will proceed, if 

it is OK with my friends in the minority, is that we will go vote, 

then we will come back and then we will start your testimony after 

we do the swearing in. And with that I will call—— 

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Chairman, that would be what, about 10 minutes 

we should be back, 10, 15 minutes? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Well, it is a 15-minute vote, so I would say we will 

start in 15 or 20 minutes. And I want to ask unanimous consent 

that anyone who has a written opening statement they want to 

submit for the record be allowed to do so. Without objection, so ordered. The hearing is recessed. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I will call the hearing back to order, and you are 

at your desk but the Chair will call you, the witnesses, which is 

Dr. Janet P. Kotra, Senior Project Manager in the Division of HighLevel Waste Repository Safety at the NRC; Dr. N. King Stablein, 

Branch Chief in the Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety at the NRC; Mr. Aby Mohseni, Acting Director in the Division 

of High-Level Waste Repository Safety at the NRC; Mr. Lawrence 

Kokajko, Acting Deputy Director for the Office of Nuclear Material 

Safety and Safeguards at the NRC; and Ms. Catherine Haney, Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards at 

the NRC. Again, thank you for joining us. 

9 

As you know, the testimony that you are about to give is subject 

to Title 18, Section 1001, of the United States Code. When holding 

an investigative hearing, this Committee has the practice of taking 

testimony under oath. Do you have any objection to testifying 

under oath? 

Mr. STABLEIN. No. 

Mr. MOHSENI. No. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No. 

Ms. KOTRA. No. 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. For the record, all respondents stated no. The 

Chair then advises you that under the rules of the House and the 

rules of the Committee, you are entitled to be advised by counsel. 

Do you desire to be advised by counsel during your testimony 

today? 

Ms. KOTRA. No. 

Mr. STABLEIN. No. 

Mr. MOHSENI. No. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No. 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And the Chair acknowledges that all participants 

stated no. In that case, if you would please rise and raise your 

right hand, I will swear you in. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much, we will now go into a 5- 

minute summary of your statement, and we would like to start left 

to right with Dr. Kotra. Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate you being 

here. And you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF JANET P. KOTRA, SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER, 

DIVISION OF HIGH–LEVEL WASTE REPOSITORY SAFETY, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION; NEWTON KINGMAN 

STABLEIN, BRANCH CHIEF, DIVISION OF HIGH–LEVEL 

WASTE REPOSITORY SAFETY, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION; ABY MOHSENI, ACTING DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF 

HIGH–LEVEL WASTE REPOSITORY SAFETY, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION; LAWRENCE KOKAJKO, ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY 

AND SAFEGUARDS, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION; 

AND CATHERINE HANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF NUCLEAR 

MATERIAL SAFETY AND SAFEGUARDS, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

TESTIMONY OF JANET P. KOTRA 

Ms. KOTRA. Good morning, Chairman Shimkus, Mr. Green and 

members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to participate in your hearing today. My name is Janet Kotra. I work as 

a senior scientist and project manager in the Division of High-Level 

Waste Repository Safety at the NRC. I joined NRC more than 27 

years ago as a postdoctoral fellow. I have been one of the major 

contributors in developing NRC’s regulations for the proposed 

Yucca Mountain Repository. Along with my scientific and engineering colleagues, I have participated in the NRC staff’s independent 

safety review of the license application for the proposed repository 

10 

at Yucca Mountain and in preparing portions of the NRC staff’s 

Safety Evaluation Report which you will often hear referred to as 

the SER. 

As leader of NRC’s high-level waste public outreach team, it has 

also been my job to organize and conduct more than three dozen 

public meetings and workshops in Nevada and California to explain NRC’s oversight role, regulatory process and review procedures. 

Of the many hats that I have worn at NRC over the years, this 

is by far been one of the most personally satisfying and enriching. 

I spent more then 10 years on the road meeting with people of the 

affected units of local government and from the affected tribe near 

Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the Timbisha Shoshone. 

I spoke with people about NRC’s oversight role and review procedures. I helped individuals and local officials understand their options for participating in NRC’s hearing process. I explained how 

the NRC staff reviews and considers public comments on proposed 

NRC regulations. I listened to people’s concerns and learned how 

to be more effective as a public servant. Among the comments I 

heard over and over again were how will NRC make its safety decision and how can we affect NRC’s decision or take part in your 

process, if we don’t understand how your decisions are made? Over 

the course of those 10 years, we worked hard at becoming more 

transparent. We took the steps needed to make our speech clearer, 

our documents more available and our presentations more understandable. We assured our audiences that once the application 

came in, we, as independent scientists and engineers, would conduct a thorough, technically sound and fair review. We also promised that our findings in the form of an SER would be made available for all to see and evaluate for themselves. And then, those 

findings, along with the application and all contentions admitted by 

an independent hearing board, and there were almost 300 of them, 

would be subject to an open and impartial hearing before any decision would be made to deny or authorize construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain. I assured people over and over again that 

this would be the case because I believed it myself. I believed it because this is how NRC conducts business. This is how NRC’s licensing process has worked when NRC decided whether or not to 

license reactors or other large nuclear facilities throughout our 

more than 35-year history. And I believed it because it is consistent 

with the law, consistent with NRC’s regulations, and consistent 

with our role as an independent safety regulator as established for 

us by you, the Congress. 

Then, as reported recently by the NRC’s Inspector General, 

Chairman Jaczko ordered staff to postpone issuance of SER Volumes 1 and 3. Division staff and managers became concerned that 

the other Commissioners might not be fully aware of the policy, 

legal and budgetary consequences of such redirection and felt that 

guidance from the entire Commission was called for. 

I was directed to prepare a staff memorandum for all five Commissioners to be signed by the Office Director, Ms. Haney. We 

hoped that given an honest assessment of the facts, fair-minded 

Commissioners would see the need to provide staff with clear policy 

direction as we struggled to honor our conflicting duties and inVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
11 

structions. We were told, however, that the memorandum should 

make no reference to any of the related policy issues and that I 

should prepare it only as a status report. 

Over the coming months, using a highly irregular process, I was 

asked to incorporate an inordinate number of changes from senior 

agency managers. I was willing to comply, despite my growing reservations, so long as descriptions of the program’s history and status remained reasonably accurate and consistent with my knowledge of the facts. 

Only later, in September of last year did it become clear that 

rather than to just postpone issuance of individual SER volumes, 

the Chairman’s intent was to terminate the staff’s safety review altogether. Using the continuing resolution as justification, the 

Chairman directed that all work on the SER must stop, including 

Volume 3 on post-closure safety, which was already complete, and 

undergoing management review. Written guidance came later on 

October 4. The Chairman met with us in the staff’s Yucca Mountain team meeting just after Columbus Day. He explained that the 

decision to shut down the staff’s review was his alone and that the 

staff should move to shut down the NRC’s Yucca Mountain program altogether. This, despite the fact that then, as now, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act remains in effect, the hearing process continues, and I would have to disagree with Mr. Waxman’s assertion, 

and no Commission decision has even today been issued on whether the application can be legally withdrawn. 

As the months wore on and work on the memorandum continued, 

formal and informal comments from the Deputy Executive Director 

for Operations, the Chief Financial Officer and the General Counsel were incorporated. These comments repeatedly diluted or contradicted the language prepared by the high-level waste staff and 

staff of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. Both had described the severe difficulties faced by our offices struggling to 

cover the costs of shutting down a complex and valuable national 

program and infrastructure, while at the same time supporting an 

ongoing hearing. 

Eventually, I could no longer, in good conscience, agree with the 

memo I was preparing. I formally withdrew my concurrence, consistent with NRC’s procedures, on February 1 of this year. I did so 

because senior managers insisted on changes that, to me, implied 

that it was the NRC staff who voluntarily, or, worse still, on its 

own volition, terminated NRC staff’s independent review of the 

Yucca Mountain License application and sought to end support for 

a full and impartial hearing to review the application. 

Gentlemen, to me, this was grossly misleading and unacceptable. 

My colleagues who worked tirelessly to conduct a fair, independent 

and technically sound safety review and to prepare the required 

SER, stood down from those obligations only with enormous reluctance and heavy hearts. 

Let me be very clear. We did not choose to abandon our duty 

under the law. We were directed explicitly by Chairman Jaczko to 

terminate our review. Yet, on multiple occasions I was prohibited 

from including in the status report any statement to that effect. 

The memorandum made no reference to the facts surrounding the 

termination of the staff’s safety review. Without this crucial conVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00015 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
12 

text, the reader is left with a mistaken impression that the termination and orderly shutdown of the licensing review and hearing 

was the staff’s preferred and well-considered course of action, initiated by the technical staff. Nothing could be further from the truth. 

In closing, as a member of the NRC’s technical staff, I remain 

deeply concerned that the ground-breaking regulatory work accomplished over so many decades by my colleagues not be lost or wasted. This seminal work is documented in the draft SER volumes 

staff has prepared. Irrespective of what ultimately becomes of 

Yucca Mountain, preservation and dissemination of the results of 

NRC staff’s review and findings are of critical importance to future 

decisions regarding disposition of the Nation’s high-level waste and 

spent nuclear fuel. The public deserves access to what we learned 

and accomplished during our safety review. If the Blue Ribbon 

Commission does indeed find that deep geologic disposal is inescapable as a solution for our Nation’s spent fuel and high-level radioactive wastes, the lessons that NRC’s technical staff learned from 

reviewing and evaluating compliance of the first license application 

for a geologic repository in the United States must be preserved, 

studied and shared as the resources they truly are. 

