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REVIEW OF THE NUCLEAR EMERGENCY IN JAPAN 

AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR AND 

NUCLEAR SAFETY 

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

APRIL 12, 2011 

Printed for the use of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gpo.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

BETTINA POIRIER, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

RUTH VAN MARK, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR AND NUCLEAR SAFETY

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

BARBARA BOXER, California, (ex officio) 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Ranking 

Member 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, (ex officio) 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

APRIL 12, 2011 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ....................... 1 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 3 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware .................. 5 

Alexander, Hon. Lamar, U.S. Senator from the State of Tennessee .................. 7 

Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico ........................... 8 

Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming ........................ 9 

Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey .......... 11 

Merkley, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Oregon ............................... 12 

Gillibrand, Hon. Kirsten E., U.S. Senator from the State of New York ............ 13 

Capps, Hon. Lois, U.S. House of Representative from the State of California . 14 

Bilbray, Hon. Brian P., U.S. House of Representative from the State 

of California ......................................................................................................... 16 

WITNESSES 

Jackson, Hon. Lisa, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ..... 18 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19 

Jaczko, Gregory B., Chairman Nuclear Regulatory Commission ........................ 21 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 23 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 27 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 29 

Tables: 

Licensee Emergency Classes .................................................................... 31 

Fees Billed for License Renewal ............................................................... 34–74 

Most Recently Issued License Renewals.................................................. 75–96 

Blakeslee, Sam, Senator, California State Senate, District 15 ............................ 115 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 116 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer ................................ 133 

Boyd, James D., vice chairman, California Energy Commission, California 

Liaison Officer to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ........................... 134 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 136 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer ................................ 142 

Letter to Michael Lesar, Chief, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

dated April 12, 2010.................................................................................. 146–159 

Schiliro, Lewis D., J.D., cabinet secretary, Delaware Department of Safety 

and Homeland Security ....................................................................................... 160 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 161 

Sommerhoff, Curtis S., director, Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management ................................................................................................................. 163 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 166 

Pardee, Charles, chief operating officer, Exelon Generation Company .............. 167 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 170 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 177 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 180 

Cochran, Thomas B., Ph.D., senior scientist, Nuclear Program, Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. .............................................................................. 181 

Prepared statement....................................................................................... 184–212 
Page

IV 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Letter of support from W. Gary Gates, president and CEO, Omaha Public 

Power District, dated April 12, 2011 .................................................................. 221 
(1) 

REVIEW OF THE NUCLEAR EMERGENCY IN 

JAPAN AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE 

UNITED STATES 

TUESDAY, APRIL 12, 2011 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

JOINT WITH

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR AND NUCLEAR SAFETY, 

Washington, DC. 

The full committees met, pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Carper, Barrasso, Boxer, Inhofe, Lautenberg, 

Udall, Merkley, Gillibrand, Alexander and Boozman. 

Also present: Representatives Capps and Bilbray. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. The committee will come to order. 

When Senator Carper comes, I am going to ask him to take the 

gavel since he is the Chair of the appropriate Subcommittee. But 

I want us to get started because we have a number of witnesses 

today. 

I want to say welcome to my distinguished Ranking Member. 

Just over 1 month ago today, Japan was hit by a 9.0 magnitude 

earthquake and a tsunami that measured roughly 30 feet high. The 

devastation brought on by these catastrophic events is heart breaking and our deepest condolences go out to the victims and their 

families. Today we are hearing that this event now, in terms of radiation leaked, is equal to that of Chernobyl. So, the news is not 

good coming out of Japan. 

The tragedy serves as an important wake up call for us. We cannot ignore it. I think one thing that we would all agree to is we 

must plan for the unexpected and when we know of threats we 

must act quickly to address them. So, what can we learn from the 

tragic situation in Japan? 

The United States has 104 commercial nuclear power reactors 

operating at 65 sites in 31 States. Twenty-three reactors are boiling 

water reactors with Mark I containment systems like the ones at 

the Daiichi plant. It is true that the NRC has instituted an improvement program for this type of reactor. However, the lessons 

from the tragedy in Japan demonstrate the importance of reassessing the safety of these reactors. 
2 

The compromised reactors in Japan, like those in the United 

States, were built on a set of assumptions regarding the potential 

magnitude of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. 

We know that some U.S. nuclear facilities are located in areas with 

high and moderate seismic activity. I can tell you, you are going 

to hear from our people, that we have a couple of those. 

The situation in Japan has shown us we must take a hard look 

at the risk assumptions that were made when the reactors were designed. We know in the case of Japan, they designed it for a lower 

magnitude quake. 

As a result of the catastrophic situation in Japan, Senator Tom 

Carper, who is going to chair this hearing as soon as I complete 

my remarks, Tom Carper and I have called on the NRC to conduct 

a comprehensive review of all nuclear facilities in the United 

States to assess their capacity to withstand and respond to natural 

or manmade disasters. 

Senator Feinstein and I also requested special immediate attention be given to those U.S. nuclear reactors that are subjected to 

significant seismic activity or are located near coastlines such as 

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. 

The NRC has identified both of these plants in California as 

being located in high seismicity zones. The Commissioners found 

another nine plants, which are located in North Carolina, Illinois, 

Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee, but they are in 

moderate seismicity zones. 

Both reactors in California are located in high density areas. 

Four hundred twenty-four thousand people live within 50 miles of 

Diablo and 7.4 million people live within 50 miles of San Onofre. 

Let me repeat that. Four hundred twenty-four thousand people live 

within 50 miles of Diablo and 7.4 million live within 50 miles of 

San Onofre. 

Other nuclear facilities in the United States are also located in 

highly populated areas. If you look at the one in New York, it is 

about 17 million people live within that 50-mile radius. 

Although evacuation plans are generally a State and local concern, there have been calls for more involvement from FEMA to assess those plans. 

Today we will hear testimony from a number of our colleagues 

as well as the Chairman of the NRC, Greg Jaczko, who has been 

so helpful to us moving forward, and of course we will hear from 

the Administrator of the EPA, Lisa Jackson. 

I am very interested to hear how the EPA is monitoring the radiation in the United States and we have, Lisa and I, have talked 

over the weeks. I am just making sure we have accurate up-to-date 

information on the radioactivity. 

We know that low levels of radiation have been detected in the 

United States from the compromised reactors in Japan. We can 

only imagine what the potential impacts on health and environment would be if, God forbid, we ever experienced the same type 

of accidents that occurred in Japan. 

Small but elevated levels of radiation have been detected in milk 

and other food. We are going to talk about that. Experts say that 

we are OK right now. I want to probe that. I want to make sure 
3 

of that. Whether it is the NRC’s review process of our reactors or 

EPA’s monitoring of our drinking water, complete transparency 

and prompt disclosure are vital to maintaining the Government’s 

credibility, our credibility, frankly, at this Oversight Committee. 