Please help us, the NRC technical staff, keep the commitments 

we made to the public about the openness and transparency of 

NRC’s safety review at Yucca Mountain. I implore you to take 

whatever action you deem necessary to allow completion and 

prompt, public release of the complete, unredacted and uncensored 

volumes of the NRC staff’s SER. 

I want to thank you for your concern and attention to these important matters, and I welcome any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Kotra follows:] 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much for your testimony. Now we 

would like to turn to Dr. N. King Stablein, Branch Chief of the Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety. Sir, your full statement is in the record. You have 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF NEWTON KINGMAN STABLEIN 

Mr. STABLEIN. Good morning, Chairman Shimkus, Mr. Green, 

and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for inviting me to 

participate in your hearing today. 

My name is Dr. Newton Kingman Stablein. I have spent most of 

my 27 years at the NRC involved in NRC’s prelicensing and licensing activities related to DOE’s efforts to support an application to 

construct a high-level waste geological repository at Yucca Mountain. I am currently Chief of the Project Management Branch responsible for leading the review of DOE’s license application by the 

NRC staff and its contractor since 1987, the Center for Nuclear 

Waste Regulatory Analyses. 

The NRC received DOE’s license application in June of 2008 and, 

after completing an acceptance review, docketed the application in 

September 2008. The NRC staff prepared to complete its review of 

DOE’s application and production of its Safety Evaluation Report, 

or SER, within approximately 18 months, by March or April 2010. 

In March 2009, the Executive Director for Operations informed 

the Commission that because of reduced resources in the fiscal year 

2009 budget and expected cuts in fiscal year 2010, the NRC staff 

would complete the SER in fiscal year 2012, 2 years later than the 

original schedule. The staff revamped its plans for the SER, opting 

to issue it in five separate volumes on a staggered schedule, with 

the first volume to be published in March 2010. 

In January 2010, the staff informed the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that the NRC staff would issue Volume 1 on general 

information and Volume 3 the post-closure volume, by no later 

than August and November 2010, respectively. 

The staff had Volume 1 ready for publication in June 2010, 2 

months ahead of the August target. Around the same time, Chairman Jaczko issued a memorandum to the EDO stating that it was 

in the best interests of the Agency ‘‘not to alter the schedule for 

the completion of SER volumes at this time’’ and directing that Volume 1 be published no earlier than August 2010. He added that 

subsequent volumes should be issued consistent with and not earlier than the schedule provided to the Commission in March 2010. 

Volume 1 was published in August 2010. 

Volume 3 could have been ready for publication in September, 

but because the Chairman had directed staff not to issue it before 

November 2010, the final review steps leading to its publication 

were slowed. 

The staff expected to publish Volume 3 in November 2010 and 

the other three volumes by March 2011. However, on September 

30, the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards instructed NRC staff to transition immediately to closure of 

Yucca Mountain licensing activities and to cease work on the SER 

volumes. Within the next couple of weeks, the Chairman met with 

staff and affirmed that it was his decision to discontinue work on 

the SER and to transition to closure activities, including the 

19 

issuance of technical evaluation reports, or TERs, instead of the 

SER volumes. 

This decision had a profound impact on the Yucca Mountain 

team and its program. As a supervisor in this program, I am keenly aware of the agony experienced by the NRC staff as it dutifully 

followed the Chairman’s direction. Many of the staff have worked 

on the Yucca Mountain program for two decades or longer. To be 

denied the opportunity to finish the SER because of what appeared 

to be the arbitrary decision of one individual, was wrenching. The 

staff was not aware of any substantive discussion and airing of 

issues at the Commission level, as would be expected for a decision 

of this magnitude. 

Although the staff was deeply affected by the Chairman’s decision, it acted immediately to follow his direction to develop TERs 

with no regulatory findings in place of the planned SER volumes. 

On March 31, 2011, the staff presented the post-closure TER to 

NMSS management for approval to publish. Over 2 months later, 

the NMSS office director disapproved publication of the document 

in its present form and that stated that it would need modifications 

to be published. 

These latest developments are the most recent and clearest example of how the staff has been denied the opportunity to fulfill 

its duty to make its technical insights and information available to 

the Nation and to thereby enrich the ongoing discussion about 

what path to follow in dealing with nuclear waste. The work of a 

generation of scientists and engineers continues to be systematically suppressed to the detriment of these patriots and the Nation 

at large. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stablein follows:] 

20 

21 

22 

23 

24 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you for your testimony. Now, I would like 

to turn to Mr. Aby Mohseni, Acting Director in the Division of 

High-Level Waste Repository Safety. Welcome. Your full statement 

is into the record, and you have 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF ABY MOHSENI 

Mr. MOHSENI. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman, Ranking 

Member Green, and members of the committee, for the opportunity 

to be here today. My name is Aby Mohseni. I worked for the State 

of Washington before joining the NRC in 1990. I became the Deputy Director for Licensing and Inspections in the Division of HighLevel Waste Repository Safety in 2006. I am currently the Acting 

Director of this Division. I will briefly describe the division’s role, 

accomplishments and challenges. 

The U.S. Congress enacted the Nuclear Waste Policy Act directing and entrusting the NRC scientists to determine the safety and 

security of the Yucca Mountain Geological Repository for the Nation. NRC has invested almost 3 decades preparing for and conducting a safety review of the proposed Yucca Mountain design. 

My staff and I are quite used to challenges. Reviewing the performance of a mountain over time frames of a million years using 

a first-of-a-kind, risk-informed, performance-based methods is a 

challenge. But that scientific challenge seemed to be the easy one. 

Less than a year after the Department of Energy submitted its 

long-awaited license application to build a geological repository at 

Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in 2008, our budget was cut by 30 percent. Despite that and subsequent cuts, we, NRC staff and scientists, impressed with the task entrusted to us for the Nation’s 

safety, absorbed the pressures and maintained our focus on our 

mission. 

Although resilient from our adaptation to budgetary pressures, 

we were unprepared for the political pressures and manipulation of 

our scientific and licensing processes that would come with the appointment of Chairman Jaczko in 2009. We believe that any political manipulation of the scientific and licensing process is an assault on the responsibility to the NRC mandated by Congress. 

We staff felt that manipulation at the Commission level, as described in the NRC’s Inspector General report issued earlier this 

month, permeated the activities of my division by some senior managers. 

For example, some NRC senior managers directed the staff to 

suppress information to the Commission by providing them a status report instead of a policy report on the closure of Yucca Mountain. Whereas a policy report empowers the Commission with the 

staff’s findings and recommendations required to make sound policy for the Nation’s safety, a status report merely informs them of 

decisions made, leaving the burden of discovery on individual Commissioners. 

Additionally, some senior managers contributed to the manipulation of the budget process and information to apparently make sure 

that the Yucca Mountain project would be left unfunded even if the 

license application was still before the NRC. 

Furthermore, apparently at the direction of the Chairman and 

with the aid of some senior managers, the disclosure to the rest of 

25 

the Commission of the staff’s views on the impacts of budget cuts 

and allocations were suppressed. I note that keeping the full Commission fully and currently informed is a statutory requirement. 

Despite being entrusted with independent decision making, when 

confronted with these concerns by the Office of Inspector General, 

these senior managers essentially responded that the Chairman’s 

office made them do it. I ask who holds these managers accountable? Chairman Jaczko? 

We at the NRC are at a crossroads. Apparently, the NRC’s senior 

leadership is ineffective in upholding the integrity of this Agency. 

Politics are influencing some of the NRC’s staff’s work. The question is, could politics at some point affect the staff’s technical and 

regulatory findings and decisions? This is not where an independent safety organization should be. If the NRC were to find any 

of our licensees so lacking, we would require of them a corrective 

action plan. We should hold ourselves at least to the same standards. The NRC needs to enact a corrective action plan. 

I cannot overemphasize the importance of your oversight role. If 

it were not for your oversight, much of what has been revealed 

would remain behind closed doors. Given the recent revelations, I 

am not sure that you, the oversight Committee, made up of the 

representatives of the citizens of United States of America, entrust 

us at the NRC to always be and remain objective, independent and 

credible to ensure the health and safety of the American public. We 

need to re-earn your trust. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mohseni follows:] 

26 

27 

28 

29 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Mohseni. Now I would like to turn 

to Mr. Lawrence Kokajko, Acting Deputy Director for the Office of 

Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards at the NRC. Sir, again, 

your full statement is in the record. You have 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE E. KOKAJKO 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Green, and members of the Subcommittee, my name is Lawrence 

Kokajko, and I am honored to appear before you today to provide 

my perspective on those internal NRC issues—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Can you check—— 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Perspective on those internal issues—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And I hate to interrupt you. Maybe pull it a little 

bit closer to you. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Hello? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. That is much better. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Thank you. I will just start over, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Green, and members of the subcommittee, my name is Lawrence Kokajko, and I am honored to appear before you today to provide my perspective on those internal 

issues associated with the review of the Department of Energy’s license application for the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, 

Nevada. 

Currently, I am the acting Deputy Office Director for the Office 

of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, although my official position is the Director of the Division of High-Level Waste Repository Safety. I have been with the NRC since 1989, and I have regulatory experience in reactors, materials and waste. 

I had always wanted to be associated with a program of national 

significance, and when the opportunity to be the Director presented 

itself, I enthusiastically accepted. Part of my enthusiasm was due 

to the repository safety staff itself. All employees of the NRC are 

dedicated to its mission to assure safety, security and environmental protection, and the members of the repository safety division are no exception. 

Moreover, in 1987, agency leadership, with great foresight, contracted with the Southwest Research Institute that organized the 

Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses as the NRC’s only 

federally funded research and development center and to be a conflict-of-interest-free entity. Both the NRC and Center employees 

have expertise in geological and related sciences and engineering, 

and they are dedicated professionals that have spent decades in 

preparation for this application. 

Besides wanting to work on a program of national significance, 

I wanted to work with these talented professionals. I recognized 

their unique set of knowledge, skills and abilities and the challenging subject matter and context for this important major Federal action. Quite frankly, I am very concerned about the loss of 

this disposal expertise as spent nuclear fuel continues to increase 

and the U.S. program is now uncertain. I hasten to add that geologic disposal remains the internationally recognized means to isolate high-level radioactive waste for very long time periods. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency, 

and as such, the agency has the responsibility to demonstrate this 

30 

independence by openness and transparency in its deliberations 

and decision making. This can be displayed by collaborating and 

assuring all information is available and discussed. Agency independence and internal processes should be jealously guarded, and 

the appearance of political influence in such deliberations and decision-making should be avoided at all costs. 

Given that the Congress did not amend the Nuclear Waste Policy 

Act or enact other legislation to discontinue development of Yucca 

Mountain, other legitimate internal processes could have occurred. 

For example, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board could have 

agreed that the Department of Energy could withdraw the repository application; the Commission itself could have overturned the 

June 29, 2010, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board’s decision 

promptly; or alternatively, the collective Commission could have 

decided through a vote and subsequent staff requirements memorandum that the staff should formally suspend its review pending 

legislative or other adjudicatory action. 

Staff would have willingly followed any outcome from a faithfully 

executed legitimate process. Until such decision, staff was under 

the distinct impression that it could continue its safety review as 

long as sufficient funding existed. Further, I would go so far to say 

that many think as I do, the Nation paid for this review, and the 

Nation should get it. 

I would like to have seen the Commission act collegially to address this issue. As noted in the recent Office of Inspector General 

report, the decision to close the program by the end of fiscal year 

2011 was made without the entire Commission being fully informed or acting in concert. When this became apparent, executive 

staff leadership should have acted as a brake to afford the Commission information and time to assess and develop appropriate program direction. This would have enabled more budget and program 

information to rise to the entire Commission and would have precluded decisions based on incomplete information or perception. 

Regardless of the NRC’s evaluation of the technical merits of the 

application, the staff takes no position on actual construction and 

operation of a proposed repository. Ultimately, it is up to the Congress to determine whether to build and operate the facility. Any 

such national policy decision by Congress would be based upon the 

science and engineering performed by the Department of Energy 

and the subsequent safety evaluation and adjudication by the NRC, 

assuring that this meets the standards set by the Environmental 

Protection Agency. 

NRC requires complete and accurate information in all material 

respects in relation to the repository license application. The Department of Energy has not identified a safety defect in the application; thus, it remains valid and before the NRC. I believe science 

and the scientific process must inform and guide NRC’s regulatory 

decision making. I further believe we have been open and transparent with our stakeholders with regard to our regulatory duties 

as this Chairman and this Commission have emphasized. Technical 

staff associated with this program are dismayed by what has happened thus far, and we would hope the day comes soon when we 

can return to being boring regulators. 

31 

For the record, this is not meant to be a pejorative remark. Our 

mission and our work are vitally important to the Nation, and we 

take our responsibility seriously. The Agency should always be in 

the background as the fundamental pillar, assuring safety as our 

number one priority, keeping in mind that we must be ever vigilant. This is not exciting work to many, but we all appreciate our 

roles as Federal employees, assuring the safety of our fellow citizens. This current situation is distracting and does the Agency and 

its people no good. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kokajko follows:] 

32 

33 

34 

35 

36 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. And we will now turn to Ms. Catherine 

Haney, Director of the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards at the NRC. Again, your full statement is in the record. You 

have 5 minutes and welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF CATHERINE HANEY 

Ms. HANEY. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Shimkus and 

Ranking Member Green and members of the subcommittee. I am 

Catherine Haney. I am the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards at the NRC. I have held this position 

since May 10 of 2010, previously serving as Deputy Director in the 

office. I am responsible for management and oversight of three program areas at NRC, the fuel cycle safety and safeguards, spent fuel 

storage and transportation and high level waste repository safety. 

I am here today to discuss our activities regarding the NRC’s 

regulatory oversight of the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository. 

The Department of Energy submitted a license application in 

June 2008 to seek authorization to construct the geologic repository 

at Yucca Mountain. The NRC accepted the application for review 

in September 2008 and commenced a two-pronged review process, 

first, the technical review of the license application by the NRC 

staff and second, a hearing process before the Atomic Safety and 

Licensing Board. The results of the staff’s technical evaluation are 

to be documented in a Safety Evaluation Report. 

Before I was appointed by the Commission to the position of Office Director in May 2010, the Department of Energy had filed a 

motion to withdraw the Yucca Mountain application before the 

Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. As a result, my predecessor 

had directed the staff to start planning an orderly closure as a contingency and for documenting the licensing review while we continued our development of the remaining volumes of the Safety Evaluation Report. At the end of June 2010, the Licensing Board denied 

DOE’s request to withdraw the license application. This decision by 

the Board has been under review by the Commission since early 

July 2010. The staff issued Volume 1 of the safety evaluation review in August 2010. 

Over the course of the remainder of fiscal year 2010, my staff 

continued with the licensing review and the preparation of an orderly closure plan in case the Commission overturned the Board’s 

June 2010 decision or the Congress enacted the appropriations requested by the President in the 2011 budget. 

For fiscal year 2011, the President’s budget requested $10 million for the close-out of the high level waste program and no funds 

from the Nuclear Waste Fund for the Department of Energy’s highlevel waste program. On October 1, 2010, while operating under a 

continuing resolution and consistent with direction from the Chairman, we began a process of transitioning to close-out of the Yucca 

Mountain program. Specifically, we began the process of documenting and preserving the staff’s review, which included converting the remaining volumes of the draft Safety Evaluation Report into a Technical Evaluation Report. The objective of the TER 

is to capture the knowledge gained during the last 30 years in preparing for and conducting the Yucca Mountain licensing review. It 

37 

is our belief that by thoroughly documenting the staff’s technical 

review and preserving it as appropriate for publication and public 

use, the agency will be best positioned to respond to future direction from the Commission, Congress or the courts. 

I believe this action was consistent with Commission policy, the 

general principles of appropriations law, and applicable guidance 

from the Office of Management and Budget and the Government 

Accountability Office on expenditure of funds under continuing resolutions. 

In September 2010, my staff began to draft a memo to the Commission that would provide an update on the Yucca Mountain Program. The scope and purpose of the memorandum evolved over a 

number of weeks as external and agency internal factors, such as 

budget parameters, individual Commissioner and Commission actions, and inquiries from Congress extended the dialogue regarding 

the future of the Yucca Mountain program. On February 4, I 

signed this memorandum that provided the information I felt needed to be conveyed to the Commission to keep the Commission fully 

and currently informed. That memorandum outlined with some 

specificity the various actions completed, underway and planned. 

These included converting the remaining volumes of the Safety 

Evaluation Report into a Technical Evaluation Report; secondly, 

archiving the institutional, regulatory and technical information 

amassed over nearly 3 decades of evaluation of Yucca Mountain; 

redirecting the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis to 

focus its Yucca Mountain-related efforts on the preservation of 

knowledge and records management; continuing to support the Office of General Counsel on any adjudicatory hearing-related matters; videotaping interviews with departing and other senior technical staff for knowledge; initiating discussions with the General 

Services Administration and other government agencies about preparatory activities to close and decommission the Las Vegas Hearing Facility; and lastly, keeping the Licensing Board informed of 

the status of the staff’s application review activities. 

Our efforts to thoroughly document and capture the knowledge 

from our Yucca Mountain activities continue, with a goal of completing these activities by the end of fiscal year 2011. No resources 

have been requested for this activity in fiscal year 2012. 

As we have been proceeding with the orderly closure of the Yucca 

Mountain regulatory program, we have also been implementing our 

strategy for integrated spent fuel management. Given the expected 

delay in the availability of a repository for high-level waste, the 

Nation will accumulate an increasing inventory of spent nuclear 

fuel. Consistent with NRC’s mission of ensuring safety and security, the NRC’s objective in this strategy is to develop the regulatory tools, analyses and data needed to evaluate and support the 

safe and secure management of this increasing inventory. We are 

pursuing this strategy in collaboration with a broad array of external stakeholders. 

And this completes my prepared remarks. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Haney follows:] 

38 

39 

40 

41 

42 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you very much. Thank you all for your 

statements and your testimony. Before we go to questions, I ask 

unanimous consent that the contents of the document binder be introduced into the record and to authorize staff to make any appropriate redactions. Without objections, the documents will be entered into the record with any redactions the staff determines are 

appropriate. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, may I ask just a parliamentary 

question? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. You are risking it but you can. 