The Federal Government must heed the wake up call from the 

catastrophe in Japan. As Chairman of this committee, working 

with everybody on both sides of the aisle, and particularly my Subcommittee Chair, I will continue to provide vigorous oversight to 

ensure that we learn the tragic lessons from the Fukushima reactors and take reasonable steps to make our Nation’s nuclear facilities as safe as they can be made. 

I know that Chairman Jaczko and Administrator Jackson share 

my concern for the safety of the American people. Our common goal 

is to ensure we are prepared and obviously we take another hard 

look at what is going on in our country at a time when we need 

every bit of energy we can get. There is no question about that. 

But, as we know from looking at what is going on over there, it 

is the unthinkable and we have to avoid it. 

So, with that I am going to turn the gavel over to Senator Carper 

and ask Senator Inhofe to make his opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

First of all, Senator Johanns was going to be here today. He is 

very interested in this hearing but was unable to do so. He asked 

if I would put into the record a statement from the Omaha Public 

Power District, which I put into the record right now, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. [Presiding.] Without objection. 

Senator INHOFE. Chairman Jaczko, I appreciate your efforts to 

assure the Nation that we are, that the nuclear plants here in the 

United States are safe and I appreciate very much, Administrator 

Jackson, your repeated assurances that traces of radioactive materials that have drifted here from Japan will not impact public 

health. 

I am sure we all agree that we need to study the accident at the 

Fukushima Nuclear Plant and learn from it. As Chairman Jaczko 

frequently reminds us, we cannot be complacent with regard to nuclear safety. Even so, we cannot allow ourselves to be paralyzed by 

fear. Any, harnessing any energy source carries some level of risk, 

and we need to be, to make sure that we can safely manage that 

risk. 

Ensuring the safe use of nuclear energy is a very serious job. In 

1974, Congress established an independent Commission and 

charged five individuals with the responsibility to protect public 

health and safety. The public is best served by a Commission that 

functions collectively and collegially to pool their expertise. I am 

concerned that the public may currently be getting less than it deserves. 

I was surprised to learn from my staff that Chairman Jaczko has 

invoked emergency authority and transferred Commission functions to himself in the wake of the earthquake in Japan, especially 

after speaking with me personally by phone and then appearing be-
4 

fore this committee. Let us get our dates straight because I want 

the Commissioner to address this. 

First of all, it took place on the 11th, our phone call took place 

on the 14th, the hearing took place on the 16th, and never was this 

mentioned that this was going to be invoked. The law confers emergency authority on the Chairman in the wake of an emergency at 

a particular facility or materials regulated by the NRC. At present, 

I am not aware of an emergency condition that exists in the United 

States, in any United States facility. 

Chairman Jaczko, I want to work with you as the NRC tries to 

understand what happened in Japan, what the United States can 

learn from it, but our collaboration, and indeed, collaboration with 

all of us in Congress, can only proceed prudently if we have openness and fairness and transparency. That applies to your office. 

So, as we move forward I hope you would provide us with full 

and complete information about your activities and that you will 

work with your fellow Commissioners in the same spirit. In that 

vein, I look forward to your testimony and to yours, Administrator 

Jackson, and to working with both of you on gaining full understanding of the impact of the Fukushima accident. 

Before I yield to my colleague, I think it is significant that I get 

my request in here. I am anxious to see progress on the nominations of Commissioners Ostendorff and Svinicki which I hope President Obama sends us soon. Given the scope of the issues before the 

Commission, it is important we have our Commission full with all 

the members appointed and confirmed. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE

STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Chairman Jaczko, I appreciate your efforts to assure the nation that our nuclear 

plants here in the U.S. are safe. Administrator Jackson, I also appreciate your repeated reassurances that traces of radioactive materials that have drifted here from 

Japan will not impact public health. 

I’m sure we all agree that we need to study the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant and learn from it. As Chairman Jaczko frequently reminds us, we can’t 

be complacent with regard to nuclear safety. Even so, we can’t allow ourselves to 

be paralyzed by fear. Harnessing any energy source carries some measure of risk 

that must be safely managed for our nation to prosper. 

Ensuring the safe use of nuclear energy is a very serious job. In 1974, Congress 

established an independent commission and charged five individuals with the responsibility to protect public health and safety. The public is best served by a commission that functions collectively and collegially to pool their expertise. I’m concerned that the public may currently be getting less than it deserves. 

I was surprised to learn from my staff that Chairman Jaczko has invoked emergency authority and transferred Commission functions to himself in the wake of the 

earthquake in Japan, especially after speaking with me personally by telephone and 

appearing before this committee in a public briefing—and failing to mention it either time. The law confers emergency authority on the Chairman in the wake of 

an emergency at a particular facility or materials regulated by the NRC. At present, 

I’m not aware that an emergency condition exists at any U.S. facility. 

Chairman Jaczko, I want to work with you as the NRC tries to understand what 

happened in Japan, and what the United States can learn from it. But our collaboration—indeed, collaboration with all of us, Congress—can only proceed fruitfully if 

we have openness and transparency. That applies to your office. So as we move forward, I hope you will provide us with full and complete information about your activities, and that you will work with your fellow commissioners in the same spirit. 
5 

In that vein, I look forward to your testimony, and yours Administrator Jackson, 

and to working with both of you on gaining a full understanding of the impact of 

the Fukushima accident. 

But, before I yield to my colleague, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say I’m anxious to 

see progress on the renominations of Commissioners Ostendorff and Svinicki which 

I hope President Obama sends us soon. Given the scope of issues before the Commission, it is important that the agency continues to benefit from their valuable expertise. 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. You bet. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe. 

Let me begin by saying, first of all, Senator Inhofe and Madam 

Chair, thanks very much for holding this hearing and for giving me 

the opportunity to co-chair it with you. 

Let me begin by saying that, again, I have said this before and 

I will certainly say it again here today, our thoughts and prayers 

go out to all of the citizens of Japan, especially those families of 

the thousands of disaster victims and those that are going through 

a very, very difficult time. As this tragedy unfolds, I encourage the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other U.S. agencies to continue to coordinate with the Japanese government to provide any 

assistance that they need to recover. 

The events that struck Japan are reminders that we are all vulnerable to unexpected disasters, whether it is an act of nature or 

a terrorist attack. While we cannot predict when or where the next 

major disaster will occur, we know that it will occur and we also 

know that adequate protection, adequate preparation in response 

planning are vital to minimize both the injury and death when it 

does happen. 

Today’s hearing is one of many I hope that this committee will 

have to make sure that our Nation has prepared for the worst in 

order to prevent any lives lost from nuclear power in this country. 