Mr. BARTON. We have a document before us that says ‘‘not for 

public disclosure.’’ Is that just for the Members’ review or are we 

allowed to refer to it in the questioning? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. That submission is part of what is in the document 

binder, and you can refer to it. 

Mr. BARTON. We can refer to it? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you. Now I would like to recognize myself 

for the first 5-minute round of questioning. 

Let me start with you, Dr. Kotra. Just to be clear, the division 

of high-legal waste repository safety is responsible for providing the 

technical analysis of the Yucca Mountain license application. Is 

that correct? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So this is really where the bread and butter work 

on the license review is done, correct? 

Ms. KOTRA. Yes, in coordination with our dedicated contractor at 

the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analysis as Mr. Kokajko 

explained. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And why is it important that the staff perform 

their work objectively and in a non-partisan manner? 

Ms. KOTRA. I think it is absolutely vital that the decision makers 

have at their disposal a decision based upon science, objective, unbiased assessment of the applications put before the Commission 

for any facility based upon the principles of science, physics and 

evaluated against the Commission’s regulations. That is how this 

Agency has operated for over 35 years. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And you have been there—— 

Ms. KOTRA. Twenty-seven years. 

Mr. SHIMKUS [continuing]. A big part of that 35 years? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is correct. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. In your testimony, you also spend a considerable 

amount of time in public outreach about the Agency’s work on 

Yucca review, is that correct? And what is the message about the 

NRC regulatory process that you have attempted to convey to the 

public? 

Ms. KOTRA. Our independence, our transparency, our willingness 

to be open to contentions from parties that, yes, we do as thorough 

and as objective a review as our great body of scientists and staff 

and contractors will allow, but that is now sufficient that our rules 

allow for a full and open and non-partisan, impartial hearing process where those parties are free to bring forward criticisms not just 

of what the applicant provides but also what the staff finds in its 

independent review. And if those are admitted to the hearing and 

43 

as you well know, the vast majority of over 318 contentions were 

admitted by the hearing board, and we were prepared to go forward and adjudicate those in our hearing process. So what I told 

the stakeholders in southern Nevada and in California was if there 

is merit and those contentions are backed by science and engineering evidence and witnesses, then the board hears those, and on 

those occasions when the staff is wrong, the Board may find 

against the staff. And that is OK. That is how the process is supposed to work. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Your message really rests on integrity. 

Ms. KOTRA. Absolutely. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So when it comes to integrity of the process, do 

you believe that the actions by the NRC leadership over the past 

year have affected the integrity of the NRC? 

Ms. KOTRA. I think it has cast a very serious cloud on that, and 

it troubles me deeply. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Do you believe the actions by leadership at the 

NRC have undermined what you have tried to convey to the public? 

Ms. KOTRA. It is stark contrast to what I have tried to convey 

to the public, yes, sir. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So let me just turn to Dr. Stablein, Dr. Mohseni, 

Dr. Kokajko. Do you agree with this initial round of questioning on 

NRC on integrity and that there is now a question of the entire 

NRC process based upon leadership? Dr. Stablein? 

Mr. STABLEIN. I definitely do. This is one of the things that we 

are fighting to get back. 

In the 27 years I have been with the Agency, we have been very 

proud of a couple of things: our independence from political pressures and our scientific integrity and the integrity of our process 

to protect the public health and safety. I think that has slipped, 

and we are in danger of losing that. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Mohseni? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I do agree. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Kokajko? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Right. Thank you. I can’t speculate on other parts 

of the NRC, but I have always felt that if you could be turned in 

one area, you can be turned in another. So I do have some concerns. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The NRC is still a Federal agency. A lot of employees in diverse areas. Is this specific to your area or is this feeling 

being spread throughout the entire NRC? 

Ms. KOTRA. Is that a question—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. It is whoever would like to respond. 

Ms. KOTRA. I would just say that my area of expertise and experience, at least recently, at least since 1993, is confined to the division of high-level waste repository safety. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Anyone else like to? My time is expired, and I 

would like to recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Green, from 

Texas for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like I said earlier, I 

would like to thank each of you for coming before us today because 

I have a concern about the decision that was made or hasn’t been 

made but the actions that have been taken based on what is hapVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00047 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
44 

pening at the Yucca Mountain, and that is why this Subcommittee 

is looking at it. 

And I appreciate you as career employees. I know most of you 

have been with the Agency since the late ’80s, early ’90s, so you 

have actually served under four different Presidents. 

Ms. Haney, I know you became Deputy Director in May of 2010. 

How long have you been with the Agency? 

Ms. HANEY. A little over 20 years. I started in 1981, served 2 

years with the Agency, worked as a consultant for 6 years and then 

came back in the late ’80s, and since 1989 I have been employed 

with the Agency. So I, too, have as long a record as my colleagues 

at the table. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. I guess my concern is that the American people, 

we expect you to do your job, and you have been there for all these 

years. Has there ever been, that any of you can remember, something like what has happened at the Commission that there was 

a decision made based on a continuing resolution? I don’t have any 

doubt that it was legal, but again, Congress made the decision 

years ago to decide on Yucca Mountain, and we haven’t done as 

good a job as, you know, you testified in providing funding. But the 

decision was made to not officially withdraw the application but to 

do everything you could by shutting it down. Do you remember any 

other chair or anything else in your experience since the late ’80s? 

Ms. KOTRA. I can recall of no precedent for this action, sir. 

Mr. STABLEIN. It is unprecedented in my experience. 

Mr. MOHSENI. I do not recall, but it doesn’t mean I am aware of 

everything that has happened in the Agency. But for something 

that has become so apparent, so critical, so much challenge internally by all of us, including Ms. Haney, we all challenged that decision when it first arrived. So it is not like there is precedence for 

it and we would have accepted it based on precedence, at least in 

my memory that it never came up that there is a basis for such 

a redirection under a continuing resolution when you have carryover funds that carry you into the next year. And almost every year 

we have had continuing resolutions but none that would have done 

such a dramatic redirection in a major national program. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No, sir. 

Mr. GREEN. Yes, sir? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No, sir, I don’t recall anything similar in the past, 

and I have worked for very short times in the Executive Director’s 

Office as well as Commission offices. 

Mr. GREEN. Ms. Haney, in your—— 

Ms. HANEY. I am not aware of any, either. 

Mr. GREEN. Ms. Haney, let me ask you about your memo of February the 4th. This memo outlines the status of NRC staff work on 

the closure of Yucca Mountain licensing review and appears several 

times in the witness testimony. When you first decided to write the 

memo to the Commission in last year, what was its purpose? 

Ms. HANEY. When I first worked with staff to develop the memo, 

it was probably in the early September timeframe, and at that 

point, we did not have any guidance from either the Executive Director of Operations or from the Commission level with regards to 

the future of the program. I was aware of statements in the budget 

statements in the document for the fiscal year 2012 budget. So conVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
45 

sistent with what past practice, I thought it was prudent to prepare a status memo to the Commission telling them that we—just 

reinforcing our March memo to them that we could plan to use 

carry-over funds from fiscal year 2010 into 2011 to complete the 

Safety Evaluation Report. And by doing that I would take it to the 

Commission, give them the opportunity to know what our plans 

were. If they had a differing view, they could, through internal procedures, let staff know of that. 

Mr. GREEN. I only have 5 minutes, but last fall with the developments regarding the direction of high-level waste, the Chairman 

told the staff to begin closure of Yucca Mountain licensing review 

and stop work on the safety evaluations. Commissioner Ostendorff 

asked the Commission to overturn it, but it failed. Did these events 

change the purpose and scope of your memo? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Mohseni, the suggestion in your testimony that 

you quote senior managers directed the staff to suppress information to the Commission by providing a status report instead of a 

policy report on the closure of Yucca Mountain. Ms. Haney, how 

did you respond to that? Did anyone direct you to suppress information to the Commission? 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. GREEN. Dr. Kotra, you expressed in your testimony the final 

version of the memo implied that the NRC staff was who decided 

to terminate the NRC’s review of the license application. Is that 

one of the reasons you cite for submitting the formal non-concurrence with the memo? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is the primary reason that I submitted a nonconcurrence, sir. 

Mr. GREEN. OK. I assumed it was common knowledge the Chairman made the decision to close down the program? 

Ms. KOTRA. Not initially. 

Mr. GREEN. Dr. Kotra, does anyone at NRC or the Commission 

really believe that this was the technical staff’s decision? 

Ms. KOTRA. Certainly not now. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I know I am over my time but one, I appreciate you being here. I am frustrated because we spent $15 

billion in a decision made by Congress in the 1980s, for good or 

bad, and we are just throwing that out and starting over again. 

So, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the time. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I thank my colleague. I would like to turn now to 

the chairman emeritus, Mr. Barton, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BARTON. I am going to try to do it in 5 minutes. It is going 

to be difficult. I first just have some general housekeeping questions. I assume that you all are all SES employees? 

Ms. KOTRA. No, sir. 

Mr. STABLEIN. I am not. 

Mr. MOHSENI. I am. 

Mr. BARTON. Let us start over again. What are you? Each of you 

explain your status, the type of employee you are at the NRC. 

Ms. KOTRA. I am a senior-level project manager, technical staff. 

I am not an SES employee. 

Mr. BARTON. Is anybody here a political appointee? 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

46 

Mr. STABLEIN. No. 

Mr. MOHSENI. No. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No. 

Ms. KOTRA. No. 

Mr. BARTON. So you are all hired based on merit and you can be 

fired based on merit according to whatever the protocol is on review, is that correct? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is correct. 

Mr. BARTON. Who is the highest ranking person here? 

Ms. HANEY. I am. 

Mr. BARTON. And you are a—— 

Ms. HANEY. I am a Senior Executive Service Office Director. 

Mr. BARTON. You are an Office Director? 

Ms. HANEY. Correct. 

Mr. BARTON. Who is the next highest? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. That would be me. 

Mr. BARTON. And what are you, sir? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. I am a Senior Executive Service Member. I am 

currently the Acting Director for the Office, Acting Deputy Director 

for the Office. 

Mr. BARTON. So you report to Ms. Haney? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Yes, I do. 

Mr. BARTON. Who is next? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I am next. I am an SES member as well, and I 

am the Acting Division Director, permanently as a Deputy Division 

Director. 

Mr. BARTON. Are you equivalent to Dr. Kokajko? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Dr. Kokajko would be my Division Director regularly, but he has moved to an Acting Deputy Director due to the 

Japanese event. And I have backfield behind him as the Acting Division Director. I report to him generally in the division. 

Mr. BARTON. You report to him and he reports to her? 

Mr. MOHSENI. He reports to Cathy. 

Mr. BARTON. What about you, sir? 

Mr. STABLEIN. I am a grade 15 Branch Chief. That is non-SES, 

and I report directly to Mr. Mohseni. 

Mr. BARTON. So it is just kind of going right up. And then you 

are the low lady on the totem pole? 

Ms. KOTRA. I most certainly am. I am a grade 15 Senior Staff. 

I report to Dr. Stablein, and I have no one reporting to me. 

Mr. BARTON. Ms. Haney, who do you report to? 

Ms. HANEY. I report to the Deputy Director of Operations, Michael Weber. 

Mr. BARTON. And who does he report to? 

Ms. HANEY. To the Executive Director of Operations which is Bill 

Borchardt. 

Mr. BARTON. And who does he report to? 

Ms. HANEY. At that point, you move onto the Commission level 

and he reports to them. 

Mr. BARTON. So you are two levels below the Commission? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. BARTON. So you would normally, even at your level, you have 

no day-to-day interaction with the Commission staff? 

Ms. HANEY. On a day-to-day—— 

47 

Mr. BARTON. With a Commissioner? 

Ms. HANEY. With a Commissioner? Typically on a frequency of 

once to every other month I meet on a one-on-one basis with a 

Commissioner or with the Chairman. 

Mr. BARTON. Does everybody here consider yourself to be outside 

politics? I mean, you are professionals. Whatever the job is, you do 

it, and you let the presidentially appointed Commissioners and 

their political appointees handle the politics. Is that a fair statement? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes? 

Mr. BARTON. Everybody agrees? 

Ms. KOTRA. Yes. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Mohseni, we have a document that is listed not 

for public disclosure that was sent from you to Ms. Haney. It is apparently now going to be in the public record. Is that with or without your permission? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I did not release it myself. 

Mr. BARTON. So it is without your permission? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. BARTON. And it is sent to you, Ms. Haney, so I assume it has 

been released without your permission? 

Ms. HANEY. Correct. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Mr. Mohseni, this is a pretty, to me, an unusual document. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. If the gentleman will yield for a second? It is Tab 

6 in the document binder that we submitted into the record. 

Mr. BARTON. You disagree with the decision not to approve the 

Technical Evaluation Report as written for publication. I also disagree with the need to revise the TER which is Technical Evaluation Report. Did you feel when you wrote this that this might have 

some negative consequences on you? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Me? 

Mr. BARTON. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, I did. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. And when you received it, Ms. Haney, did you 

feel like that you needed to respond fairly emphatically or that you 

would be put under some pressure from higher-ups? 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. BARTON. You felt no pressure? 

Ms. HANEY. The pressure is coming from I have a desire to have 

the Technical Evaluation Report released to the public. So the pressure comes from an internal desire to make that document publically available, and as written, I was not comfortable with it 

being released to the public. So the pressure comes with regards 

to the document, not with regards to any of the content of the 

memo. 

Mr. BARTON. My 5 minutes is already expired. Let me ask one 

final question. Do you all feel like the Chairman at NRC is acting 

appropriately within the statute with what he has done to try to 

shut Yucca Mountain down? That is a straight question. 

Mr. MOHSENI. I do not agree with his decision of bypassing the 

rest of the Commission and making this decision as a policy decision where the entire Commission would have actually vetted this 

48 

decision, this important decision. The reasons I have that the law 

has not changed—— 

Mr. BARTON. We don’t have time for your reasons. 

Mr. MOHSENI. OK. Well, I disagree with the Chairman’s decision 

to move—— 

Mr. BARTON. Ms. Haney, do you—— 

Ms. HANEY. I believe he is within his legal authority to make the 

decisions he has made. 

Mr. BARTON. Without the other Commissioners’ approval? You 

think the Chairman himself has that authority? 

Ms. HANEY. Based on the knowledge and the reasons that he has 

provided for making that decision, yes. 

Mr. BARTON. What about you, Mr. Kokajko? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. No, sir. I disagree with the Chairman on this. I 

would have preferred that the NRC implement its internal processes which are available to make this decision. I think it is of profound national significance, and it should have been done much 

more openly and—— 

Mr. BARTON. Dr. Stablein, what is your position? 

Mr. STABLEIN. I also believe that the entire Commission should 

have had the opportunity to weigh in on such a major decision, and 

in fact, the IG report indicates had they weighed in, the decision 

would have come out differently. 

Mr. BARTON. OK, and Dr. Kotra? 

Ms. KOTRA. Earlier in my career, I served on the staff of two 

Commissioners and did a rotation for a third, and in all my experience working for political appointees in the NRC, I have never seen 

a policy decision of this magnitude handled in this manner. I disagree with this decision treated unilaterally by a Chairman. It 

should have been a Commission decision. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the 

courtesy of letting me go over 2 minutes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The Chair now recognizes the chairman emeritus, 

Mr. Waxman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like 

to discuss some of the allegations raised in the witness testimony 

against Chairman Jaczko and senior managers at the NRC. 

Mr. Mohseni alleges in his statement that, ‘‘senior managers contributed to the manipulation of the budget process to apparently 

make sure that the Yucca Mountain project would be left unfunded.’’ Mr. Stablein called Chairman Jaczko’s decision to terminate the licensing review process, ‘‘the arbitrary decision of one individual.’’ These statements appear to leave out important players 

in this ongoing saga. 

In February of last year, the Obama administration announced 

that it planned to shut down the Yucca Mountain project. Not long 

after that, Secretary of Energy asked to withdraw the Yucca Mountain license application from NRC review. Ms. Haney, is that correct? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. In 2010, the NRC approved its budget justification 

for fiscal year 2011 stating that it would use its funding to begin 

an orderly closure of the Yucca Mountain licensing activities. For 

fiscal year 2012, NRC requested $4 million to terminate the licensVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00052 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
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ing review. The Commission approved that budget request as well. 

Ms. Haney, is that your understanding? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. In addition, after the Chairman told the staff to 

close out the Yucca Mountain licensing review last fall, Commissioner Ostendorff called a vote to direct staff to proceed with the 

license review and finish the Safety Evaluation Reports. That vote 

failed when a majority of Commissioners opted not to participate. 

Ms. Haney, is that your understanding? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And Congress has weighed in as well. In April, 

Congress passed a continuing resolution that zeroed out funding for 

Yucca Mountain at DOE and allocated $10 million to NRC to close 

out the license review. I would note that both Chairman Shimkus 

and Chairman Upton voted for the CR and did not offer or even 

file an amendment to restore funding for Yucca Mountain. Despite 

the record, Mr. Mohseni alleges in his testimony that there is a 

conspiracy among senior management at NRC to do the political 

bidding of Chairman Jaczko. So I will ask the question. Ms. Haney, 

has the Chairman or his staff ever directed you or asked you to direct staff to change or suppress technical findings on Yucca Mountain? 

Ms. HANEY. The Chairman has never asked that. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you. I can understand why many of you are 

frustrated and upset by the end of this program after 4 years of 

hard work. While some may disagree with Chairman Jaczko’s decision to close down Yucca Mountain licensing review, it was hardly 

an arbitrary decision. The Commission and Congress voted on several occasions to move forwards with the closure, it wasn’t the 

Chairman alone. It was the Secretary of Energy and the President 

of the United States and the Congress of the United States that decided to end the Yucca Mountain project, and that is where we 

stand at the moment. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Will the gentleman yield just for one second, just 

to follow up on a question? 

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The question you asked Ms. Haney, and she is 

under oath, the question that you asked, did the Chairman or staff. 

Her response was, the Chairman did not. Can she answer the question whether staff had ever given her direction? I mean, that is 

what your question was, to Chairman and staff. Ms. Haney, your 

response was, and you are under oath, your response was the 

Chairman has not. 

Ms. HANEY. Nor has the staff. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. OK. Thank you. 

Ms. HANEY. But if given the opportunity with regards to—I am 

interpreting suppress to be to change technical findings, we did receive direction from the Chairman with regards to when we would 

issue technical documents as noted in Dr. Stablein’s testimony. But 

am I answering that the Chairman or the staff did not give me. 

That is my interpretation of suppression, that he did not suppress 

technical information. 

Mr. WAXMAN. But he did ask you or his staff asked you to do 

what? 