In the United States we have, as you know, 104 nuclear power 

plants in some 31 States which generate approximately one-fifth of 

our Nation’s total electric consumption. Nuclear power has helped 

to curb our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and reduce air pollution 

that damages our health and causes global warming. 

Over the years, the NRC has strived to create a culture of safety 

in the nuclear energy industry and as long as I have been on this 

Subcommittee, we have worked very hard to reinforce those efforts. 

As a result, we have seen, not seen, any direct deaths from nuclear 

power by radiation exposure in this country in over 50 years. 

As part of its culture of safety, the NRC requires nuclear facilities to be designed to withstand natural disasters and terrorist attacks. After September 11th, the NRC took a closer look at the nuclear industry and put in place additional safety and security requirements. 

Despite all of the protections that are in place, the crisis in 

Japan is a clear warning, a clear reminder, that we cannot become 

complacent when it comes to nuclear safety. I often say it, and my 

colleagues are tired of hearing me say it, if it is not perfect, make 

it better. That certainly applies to nuclear plants and the way that 

they are operated with respect to their safety. 
6 

That is why Chairman Boxer and I asked the NRC for a conference review of our nuclear fleet. We want to make sure that 

every precaution is being taken to safeguard the American people 

from a similar nuclear accident. The NRC is just getting started on 

this review and I anxiously await their results. 

Today I look forward to hearing from our witnesses an update on 

the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant and an update on our response to that crisis. I also look forward to hearing what we can 

learn from the ongoing crisis in order to prevent similar events 

from occurring right here. 

I am particularly interested in hearing about the State of Emergency Planning Process from the Delaware Department of Safety 

and Homeland Security. Secretary Schiliro, we welcome you especially. 

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, I take seriously my responsibilities, our responsibilities, to make certain that 

we are taking appropriate measures to make the nuclear industry 

as safe as it can possibly be. As I said before, while I am a proponent of clean energy, my top priority of our domestic power, our 

nuclear power industry, to me is public safety. 

With that having been said, I look over to my right and I see 

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. We welcome you and await 

your comments. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Carper follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE

STATE OF DELAWARE

Let me begin by saying my thoughts and prayers go out to all citizens of Japan, 

especially to the families of the thousands of disaster victims. As this tragedy 

unfolds, I encourage the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and other U.S. 

agencies to continue to coordinate with the Japanese government to provide any assistance they need to recover. 

The events that struck Japan are reminders that we are all vulnerable to unexpected disasters, whether an act of nature or a terrorist attack. While we cannot 

predict when or where the next major disaster will occur, we know adequate preparation and response planning are vital to minimize injury and death when it does 

happen. Today’s hearing is one of many I hope this committee will have to make 

sure our nation has prepared for the worst—in order to prevent any lives lost from 

nuclear power in this country. 

In the United States we have 104 nuclear power plants in 31 states, which generate approximately a fifth of our Nation’s total electric consumption. Nuclear power 

has helped curb our reliance on dirty fossil fuels and reduce air pollution that damages our health and causes global warming. 

Over the years, the NRC has strived to create a ‘‘culture of safety’’ in the U.S. 

nuclear energy industry. As a result, we have not seen any direct deaths from nuclear power plant radiation exposure in this country. As part of its ‘‘culture of safety,’’ the NRC requires nuclear facilities to be designed to withstand natural disasters and terrorist attacks. After September 11th, the NRC took a closer look at the 

nuclear industry and put into place additional safety and security requirements. 

Despite all the protections in place, the crisis in Japan is a clear warning that 

we must not become complacent when it comes to nuclear safety. As I often say, 

if it is not perfect, make it better. That is why Chairman Boxer and I asked the 

NRC for a comprehensive review of our nuclear fleet. We wanted to make sure every 

precaution is being taken to safeguard the American people from a similar nuclear 

incident. The NRC is just getting started on this review and I anxiously await their 

results. 

Today, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses an update on the Fukushima 

Daiichi nuclear plant and update on our response to that crisis. I also look forward 

to hearing what we can learn from the ongoing crisis in order to prevent similar 

events from occurring here. I’m particularly interested in hearing about the State 
7 

emergency planning process from Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland 

Security Secretary Schiliro. 

As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Nuclear Safety, I take seriously my responsibility to make certain we are taking the appropriate measures to make the nuclear 

industry safe. As I have said before, while I am a proponent of clean energy, my 

top priority for our domestic nuclear power industry remains public safety. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LAMAR ALEXANDER, U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 

and Senator Boxer for—— 

Senator CARPER. Senator, Senator, I did not notice that Senator 

Barrasso had stepped in. 

Senator Barrasso. 

[Remarks off microphone.] 

Senator CARPER. Are you sure? OK, thank you very much. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Senator Barrasso. Well, I want to 

thank everybody. I thank Senators Boxer and Carper for having 

the hearing. 

I think nuclear power is, and I have said this before the Japan 

accident, something we ought to have more oversight of and that 

is because it is complex science, it is complex engineering, and it 

is vitally important to the future of our country. 

I remember back when I was Governor of Tennessee in the 

1980s. We had a question that was presented to me when we were 

building, TVA was building, one of its nuclear power plants. The 

issue was whether to distribute iodide tablets to people who were 

in the area of the new nuclear power plant. 

Some people said, oh, do not do that because you will scare people to death. The other argument, of course, was, well, if it would, 

if people understand what they are for, and they are only to be 

used in the event of an emergency, then it is better to go ahead 

and talk about the process that we are using and let people know 

what we are dealing with. So, I made the decision then, let us go 

ahead and let people who live within the area of the nuclear power 

plant have access to iodide tablets in case there was a problem. 

I feel the same way today about our nuclear power program in 

the United States and what happened in Japan. I cannot imagine 

a future for the United States that does not include nuclear power 

to create electricity. I mean, it is only 20 percent of our electricity, 

but it is 70 percent of our clean electricity. Senator Carper has 

been very consistent. He cares deeply about climate change. This 

is one way to deal with it. He and I have worked hard on clean 

air in the Smoky Mountains and the East Coast. This is one way 

to deal with it. 

So, it is hard to imagine that. But on the other hand, I think 

those of us who, who find it especially important have maybe a special responsibility to see that there is clear oversight and public understanding of this complex system of science and engineering so 

that people are comfortable with whatever risks there are. 

As we look at our own history, actually, we have done a fair job 

of that. I mean, Three Mile Island spawned several improvements 

such as the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, which has improved safety. It is important for Americans to know that while 

Three Mile Island was a significant accident and a big problem, 
8 

that no one was hurt at Three Mile Island. That is important to 

know. 

September 11th. That had nothing to do with nuclear power but 

it caused nuclear power operators around the country to take a 

look at what would happen if there were a terrorist attack. You can 

go on YouTube and see what happens when an F–4 Phantom Jet 

runs into a concrete wall at 500 miles an hour. The jet vaporizes 

but the plant is still there. 