50 

Ms. HANEY. With regards to the timing of the Safety Evaluation 

Report being issued at the times we had told the Board that we 

would issue them, and my reference is back to Dr. Stablein’s testimony. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And is that something unusual for the Chairman 

to talk about the timing and direct the timing of release of certain— 

Ms. HANEY. It is unusual, but again, I believe it is consistent 

with the authorities that he has as Chairman. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much. I yield back my time, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Thank you, Mr. Waxman, for letting me intervene. 

The Chair now recognizes the vice chair, Mr. Murphy, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Mohseni, I read the Inspector General’s report, 

and it seems that some NRC executives anticipated that during the 

continuing resolution in the fall of 2010 your department would 

continue its work on Yucca and the Safety Evaluation Report. 

Allow me to read it for you. ‘‘The Deputy Executive Director wanted to convey in the CR budget guidance memorandum that the 

staff would use FY 2010 carryover funds in fiscal year 2011 to 

move ahead with license application review activities until they 

had a final decision from the Commission. This was a language the 

Deputy Executive Director originally inserted into early draft 

versions of the CR budget guidance memorandum.’’ Meaning there 

was money left over. I repeat, there was money left over to continue with the Safety Evaluation Report and review of the Department of Energy application while the Commissioners deliberated on 

whether to uphold or vacate the Atomic Safety and Licensing 

Board decision. This language was ultimately removed. Is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That is correct. 

Mr. MURPHY. Is it your opinion that Chairman Jaczko directed 

the removal of this language? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I don’t know personally for sure, but circumstantial evidence suggests that. 

Mr. MURPHY. Is it your opinion that by removing that language, 

the Chairman was undermining the Agency’s independent work at 

Yucca? 

Mr. MOHSENI. There is a connection there to be made. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Mohseni, the Director, Catherine Haney here, 

has testified that on October 1, 2010, while the NRC, like all government agencies, was operating under a continuing resolution, the 

Department began to convert the remaining volumes of the Safety 

Evaluation Report into a technical advisory document devoid of scientific findings. Is there a difference between a safety evaluation 

report and technical evaluation report in terms of what they mean 

for policymakers? Is there a difference in content? 

Mr. MOHSENI. There is. 

Mr. MURPHY. All right. Is it true that a technical evaluation report would lack scientific findings and conclusions reached by the 

Department in your work? 

Mr. MOHSENI. The Safety Evaluation Report would have regulatory compliance findings. It would also have a technical assessVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
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ment. The technical evaluation report would just have the technical 

assessment without the regulatory compliance. 

Mr. MURPHY. So if you were directed to do one and not the other, 

there would be a distinct difference in content between the two documents, am I correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. And it is possible that the safety evaluation report 

could contain information that would validate Yucca and dispel 

safety concerns, am I correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Correct. 

Mr. MURPHY. So if you were told not to do a safety evaluation 

report but to do a technical evaluation report, there would be direct 

suppression of data, am I correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, from a licensing standpoint, the ultimate decision for the Nation was whether or not it meets the regulation. 

So that piece of information would not be available. 

Mr. MURPHY. So is it your opinion that the Chairman of the NRC 

specifically directed the staff in your department to delay publication of a Safety Evaluation Report until after he published a budget memorandum that would end your department’s work? Am I correct in that? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Let me just rephrase that, if you don’t mind. 

Mr. MURPHY. Real quick. I have a whole bunch of questions. 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, the Safety Evaluation Report is tied to our 

litigation process, and the timing of release of that would have 

been consistent with what we had announced to the board. And the 

intervention by the Chairman put us off course. 

Mr. MURPHY. Mr. Mohseni, you recently appealed to the full 

Commission to intervene in connection with your concerns about 

manipulation and suppression of staff information. This is what we 

have in Tab 7 there, what appears to be a copy of that petition. 

That is what you filed? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MURPHY. What led you to do this, real quick? 

Mr. MOHSENI. The Technical Evaluation Report was complete 

March 31 as we had announced, and I was the final signatory on 

it. And we provided it to the front office, and 2 months later we 

got the direction that I think you heard the witnesses here that we 

were not authorized to release it unless it was revised. 

Mr. MURPHY. You wrote in this document, ‘‘In this division alone 

I have witnessed the suppression and manipulation of programmatic and budgetary information to meet a politicized agenda.’’ Is it your belief that this direction came from Mr. Jaczko? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Although I don’t have direct evidence, but it seems 

like it is the same agenda. 

Mr. MURPHY. All right. In your testimony you referenced the political pressures, manipulation of our scientific and licensing process that would come with the appointment of Chairman Jaczko. Do 

you believe the source of problems of the Agency today stemmed 

from Chairman Jaczko’s behavior and actions? 

Mr. MOHSENI. The source might be there, but he couldn’t do it 

alone if there were not enablers. 

Mr. MURPHY. I am a psychologist. I am familiar with enabling. 

I would like to read to you a couple statement from his speech and 

52 

see if you are in agreement with this. This is regarding the mission 

statement of NRC. The NRC must foster initiatives that seek to 

further the culture within our own staff by encouraging programs 

such as differing professional opinions. Would you agree with that? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MURPHY. Do you think that culture exists in this situation? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I have tested it, and so far I am still sitting here 

before you, so—— 

Mr. MURPHY. All right. But the culture of being allowed to have 

these professional opinions coming to an official NRC report seems 

to be tainted. How about this one? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. How about this one, too, the process of the Commission uses to make policy decisions should always be open, accessible and well-understood by all. But the law as Congress has 

passed, the President signed into law, it says the Chairman and 

the Executive Director of Operations to the Chairman, shall be responsible for ensuring the Commission is fully and currently informed about matters within its functions. Yet, it appears by directing the report to be done in one way and not the other, it 

seemed to be in violation of that law. Would you agree? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, I agree. 

Mr. MURPHY. One more statement, Mr. Chairman. Would it surprise you those quotes I read you were made by Mr. Jaczko himself 

in 2005? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. MURPHY. I would like to submit this for the record, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Is there objection? Hearing none, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 

58 

59 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania, Mr. Pitts, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Mohseni, to continue, 

you state your belief that ‘‘At the direction of the Chairman and 

with the aid of some senior managers, the disclosure to the rest of 

the Commission of the staff’s views on the impacts of budget cuts 

and allocations was suppressed.’’ What were these views briefly? 

Mr. MOHSENI. We had prepared responses to inquiries by individual Commissioners and by inquiries from Members of Congress. 

And we the staff were the first people to actually try to address 

those questions. As they were sent up through the chain, it had to 

be cleared at the Chairman’s office, and then the answers that 

went out were quite different than the ones we had forwarded. 

Mr. PITTS. Mr. Mohseni, why would the Chairman and certain 

senior managers seek to silence the staff’s views on the impacts of 

budget cuts and allocations? 

Mr. MOHSENI. In retrospect, after the IG report, I can actually 

say that it is very clear that, in fact, to keep the others in the dark 

so that the decision would not be hampered to shut down the program. 

Mr. PITTS. Isn’t it true that keeping the full Commission fully 

and currently informed is a statutory requirement? 

Mr. MOHSENI. It is indeed. 

Mr. PITTS. Why is it important that the full Commission have an 

opportunity to hear the views of its dedicated and most experienced 

professional staff? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Because the Commission’s policy-making body 

heavily relies on the best information available to them to make 

policy. Once the staff deprives the full Commission of getting the 

full benefit of the thinking of the staff in terms of the options that 

the Commission has and the recommendation from the staff, it undermines the functionality of the Commission, and you will at best 

come up with an inadequate policy because you did not support 

with full information the integrity of the process by providing them 

with the best advice possible. 

Mr. PITTS. Dr. Kotra and Dr. Stablein, Mr. Mohseni, if you will 

each respond, to what extent does NRC senior leadership contribute to problems of keeping information fully and currently from 

the Commission? And if you can provide a specific example of this 

happening to you with regard to providing information to the Commission about Yucca Mountain? 

Ms. KOTRA. Well, to the extent that I am given assignments to 

draft information that is going to go forward to the Commission, 

I have to satisfy the concurrence chain that goes up through my 

management. And ordinarily, there is a chain that starts at the 

bottom and goes to the top. The regular procedure that I had to follow in the memo that we have discussed here today was coming directly from the Deputy Director of Operations reaching down to my 

level and making changes in the draft that would be seen by multiple layers above me is now how it is supposed to work. Basically, 

the draft that was supposed to go through the concurrence chain 

in an orderly progression was not allowed to happen. There were 

over 100 different electronic drafts that were entered into our electronic recordkeeping system before this memo went forward to the 

60 

Commission, and much of that was to incorporate changes that 

were provided, I am told, you know, through this iterative process, 

and I don’t know this directly, but it was through meetings that 

my office director had with the Deputy Director for Operations, and 

I could only surmise that this direction was coming from the Chairman’s office. 

Mr. PITTS. The chair emeritus wants to—— 

Mr. BARTON. The Deputy Director of Operations reports to the 

Director of Operations who I assume reports to the Chairman? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is correct. 

Mr. BARTON. Or to the Commission? 

Ms. KOTRA. That is correct. 

Mr. BARTON. At those two levels, are those political appointees 

or are they civil service? 

Ms. KOTRA. They are career civil servants, but they report directly to the Chairman. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. PITTS. Dr. Stablein, would you respond? 