Hurricane Katrina had nothing to do with nuclear power but it 

caused operators at the 104 nuclear plants around the country and 

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to think about well, what 

would happen if we had a horrific event like the size of Hurricane 

Katrina. 

So, I think we still have a lot to learn from what happened in 

Japan. For example, spent fuel storage. There is a lot of talk about 

that. It helps us think about, is it possible, how long should it be 

in pools, how soon could it go to dry casks? It is important also to 

know, as the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

says, as Dr. Chu has said, the President’s Energy Chief and Nobel 

Prize Winning Physicist, that it is safe to store spent fuel onsite 

for 100 years. 

It is important to know that all the fuel that we have produced 

that is used fuel from commercial reactors in the United States 

would fit on one football field to a depth of about 20 feet. That is 

the mass that we are talking about. 

It is important to ask, what about Yucca Mountain? We do need 

to eventually dispose of it. We have collected $30 billion to pay for 

an eventual disposal. Why do we not do it? 

We could ask about safety improvements. We should be thinking 

about new reactors. In Tennessee, TVA’s got 3,200 people building 

a new reactor at Watts Bar. How can we know it is even safer than 

the other 104 reactors we have had at which, as Senator Carper 

said, we have not had one single fatality related to a reactor in the 

last, well, in the history of those facilities? 

So, there are important questions to ask. There is a lot of information to learn from the Japan disaster. But it is important, at the 

same time, to recognize the safety record that we have for this form 

of energy production in the United States and keep it all in perspective. 

Senator Carper and Senator Boxer, I welcome these hearings. 

The more of them, the better. I believe that the more we understand and talk about this complex system of energy production, the 

safer it is likely to be and the more useful it will be to help produce 

clean air in our country. 

Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Alexander. If it is OK with 

Senator Barrasso, I am going to slip over to Senator Udall and 

then back to you. OK? Senator Udall. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE 

STATE OF NEW MEXICO 

Senator UDALL. Thank you, Senator Carper, and thank you very 

much, you and Senator Boxer, for holding this hearing. I appreciate 
9 

very much and welcome my colleagues that I served with over in 

the House and look forward to hearing their testimony. 

As Senator Carper and others have said, I think our thoughts 

and prayers really do go out to the Japanese people for this tragedy 

and what has happened to them. I know when I talked the other 

day with Japan’s Ambassador to the United States he was very, 

very appreciative of the level of scientific support that we were giving Japan. I know many scientists have come from both California 

and New Mexico and from our national labs and so that is something that they appreciate and I think we are all very proud of. 

This is a three-part disaster, an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis and it is tragic. Americans should focus on assisting our 

close friends, the Japanese, in recovering from it. Nuclear energy 

has tremendous potential for good and also for harm. Nuclear accidents are rare, but their consequences can be severe. Nuclear energy safety must be the top priority for Government regulators and 

it should be the top priority for the industry as well. 

The Japanese crisis underscores the need for information transparency. Nuclear energy will almost certainly continue to be part 

of America’s energy mix. We have 100, 104 reactors today, and if 

it economic, more will be built. But it will be harder to build reactors if the public lives in fear of them. 

Our role in Congress is to conduct the oversight to ensure that 

the NRC and the EPA do their job and ensure U.S. nuclear power 

plants are safe. Safety standards are of the utmost importance and 

we should be highly skeptical of proposals to ‘‘streamline’’ or cut 

corners on safety standards. It will be up to the banks and the investor community to decide whether to invest in nuclear power 

projects compared to the other investment options out there. 

Nations like France, which rely heavily on nuclear power, also 

have taxpayers picking up most of the tab. That is not realistic for 

the United States’ current budget situation. 

So, I very much appreciate this list of witnesses today and I am 

going to yield back my time so we can get quickly to the witnesses. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Udall. 

Senator Barrasso is the Ranking Republican Member of the Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety. Senator Barrasso, 

thank you for your patience. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate our guests for being here to testify and I want to associate myself with the opening remarks of Senator Udall regarding his concerns for the people of Japan. Absolutely. Incredible 

challenges, incredible loss and I think the hearts of all of us on this 

committee, and in this Body, have great, great concerns for the 

people in Japan. 

The tsunami and the earthquake occurred in Japan, not in the 

United States. The emergency that preceded the tsunami and the 

earthquake occurred in Japan. The emergency response is occurring in Japan with the help of the United States. 

Some people seem to want Americans to believe that the disaster 

occurred here and that is not the case. As Ranking Member Inhofe 
10 

has pointed out, the current Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission is operating under his emergency powers since the disaster first occurred. The reasons why these emergency powers continue to be in effect, and the implications that has for future chairmen, does not have implications for the United States nuclear safety, does have implications for the United States nuclear safety response. This is one of the reasons that I believe the hearing today 

is so important. 

Some want to use this crisis in Japan as a tool to wipe out nuclear power in the United States. For example, there is an April 

6th inside EPA story entitled ‘‘Activists Step Up Effort to Strengthen Oversight of Uranium Recovery.’’ The article states that ‘‘environmentalists are stepping up their efforts to push EPA to 

strengthen its oversight of uranium mining and processing operations in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster, targeting the 

processed metal because its extraction marks the first step in the 

nuclear fuel cycle that its proponents tout as a low carbon alternative to fossil fuels.’’ 

Well, how uranium mining is tied to the Japanese nuclear emergency is beyond me. I would hope that the EPA Administrator, who 

is with us today, would ignore these types of attacks which would 

have occurred whether the Japanese disaster occurred or not. 

Earlier today in this very committee we heard testimony from 

those who want to stop hydraulic fracturing. This is the process 

whereby we can tap America’s vast domestic natural gas reserves. 

Apparently, these activists do not want natural gas either. 

By attacking all of the affordable energy sources, including our 

nuclear and natural gas, activists are driving up the cost of energy. 

They are raising the costs of running a factory, or a mine, or a 

small business. They are raising the cost of heating and cooling 

homes across this country. This will cost thousand of jobs during 

our economic downturn. 

We cannot reach a clean energy future without natural gas and 

without nuclear power. We need all the power, not just some. That 

means coal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and nuclear power. As Senator Carper and I talk about and discuss and 

agree, the cheapest energy is energy that is not used. So, we need 

to be more efficient in how we use our energy. 

But we need the kind of energy mix that keeps factories running 

and homes heated. Countries like Germany, which are phasing out 

domestic nuclear power, are discovering this fact. The Washington 

Post ran an Associated Press story on April 6th entitled Utilities: 

Germany Now Importing Energy After Taking Nuclear Power 

Plants Off the Grid. The article goes on and states that Chancellor 

Angela Merkel’s decision to take some atomic power plants offline 

in the wake of Japan’s disaster means Germany is now importing 

power from its nuclear-reliant neighbors. It goes on to say Germany now imports about 50 gigawatts, gigawatt hours, or the capacity equivalent to 1.5 reactors, from France and the Czech Republic every day. This is from the German Association of Energy 

and Water Industries. 