Mr. STABLEIN. The best example that I have is also this memo 

that Dr. Kotra worked on because as her supervisor, I agonized 

with her over these changes we were forced to make. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. Mr. Mohseni, would you respond? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Same. 

Mr. PITTS. All right. Ms. Haney, you supervise the other panelists appearing here today, right? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. PITTS. How do you respond to the concerns expressed by 

these senior NRC staff that the Commission is not getting full information? 

Ms. HANEY. To the best of my knowledge, I believe the Commission was getting the information. Now after the IG report is out, 

there are things that would call that into question. But at the time 

we were working on that memo and I was the one that was directing the content of the memo with input from the Deputy Director 

of Operations, I felt the Commission was aware based on my periodic meetings with the Commissioners. 

Mr. PITTS. Well, knowing what you know as Director and knowing what the Commission does not know, do you think all policy 

and budget matters concerning the Yucca license activity have adequately been communicated to the Commission? 

Ms. HANEY. I do believe that. 

Mr. PITTS. What is the reaction of the other three of you? 

Ms. KOTRA. I find that hard to believe. 

Mr. MOHSENI. I specifically asked that question yesterday of at 

least one Commissioner, and I previously asked the others. The answer was no, we have not. 

Mr. PITTS. Dr. Stablein? 

Mr. STABLEIN. Yes, I agree with what Mr. Mohseni said. 

Mr. PITTS. My time is up. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time is expired. The Chair now 

recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Latta, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LATTA. Well, thank you, Chairman. I appreciate the time and 

I appreciate the panelists here today, and every one of these hearVerDate Nov 24 2008 14:51 Feb 10, 2012 Jkt 037690 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\112-067 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA-SUBMIT FOR OK 2-3\112-67 NRC SAFETY-YUCCA PEN
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ings I set through, I can’t say that I am not even more amazed of 

what is going on out there. 

As the chairman has stated about a dysfunctional Commission 

and hearing what the Inspector General is saying and saying that 

the Chairman is not forthcoming in the information to his fellow 

Commissioners is just beyond belief. 

But if I could, Mr. Mohseni, if I could ask you this, what is the 

technical evaluation report for post-closure safety? 

Mr. MOHSENI. It is the staff’s collection of learning that has contributed to our original Safety Evaluation Report minus the regulatory compliance findings. So it has, I don’t know, 400 or 500 

pages of serious technical assessment of the performance of the 

mountain once it is closed. It is the post-closure, 1-million-year assessment of its performance as proposed by the Department of Energy. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. And according to the February 4 memo to the 

Commission, was the document to be released on March the 31st? 

Was the document to be released by March 31? 

Mr. MOHSENI. It had to be completed by March 31 and probably 

within days to be released, yes. 

Mr. LATTA. OK, and was the TER manage group completed by 

March 31? 

Mr. MOHSENI. The staff completed it, yes. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. And also, in one of your memos that you had 

sent on June the 3rd, you stated that this was not a draft, it was 

final and it was completed on or around the 31st. Do you still stand 

by that, that it was—— 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATTA. And also, are you the signing official on that document, then? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, as Acting Division Director, I signed. I am 

the final signatory on that document. 

Mr. LATTA. Let me ask you this. Director Haney had mentioned 

that she believed that the Commission was getting the information, 

but in looking at some of these documents that we have received, 

one dated on June the 20th that you had sent to all the Commissioners, a request for Commission intervention, why did you send 

that? 

Mr. MOHSENI. This was the final straw for me. I had observed 

the testimony of the individual Commissioners in response to the 

IG report, and then this event about the TER occurred. And I could 

not give the benefit of the doubt anymore to the senior management above me to actually perform what we were supposed to be 

performing. And I thought this still smelled like even after the IG 

report is out, we still have not learned the lesson of actually maintaining a level of integrity in the process. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. 

Mr. MOHSENI. I thought the process is—— 

Mr. LATTA. I am not sure about the date on this one. I have two 

memos here. You have one addressed to the Commission, to each 

Commissioner by name. But in the second paragraph it says—is 

this the enclosure then? Within it it says on June the 6th I was 

informed that additional redactions be needed to release the TER. 

I respectfully disagreed with the decision not to release the TER 

62 

as written and approved for the publication and public distribution. 

I also disagreed with the need to revise the TER. Attached is my 

email fully explaining my basis for challenging this policy decision. 

Did you get any response back from anybody on the Commission? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Not from the Commission, but I think Ms. Haney 

can address that. We have had—the EDO responds at least, you 

know, on short notice on a list of actions that the EDO is taking 

on that memo. We are still awaiting Commission decision on it. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. Let me go on with the February the 4th memo 

with the TER. According to that memo, the TER was going to contain no staff findings of a regulatory compliance, is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That is correct. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. Are there staff findings about the regulatory 

compliance in that document? 

Mr. MOHSENI. No. 

Mr. LATTA. And did the Office of the General Counsel object to 

the TER or express any concerns about the document as it was 

written? 

Mr. MOHSENI. No, they did not. 

Mr. LATTA. But even without regulatory findings, this is an important scientific document reflecting the judgment and analysis of 

the NRC technical and scientific staff. Is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That is correct. 

Mr. LATTA. And I would also assume that any efforts to edit the 

scientific analysis would be frowned upon by the diligent staff. 

Would I be wrong in that assumption? 

Mr. MOHSENI. No. 

Mr. LATTA. Dr. Haney, if I could just ask you, the February the 

4th report does not contain any regulatory findings. Why did you 

not allow the division staff to release the TER? 

Ms. HANEY. Because when I looked at the Technical Evaluation 

Report and compared it to the Safety Evaluation Report, I felt that 

there were similarities between the two documents and that it actually did contain the findings. So I asked for some minor changes, 

and I would emphasize they were minor changes to further separate the documents. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. Isn’t it true that the TER specifically states that 

it does not include conclusions as to whether or not the DOE satisfies the Commission’s regulations in the TER? 

Ms. HANEY. That was the intent of the document, but I felt there 

were statements in there that were too similar to the Safety Evaluation Report, and you could make a conclusion based on staff’s 

technical findings. 

Mr. LATTA. OK. Are there specific conclusions about whether the 

DOE license application for Yucca Mountain complies with the 

NRC safety regulations in the document? 

Ms. HANEY. There is not a direct tie in the Technical Evaluation 

Report to the regulations. However, there is a tie to the Yucca 

Mountain Review Plan that is a Commission-approved document. 

Mr. LATTA. Let me ask this. I just want to make sure I heard 

it correctly. When you were sending information up the chain, as 

you might say, did you believe this Commission was getting all the 

information, all the Commission members? 

63 

Ms. HANEY. At the time, prior to the IG’s report coming out, my 

answer would have been yes. But based on the IG report now, I 

would have to change that opinion. 

Mr. LATTA. So you would change it to—what would your opinion 

be then? 

Ms. HANEY. It appears that they were not getting some of the information that I thought that they had been getting. 

Mr. LATTA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman yields back. The Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from Colorado for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARDNER. I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the hearing today 

and thank you to the witnesses as well for your time in discussion 

today. 

Dr. Stablein, what is the significance of SER Volume 3 in your 

opinion? 

Mr. STABLEIN. The significance of the Safety Evaluation Report, 

Volume 3, is it provides the staff’s regulatory findings versus the 

part 63 requirements for performance of the repository in the million years after it is closed up. 

Mr. GARDNER. And what is the status of the document when 

Chairman Jaczko directed you to terminate review? 

Mr. STABLEIN. It was very near being ready to be issued. 

Mr. GARDNER. Very near? Would it have taken much effort to finish it? 

Mr. STABLEIN. No. In terms of resources, really very little resource to finish. 

Mr. GARDNER. So finish relatively easy then? 

Mr. STABLEIN. Yes. 

Mr. GARDNER. OK. Mr. Mohseni, according to your email exchange with Ms. Haney, which I believe is in Tab 6, page 2, Item 

8 of what you have in front of you, you say the SER Volume 3 is 

complete in content with the Office of General Counsel’s no legal 

objection and no open issues. Is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. GARDNER. When was the SER 3 completed with the Office 

of General Counsel offering no legal objection to the full content? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Perhaps the latter part of the year 2010. 

Mr. GARDNER. So it was completed with the Office of General 

Counsel you believe the latter part of the year 2010? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, latter part of 2010, and we developed a reversible package, not the SER. To get to a TER, we had to start 

from the SER, and the work that went into it, my colleagues later 

called it a hybrid thing, to go from one document to another. So the 

terminology, we were not working on an SER anymore, we were 

working on a TER. But by going through the initial phase, I think 

we completed the OGC concurrence in that phase. 

Mr. GARDNER. OK. And so the document is essentially, save for 

formatting and copy edits, is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, and of course, the Office Director comments 

prior to publication, obviously. The signature has to come from the 

Office Director. 

Mr. GARDNER. Until your email, was the Commission made fully 

and currently aware that the staff had substantially completed 

SER Volume 3? 

64 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. GARDNER. Yes? OK. And so as far as technical staff is concerned, the SER will not fundamentally change and could be released to the public as of the timeframe you mentioned, correct, to 

this year? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. GARDNER. So that is correct. Then what is the basis for saying then that its release is pre-decisional? 

Mr. MOHSENI. It is pre-decisional because of the hearing process, 

pre-decisional because if—first of all, the Office Director has not 

signed off on it, so therefore, the document is incomplete if you will 

because that final signature is not on it. 

Mr. GARDNER. So is—— 

Mr. MOHSENI. But it is pre-decisional because of the legal aspects 

of it, prior to—you know, when we are ready to issue it to the 

Board, it becomes public. 

Mr. GARDNER. So who makes that determination then? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That final determination is by our office director. 

Mr. GARDNER. OK. All right. 

Mr. MOHSENI. The staff has done its work, but the Office Director’s signature is necessary. Obviously it is a licensing document, 

and the NMSS Office Director is in charge of making that final 

call. 

Mr. GARDNER. And so, Ms. Haney, then on what basis are you 

making this decision that the SER is a draft? We just heard it is 

complete. 

Ms. HANEY. I have not completed my review. A copy with the 

OGC changes in it has not been presented to me, and I have the 

direction from the Chairman that the document is not to be issued 

until our original schedule, which was November. 

Mr. GARDNER. So is the Chairman making the decision or are 

you making the decision? 

Ms. HANEY. There are a couple things going on. One is the 

Chairman’s June memo that said the Safety Evaluation Report 

should be issued on the schedule that we had provided to the 

Board which was that Volume 3 would have been presented for 

publication in November of 2010. 

Mr. GARDNER. How many of the Commissioners know there is a 

reversible SER on the shelf right now then? 

Ms. HANEY. I think the use of the term reversible SER is rather 

confusing. On October 1 we began to work on a Technical Evaluation Report. So the Safety Evaluation Report stopped on September 

30 of last year. All the Commissioners I believe are aware that 

staff is working on a Technical Evaluation Report that was being 

developed using the Safety Evaluation Report as a basis document. 

Mr. GARDNER. But in terms of the SER, do you believe you have 

an obligation to keep the Commission fully and currently informed? 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. GARDNER. And have you done that? 

Ms. HANEY. I believe I have. 

Mr. GARDNER. But the Counsel report said that they didn’t know 

certain things. 

Ms. HANEY. I know I had numerous conversations, one-on-one 

conversations with all the Commissioners as well as the Chairman 

65 

with regards to the status of the Safety Evaluation Report and the 

Technical Evaluation Report. I am aware of what the IG report 

says also. 

Mr. GARDNER. And so—I mean, does the Commission provide any 

guidance to staff on how to handle near-complete SERs? 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. GARDNER. Prior to the IG’s report you say you thought information was getting through. Now it appears that it wasn’t. What 

information wasn’t getting through? 

Ms. HANEY. It appears some of the budgeting information. 

Mr. GARDNER. It appears though it didn’t get through? 

Ms. HANEY. Correct. 

Mr. GARDNER. And is that something that you should have had 

a conversation with them about? 

Ms. HANEY. Certain elements of the budget I would have conversations with them, but that is not a primary responsibility of 

my job. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman—— 

Ms. HANEY. That would be more of Chief Financial Officer. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time is expired. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, but before he assumes his 

time, I just want to clear something up that Mr. Latta has mentioned. 

Ms. Haney, you testified that before the IG report, you felt that 

all the information to the Commissioners were fully informed, and 

it is my understanding based upon your written and oral testimony 

from the other four, before the IG report was submitted, you already questioned whether full information was being provided to 

the Commissioners. Is that correct? And I see the four nodding. 

Mr. STABLEIN. Yes. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Yes. 

Ms. KOTRA. Yes. 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, that is correct. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. And I want to also highlight that Ms. Haney, you 

are their supervisor. 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. So if your employees already have a view that the 

Commissioners aren’t fully informed, we have a problem here. And 

would like to yield 5 minutes to Mr. Sullivan from Oklahoma. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before I start my 

questions, I just wanted to—Congressman Gardner had a question 

that I don’t think was answered clearly by some of you, and I start 

with Ms. Haney. 

Does the Commission know there is an SER on the shelf with no 

legal objection, there is one on the shelf with no legal objection? 

Yes or no. 

Ms. HANEY. They are not aware that there is a no-legal objection. 

They are aware there is an SER on the shelf. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That would be no? You can just—— 

Ms. HANEY. To answer your full question—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN [continuing]. Say no. 

Ms. HANEY [continuing]. It would be no. 

66 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. And Mr. Kokajko, could you answer that 

same question? Does the Commission know there is an SER on the 

shelf with no legal objection, just sitting there? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. I agree, no. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No? And Mr. Mohseni, could you answer that 

question, please? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I should say I don’t know. I am now very confused 

what they do know and what they do not know. It is hard to tell 

exactly. Some of them may know, some may not. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That sounds like a problem, doesn’t it? 

Mr. MOHSENI. It is. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. If the gentleman would yield for one second? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I yield. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. But it is part of the law that the Commissioners 

have to be fully informed. Is that correct? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That is correct. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I yield back. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Last week we took testimony from the NRC Inspector General who painted a disturbing 

picture of the Chairman’s behavior and actions. Are you all familiar with this report, yes or no? And I will start with you, Ms. 

Haney, and go down the line. 

Ms. HANEY. Yes. 

Mr. KOKAJKO. Yes. 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes. 

Mr. STABLEIN. Yes. 

Ms. KOTRA. Sadly, yes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Mohseni, the IG report found that the Chairman acts as the gatekeeper for information to the Commission and 

strategically withholds information to manipulate Commission decisions. Are you familiar with that? 

Mr. MOHSENI. That is my experience, what I described today, 

based on—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That would be yes? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Yes, absolutely yes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Mohseni, aside from the Commission level information problems, what do you see in terms of information control among senior management? 

Mr. MOHSENI. I think the senior managers were contributing to 

suppression of the information. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. To what extent does information control and suppression permeate the activities of your division and would you 

elaborate? 

Mr. MOHSENI. Well, one is the famous memo we have been talking about where it should have been a policy decision for the Commission to make, and we should have developed a policy paper, 

which is the basis for my nonoccurrence on that memorandum. Another one is the TER, another one is the budget. The budget was 

influenced adversely by management above me. So the information 

would not get to the entire Commission. Similarly the programmatic impact of the budget or other decisions would not get 

out because we never developed a policy position to recommend to 

the Commission for the entire Commission to understand fully the 

implications of what was going on. So for the past 2 1⁄2 years, the 

67 

Commission has never received the full information to my knowledge. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That is amazing. Dr. Kotra, Dr. Stablein and Dr. 

Kokajko, would you agree with Mr. Mohseni on this? And could you 

add to his perspective? 

Ms. KOTRA. I have served on the staff of two Commissioners. I 

am well-experienced in both drafting as well as reviewing policy 

papers for Commissioners. I was fully prepared to draft an options 

paper and wanted to draft an options paper on this very important 

issue. It was not an opportunity I was given. I was told to write 

only a status paper. There were so many policy ramifications that 

we were trying to sort through, and it was turned into a status 

paper. Like I said in my testimony, it was with great reluctance 

that I agreed to do that. I voiced my preference for an options 

paper but went forward as long as the status was accurately described. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Dr. Stablein? 

Mr. STABLEIN. I agree with Mr. Mohseni and believe his examples are the most apropos that I am aware of. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Kokajko? 

Mr. KOKAJKO. As I replied in my response to Mr. Mohseni, which 

was formally required, I did tend to agree with him, and I think 

as it turns out, I was correct in that. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Ms. Haney, what Commission policy guidance directs staff to strip out regulatory findings of the Safety Evaluation 

Report to create the TER? 

Mr. MOHSENI. As far as I know, I don’t think there is any precedence for this—— 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I think he was directing to—— 

Mr. MOHSENI. I am sorry. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Directed toward Ms. Haney. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. I am sorry. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. HANEY. I was going to say thank you. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We will get to you next. 

Ms. HANEY. I am not aware of any regulatory guidance that 

would proscribe that. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. From your email exchange from Mr. Mohseni, 

and that is at Tab 6, page 2, you say your direction to strip out 

staff conclusions on their analysis should be consistent with statements made by the Chairman that the document would not contain 

any findings. Was the preparation of the TER under the direction 

of Chairman Jaczko or the Commission? 

Ms. HANEY. The preparation of the Technical Evaluation Report 

would be under the Commission, but my statement, my email, that 

was one of the considerations that I took into consideration. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Was the preparation of the TER under the direction of Chairman Jaczko or the Commission? Was it, yes or no? 

Can you answer it quickly? How long have you worked there? 

Ms. HANEY. I have worked there for multiple years as you have 

heard. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. 

68 

Ms. HANEY. I mean, I was looking at the Technical Evaluation 

as an office document, and I was considering it from that standpoint. I did not consider the elements of your question. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time is—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. May I ask one more? 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Quickly. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Is there any written document that outlines specifically what the Chairman desires you to do? 

Ms. HANEY. No. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The gentleman’s time is expired. We have votes on 

the floor. We really want to thank you. This is never easy, and we 

appreciate your forthrightness, your calmness under stress and 

strain and we have to have an NRC that the American public 

trusts. You have to have a government that you trust. We are all 

in this together. 

I want to thank the witnesses for coming today and for the testimony and members for the devotion to this hearing today. The 

committee rules provide that members have 10 days to submit additional questions for the record, and we hope that if they do so, 

in particular, that you would then get those back to us. 

Mr. GREEN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to join you in thanking 

our witnesses because that is the purpose of our committee, and 

you have heard a lot of our opinions and also our questions and appreciate your being here. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. The hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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