So, this same pattern that we are seeing in Germany will occur 

in the United States. American States that declare themselves nuclear free, whether they are California or elsewhere, whatever 
11 

States declare themselves nuclear free and shut down their nuclear 

plants will have to have power shipped in from neighboring States. 

It is an energy shell game and it will not hide America’s growing 

need for affordable domestic energy to power our economy. 

Let us be careful not to jump to conclusions and try to shut down 

another domestic energy source. Let us work together to make 

America’s energy as clean as we can as fast we can without raising 

energy prices and costing American jobs. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the testimony. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Barrasso. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

As said, we all agree that our sympathies, our concern and our 

desire is to be of help to the people in Japan who are affected as 

a result of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear emergency. But we 

want to learn from it and we want to make sure that we are doing 

what we can for the people in our country. 

Since the latest disaster began unfolding, Americans have had 

one question on their minds. Could it happen here? I am not willing to wait to find out. We need to answer that question now. 

Soon after the meltdown in Japan began, I asked the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission to conduct a comprehensive review of New 

Jersey’s four nuclear power reactors which provide our State with 

about half of its electricity. I also requested the chief executives of 

New Jersey’s nuclear power companies to join me in my office 

where they agreed to a thorough safety review at each of the four 

reactors. The people of New Jersey need to know if our State’s nuclear plants are safe and we are determined to make sure that they 

get the peace of mind that they deserve, but the reality of being 

protected. 

But this is not the only issue in New Jersey. Nuclear energy provides 20 percent of America’s electricity and so we have to make 

nuclear safety a national priority. The United States has a good 

track record of keeping our plants safe. There have been few accidents and few fatalities. But we have got to remain vigilant if we 

want to preserve this record. 

Now Japan, a world leader in technology in its plants, were built 

to resist earthquakes. But as we know, it was not enough. So here 

in the United States we cannot take anything for granted. 

To keep Americans safe also means making sure that we give 

citizens, our citizens, a clear guidance during emergencies. I was 

troubled when American citizens in Japan were told to stay at least 

50 miles away from the site of this meltdown. In our country, the 

NRC Emergency Guidelines require people to stay only 10 miles 

away from plants during emergencies. 

So, make no mistake, nuclear power generates emission-free energy and it should and will be part of our energy future. But we 

cannot ever trade people’s safety for the sake of meeting our energy 

demands. We saw Chernobyl a quarter of a century ago, the effects 

of a single nuclear accident that will linger for generations. 
12 

So, I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses, and thank 

our colleagues from the House, about how we can learn from the 

past mistakes and make sure that nuclear power remains a safe, 

clean energy source. 

I want to respond to something that we heard, talked about this 

morning and that is, well, costs. Costs. Nuclear power does so 

much for us but has risks. When we think of the contribution that 

nuclear power brings to our energy needs, we know that we are 

going to keep on having nuclear power created. But burning fossil 

fuel has an extra cost. It has a lasting effect on our environment 

and on the health and wellbeing of our citizens. 

So, when we look at the costs for energy, we have to look at the 

costs of unfit air for those who have asthma or otherwise, and pollution generally. So, we have to look at the whole picture and I assure you that we would like to do just that. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator Merkley. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF MERKLEY, U.S. SENATOR FROM 

THE STATE OF OREGON 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I express my deepest sympathies to the families in Japan, victims of the triple tragedy, the earthquake, the tsunami and certainly the nuclear disaster. I thank all of the heroes in Japan who 

raced to the scene to provide assistance to victims of the earthquake and tsunami and those who are working around the clock to 

cool the nuclear reactors and contain the radiation that is being released. 

It is very much our worst nightmare that a natural disaster of 

some kind should cause us some more tragedy in the United States 

and that is why it is certainly appropriate and important that we 

do everything possible to take and look at the lessons in Japan and 

apply them to our own system. Just as we applied a stress test to 

the banks in the financial crisis, we need to apply a stress test to 

our nuclear plants and understand what the weaknesses are. 

When the disaster happened in Japan, and certainly a lot of the 

discussion was around the cooling pools for rods, I was taken back 

to when I was traveling through Hanford many years ago, about 

14 years ago, and was looking at the cooling pool at Hanford, and 

it had that kind of eerie blue glow at the bottom of the pool. I 

asked the question, if an earthquake occurs and it splits this pool, 

what happens when the water rushes out? Basically the response 

was a blank look with that would be bad. Certainly we have to be 

prepared in far better ways than simply saying that something 

would be bad. 

In the last two decades, we have built only three new nuclear reactors because the cost is so high by the time we account for 

human error, by the time we account for natural disaster, and by 

the time we account for terrorist attack and design plans accordingly. We have to take a look at those things because the upside 

risk is so substantial. So that is certainly a factor. 

We have strategies that have been put forward by groups like 

New Scale, a group in Oregon, other research that has been done 
13 

on pebble bed strategies that have failsafe mechanisms and/or passive protections that I think certainly should be, we should look 

into and understand that part of this conversation, whether fundamentally different designs would greatly mitigate the risks. 

These disasters occur because we lose the heating transfer medium and plants overheat. But there are designs intended to make 

sure that there is no meltdown even when that happens, whether 

the medium be water or the medium be helium. That needs to be 

part of the national discussion. 

So with that, thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I yield 

back the balance of my time. 

Senator CARPER. I believe the next person we recognize is Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator Gillibrand. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for 

holding the hearing. Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate you holding 

this hearing as well. This is obviously an issue that we share a 

great passion for and in light of the disaster in Japan, I am really 

looking for answers. So, I just want to thank you both for drawing 

attention to such a serious issue. 

I want to thank Chairman Jaczko for coming. Congresswoman 

Capps, thank you so much for spending time with us to answer our 

questions. 

I may not have the opportunity to ask my questions, but I do 

want to highlight some of the areas of my concern and I will submit the questions directly for answers for the record, but I do hope 

you get to address this in part of this hearing. 

One issue is the issue of licensing exemptions. Now, in the Indian Point Plant, which is the one that serves about 30 percent of 

New York’s electricity right now, within a 50-mile radius it hits 16 

million people. So, we have significant concern to focus on that, and 

all the plants in New York, to make sure they are safe. 

Now, with Indian Point, there have been a number of waivers 

given. I would like an analysis and a review of in what instances 

are waivers given? Are you going to re-look at the issue in light of 

the Japan disaster to see if those waivers were legitimate, if they 

should be reconsidered and perhaps withdrawn? The issue of waivers is something I care a lot about. 

The second issue is the issue of evacuations. In Japan, we have 

evacuated U.S. citizens within a 50-mile radius. The plan with regard to Indian Point is a 10-mile evacuation plan. I would like to 

know the reason why there are differences in evacuation plans. 

To do a 10-mile evacuation for Indian Point takes 9 hours. I understand that there are different types of redundancies at Indian 

Point, one is a going to a diesel system and another diesel thereafter, but, then it is a battery system that only lasts for 3 hours. 

How do you reconcile evacuations with what your redundancies are 

and how capable they are in such a situation? 

I also care a lot about security issues. Now, obviously, we are 

soon on the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 and one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations was to secure all nuclear facilities. I 
14 

would like to have an opportunity to talk to you about those security measures and where they stand and what kind of investigations are you doing with regard to employees, with regard to background controls and other potentially vulnerable infrastructure 

issues. 

Then the last issue is the spent fuel pool and dry cask storage 

issue. Are these pools designed to be long-term storage? What do 

you intend to do to move them from fuel pool to dry cask storage 

facilities as a general matter for safety? 

So, obviously that is a long list of concerns and issues. If you do 

get to address them, I will be very grateful. If not, I will submit 

them all for the record, Madam Chairwoman. 

Thank you very much, again, for your testimony. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you for your statement and introducing 

Congresswoman Capps and Congressman Bilbray. Let me just say 

to Congresswoman Capps, thank you so much for sharing with us 

a former member of your staff, Emily Spain. She is a gift to the 

people of Delaware. So, we are grateful for that. 

With that, we would like to recognize Congresswoman Lois 

Capps, 23d District of California, and followed by Congressman 

Brian Bilbray, the 50th District of California. How many do you all 

have, 53? Fifty-three. We have one. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. But as I like to say in Delaware, if you can only 

send one, send the best. 

We are glad you are here, we recognize you and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LOIS CAPPS, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Ms. CAPPS. Thank you. Chairwoman Boxer, Ranking Member 

Inhofe, Chairman Carper and Members of the committee, thank 

you for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to testify. 

I am here today because my congressional District includes Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which has become a central focus 

in the weeks following the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. 

Last month, I called upon the NRC to stay the license renewal 

process for Diablo Canyon until further studies demonstrate that 

the plant’s design and operations can withstand an earthquake and 

other potential threats. Yesterday, Pacific Gas & Electric, which I 

will refer to as PG&E, asked the NRC to delay its license renewal 

application while it completes their studies. 

Here today, in light of PG&E’s action, I am renewing my request 

to the NRC to halt the re-licensing process. I do not make this request lightly. Last month, I again toured the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Following that visit, I was convinced of two 

things. First, that the employees are committed to getting it right. 

Second, that we are not there yet. 

I am not alone in that assessment. I am grateful to be joined 

today by my constituent, California State Senator Sam Blakeslee, 

who also represents Diablo Canyon and its surrounding communities. State Senator Blakeslee will testify today both in his role as 

State elected official and also as a scientist with a Ph.D. in seismic 

studies. I am confident that our shared assessment of the situation 
15 

will offer the committee valuable, on the ground insight into the 

current and future landscape of nuclear power in California. 

The bottom line is this. We do not have the answers we need to 

confidently move forward in extending the licensing agreement of 

Diablo Canyon. We should not move forward until we have those 

answers. Because the reactors do not need to be relicensed for more 

than a dozen years, we have plenty of time to find those answers. 

Mr. Chairman, what happened so tragically in Japan offers us an 

opportunity to question and question again whether we are ready, 

whether we can handle the unthinkable. Now, the NRC is already, 

had already determined that it is non-credible that there could be 

multiple catastrophes such as an earthquake and a meltdown at 

Diablo Canyon Plant. The NRC has maintained, ‘‘The chance of 

such a bizarre concatenation of events occurring is extremely small. 

Not only is this conclusion well supported by the record evidence, 

it accords most eminently with common sense notions of statistical 

probability.’’ 

Yet, the unthinkable did happen in Japan. An earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear accident, all occurring in sequence. Clearly, a 

bizarre concatenation of events is not merely hypothetical. 

Mr. Chairman, let us be clear. We know seismic uncertainty exists at the Diablo Canyon site. In the early 1970s, while the plant 

was originally under construction, scientists discovered the Hosgri 

Offshore Fault less than three miles away, forcing a major re-design and pushing the project billions of dollars over budget. 

In 2008, scientists discovered yet another fault, the Shoreline 

Fault, which lies offshore less than one mile from the plant. The 

stakes were raised just last month when the NRC confirmed that 

Diablo Canyon was one of two nuclear power plants in the highest 

risk area for seismic activity in the entire country. 

Clearly, we need answers to major questions. Can this plant, including the spent fuel pool, withstand an earthquake and a nuclear 

accident at the same time? How long would the plant be self-sustaining in the event of such damage? Is Diablo Canyon’s evacuation 

plan during an incident workable? 

Many of us on the central coast of California remain concerned 

that the NRC has not taken action to answer these questions or address these warnings, so much so that the California Energy Commission has recommended, and our State Public Utilities Commission has directed, that independent, peer reviewed, advanced seismic studies be performed prior to applying for re-licensing. I agree 

with this assessment. That is why it is so important to halt the relicensing process. We need to take some time to get all the answers. 

It is important to note that I am not calling for Diablo Canyon 

to be shut down. I am also not calling for PG&E to be denied an 

operating license. What I am doing today is asking that the re-licensing process be halted until updated, state-of-the-art seismic 

studies and 3D seismic mapping are completed, that they be considered as part of the re-licensing process, and that these studies 

be done by third party, independent scientists. 

Failure to do so is unwise and irresponsible. It will feed public 

uncertainty about the oversight and safety of nuclear energy and 

it could cost taxpayers billions of dollars to once again belatedly ad-
16 

dress issues that should have been dealt with beforehand. That is 

why I am hopeful the NRC will work with all stakeholders to get 

answers to the seismic questions which, at this point, remain unstudied and unresolved prior to the continuation of the re-licensing 

process. 

Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

Senator CARPER. Congresswoman Capps, thank you so much for 

coming. I very much appreciate it. 

Congressman Bilbray, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN P. BILBRAY, U.S. 

REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. BILBRAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Madam Chair, Members of the committee, it is an honor to be here. 

Let me say, first of all, as a lifelong resident of San Diego County, I have the same concerns that everyone who lives downwind of 

a nuclear power plant would have after seeing what happened in 

Japan. Every one of my children and grandchildren, except for 

those that have been exiled to Helena, MT, live within not only the 

downwind area from San Onofre but also within the tsunami zone 

of San Diego County. 

I speak not just as a father and a grandfather, but as somebody 

who had the privilege of serving two terms as the Chairman of the 

Disaster Council for the 3 million people of San Diego County that 

designed the evacuation and response to not just the nuclear issue 

but also the tsunami issue, and also had the privilege of serving 

on the California Coastal Commission, an agency that has oversight and review of the nuclear power plants in California. This 

issue really did bring back memories of all the hearings and processes that we have had. 

Frankly, there are still the facts to be taken, still research that 

needs to be done. But I think there are some indications that are 

very, very enlightening. One was the fact that even though the 

Japanese was not designed to those engineered at California 

plants, it did survive an earthquake that is well over what our 

plants ever perceived to be. 

In fact, the 9.0 that we are talking about that has struck this 

plant, we are looking at 7.0 maximum, or 7.2 maximum in California. That frequency of 7.2, as pointed out by Secretary Chu, occurs every 7,000 to 10,000 years. So, it gives you an idea of the engineering. 

The Japanese were hit with a ground motion of .52. Our California San Onofre is designed not for a .52 but for a .67. You have 

to remember that this is also in a region that geologists say will 

not get anything over a 7.2, and that 7.2 will be between 7,000 and 

10,000 years. It gives us some perspective of the challenges we 

have to have. 

The biggest concern was the fact that it was not the earthquake, 

as we know with the information now, but it was the tsunami. As 

a surfer, let me tell you something. This is not one thing that is 

joking in any matter, but it is one that is very, very disconcerting. 

The fact is that Japan had a 10-foot surge wall. San Onofre is 

sitting on a 20-foot elevation with a 30-foot-plus surge wall. Diablo 

is around 85. Obviously, in an area where all the experts say that 
17 

the tidal waves would never reach that level, but if they did, the 

difference between the California facilities and the Japanese facilities is that the California facilities have gravity-feed cooling built 

into their system and they have their pump systems totally protected from inundation, which the Japanese did not have. They did 

not even have their fuel tanks protected, which was a major flaw. 

I think that is where good assessment can really be made on this 

issue. 

Now remember as we talk about nuclear, ladies and gentlemen, 

as a former member, 6 years on the Air Resources Board, we are 

talking about 20 percent of our energy that avoids emissions equal 

to 96 percent of all the automobiles that are driving on American 

soil. I think that we have got to recognize that the challenges that 

we have to go forward, especially those of us who are addressing 

environmental issues, need to remember that even the U.N. Council on Climate Change has said that a robust commitment to nuclear is, has to be, part of any plan looking to address climate 

change. 

But I think that one of the things we need to get out of this, 

Madam Chair and Mr. Chairman, is that where are we today, have 

we over engineered and was that over engineering prudent. I think 

the one thing that it looks like in California is we have and that 

should be reassuring. 

My biggest concern is that we do not talk about the fact that, as 

Madam Chair knows, we are not just talking San Onofre in San 

Diego, we are talking many nuclear reactors that are within not 

just miles but within yards of residences in San Diego that the U.S. 

Government owns. Those are issues that we sort of ignore and I 

think this one we address. 

I guess the biggest issue, and I would like to agree with you 

strongly on, Senator, is not just how do we address the technology 

that is 40 years old that we have on the ground operating today, 

but how do we move forward with technology that has been upgraded that not only avoids the threats of meltdowns, totally engineers out that problem, but also creates the opportunity to address 

that waste problem, that 100 yard by 20 foot, that now nuclear 

waste not only could be a fuel that could be burned in the new 

technology that is now safe and designed not to do this, but also 

a technology that could use up our weapons grade material as we 

talk about going to zero options. 

So, I appreciate the chance to be able to address you today, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. Congressman Bilbray, Congresswoman Capps, 

great of you to come. Thank you so much for your contributions. 

We look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you. 

With that we are going to invite our second panel, Chairman 

Jaczko, Administrator Jackson, to join us at the table please. Neither of our guests on the second panel are strangers to this committee. It is great to see both of you. We appreciate your stewardship and the hard work that you are doing in response to the disaster, the disasters, in Japan. 

First we will hear from Lisa Jackson, who is the Administrator 

of the Environmental Protection Agency, and following her testi-
18 

mony, we will hear from Greg Jaczko, who is the Chairman of the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

I will ask you to use about 5 minutes for your statement, and 

then we will have some questions. 

Thank you so much for coming. Your entire statement will be 

made part of the record. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF LISA JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you, Chairman Carper. To you, Chairman 

Carper, Chairwoman Boxer, our Ranking Member Inhofe, and all 

the members of this committee, thank you for inviting me to testify 

on EPA’s role in responding to the tragedy in Japan. 

I do want to begin by expressing my sympathy for those who 

have lost loved ones from the earthquake and tsunami, and my 

support to those who are working tirelessly to control the radiation 

at the Fukushima Daiichi Plant in Japan. Their efforts are selfless 

and truly heroic. 

As Japan works to address the challenges at their nuclear reactors, many Americans are concerned about what the radiological releases to the atmosphere may mean to them and what their Government is doing to make sure that they are safe here in the 

United States. 

Let me begin by speaking directly to those who are concerned 

about radiation detection that monitoring and sampling from EPA 

and other Federal agencies are picking up throughout the United 

States. Let me be clear. EPA has not seen, and does not expect to 

see, radiation in our air or water reaching harmful levels in the 

United States. 

All of the data which we have seen, which we continue to make 

public and available on our Web site, indicates that while radiation 

levels are slightly elevated in some places, they are significantly 

below problematic levels. 

To put this in perspective, days after the tsunami struck, we detected radioactive isotopes consistent with a nuclear incident at 

several air monitors along the West Coast. These readings were so 

minuscule that they were 100,000 times lower than the daily exposure we all receive. 

Keep in mind that all of us are exposed to radiation every day, 

both from natural sources such as minerals in the ground and 

manmade sources such as medical x-rays. That said, we will continue to monitor the environment for radiation. We will continue 

to make the data public. We will continue to explain what the data 

mean to the people and families we serve. As I have said to this 

committee many times before, transparency and communication 

with the public is a priority for our agency and will guide all of our 

actions. 

EPA’s main role in this response is simple but very important. 

Using a variety of techniques, we monitor and track radiation and 

radionuclide releases into the environment in the United States. 

These radioactive releases range from ones that dissipate from the 

environment within days, such as iodine, to those that have halflives of thousands of years, such as plutonium. 
19 

Let me speak for just a moment about those monitoring efforts. 

EPA’s nationwide radiation monitoring network, known as RadNet, 

continuously monitors the Nation’s air, drinking water, rainwater 

and milk. The data provide the information scientists need to estimate long-term trends in environmental radiation levels and allows 

them to detect minuscule increases. 

RadNet’s air monitoring system is made up of more than 100 

fixed stations that create a network of detection across the United 

States. Over the last 5 years, EPA has been enhancing the capabilities of the RadNet system by replacing existing monitoring 

equipment with new air monitors that send real time data to our 

laboratory. 

In response to the Japanese nuclear incident, we added to this 

system by quickly deploying mobile air monitors to far westerly locations, including Alaska and islands in the Pacific, to detect radiation as it slowly moved from Japan. 

In addition, several times a week, we collect filters from these air 

monitors and perform a detailed analysis that lets us find even 

minuscule amounts of radioactive material in the air. 

EPA also samples rainwater for radioactive isotopes. Monitoring 

stations across the country submit precipitation samples to EPA 

laboratories as rainfall, snow or sleet occur. Under usual circumstances, these samples are analyzed by EPA scientists quarterly. But during this response, we are analyzing precipitation 

samples as they come in to the laboratory and quickly post the results on our public Web site. 

Also, EPA routinely samples milk and drinking water from sites 

across the Nation. Like rainwater, these samples are normally collected and analyzed on a quarterly basis but, in response to the nuclear release in Japan, we have accelerated the normal sampling 

schedule. 

As I mentioned, the levels detected have been far below levels of 

public health concern. The information is all available on EPA’s 

Web site, www.epa.gov/Japan2011. This Web site was quickly expanded after the tsunami so that the general public, especially 

those without a Ph.D. in nuclear physics, could easily understand 

what the monitors in their communities were indicating. EPA’s 

Web site has been featured extensively on CNN, Fox, and Facebook 

and it helps answer many of the questions that some of your constituents may be asking. 

Madam Chairman, thank you for your leadership on these issues, 

both of our Chairmen, excuse me. I want to assure you that EPA 

will continue our coordination with our Federal partners and we 

will continue our outreach to the public and the elected officials to 

provide information on our monitoring results. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF LISA P. JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY

Good morning, Madam Chairman, Chairman Carper and Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today to discuss EPA’s role in monitoring for radiation associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant emergency in 

Japan and the possible implications for the United States. Let me begin by expressing my sympathy for those who have lost loved ones from the earthquake and tsu-
20 

nami and my support to those who are working to control the radiation at the 

Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan. Their efforts are selfless and deserve our recognition. 

EPA MONITORING

As part of its ongoing radiation monitoring program, EPA regularly monitors and 

tracks radiation and radionuclide releases into the environment in the United 

States. Monitoring allows us to track known releases and to watch for contaminants 

when there is an actual, potential, or unexpected release. In addition, EPA may 

bring monitoring equipment to the scene of an incident to look for localized radiation and to help protect people and the environment. 

EPA’s nationwide radiation monitoring system, RadNet, contains 124 fixed, or stationary air monitors across the United States (of which 122 are currently operational), and 40 deployable air monitors that can be sent to take readings anywhere 

in the United States or its territories. The RadNet network continuously monitors 

the Nation’s air and regularly monitors drinking water, milk, and precipitation for 

a variety of radionuclides (e.g., iodine-131) and radiation types (e.g., gross gamma 

(γ)). The near-real-time air monitoring data is continuously reviewed by computer, 

and if the results show an unusual increase in radiation levels, EPA laboratory staff 

is alerted immediately and further analyzes additional data from the monitor. 

RadNet data provides a means to estimate levels of radioactivity in the environment, including background radiation as well as radioactive fallout from past atomic 

weapons testing, nuclear accidents, and other large-scale releases of radioactive materials. RadNet also provides the historical data needed to estimate long-term trends 

in environmental radiation levels. 

In the event of a threat of a significant radiation release, EPA typically will increase the frequency of RadNet sampling and generate many more data records for 

a given period of time compared to its routine operation. As a result of the events 

at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, several EPA monitors have detected very 

low levels of radioactive material in the United States consistent with releases from 

the damaged nuclear reactors. In an effort to provide additional geographic coverage 

to areas in close proximity to the releases in Japan, EPA shipped 8 deployable monitors to islands in the Pacific, including Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Western United States, including Hawaii, Idaho, and 

Alaska. EPA has also accelerated its monitoring of precipitation, milk, and drinking 

water in response to the radiation concerns from the Japanese nuclear reactors. 

While the detections in air, precipitation, and milk were expected, the levels detected have been far below levels of public-health concern. 

EPA, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and the Department of Health and Human Services (FDA, 

CDC) are among the many Federal agencies taking roles in monitoring and assessing radiation emissions from the Japanese nuclear facilities and modeling the potential dose assessments of radiation that might reach the United States. As part of 

the Federal Government’s ongoing effort to make our activities and science transparent and available to the public, EPA will continue to post all RadNet data in 

the current on-line data base, accessible through the EPA Web site: www.epa.gov/ 

japan2011. In the highly unlikely event that radiation levels begin to approach levels of concern for public health, the Federal Government will coordinate with State 

and local governments to ensure that public health and safety precautions are communicated to the public. 

MONITORING RESULTS

EPA’s RadNet radiation air monitors across the United States have shown typical 

fluctuations in background radiation levels. The levels detected are far below levels 

of concern. Results of EPA’s drinking water sampling, precipitation sampling, milk 

sampling, and air filter and cartridge analysis have detected very low levels of radioactive material consistent with releases from the damaged Japanese nuclear reactors. 

Keep in mind that all of us are exposed to radiation every day, both from natural 

sources such as minerals in the ground, and from man-made sources such as medical x-rays. Scientists estimate that the average person in the United States receives 

a dose of about 310 millirem of radiation per year from natural background sources. 

Over the course of a lifetime, a person will average an additional ∼300 millirem per 

year from medical procedures. The amount of radiation that will have an impact on 

a person’s health depends on the type of radiation and the sensitivity of the individual to the radiation exposure. Differences such as age, gender and even previous 

exposure are factors that might influence a person’s reaction to radiation exposure. 
21 

Air samples obtained through the RadNet system have, to date, contained very 

small amounts of iodine, cesium, and tellurium, which are consistent with possible 

releases from the damaged Japanese reactors. The largest amounts were found in 

samples from Alaska on March 19 and 24, 2011, but all of the radiation levels detected during the detailed filter analysis are hundreds of times below levels of concern. Drinking water samples taken at various locations throughout the U.S. during the 

week of April 4, 2011, ranged from non-detects to trace amounts of iodine-131—approximately 1.6 picocuries per liter (piC/L). (An infant would have to consume over 

200 gallons of this water at the highest detection level to receive a radiation dose 

equivalent to a day’s worth of the natural background radiation exposure we experience continuously from natural sources of radioactivity in our environment.) Drinking water samples from across the country are currently being analyzed. After all 

data are appropriately reviewed, EPA will release analysis results and will post the 

results on our Web site. 

Early precipitation samples collected by EPA indicated low levels of radioactivity. 

Given the sampling results in other environmental media, EPA expected to find 

very low levels of radiation in precipitation samples. Similar findings are to be expected in the coming weeks as radioactive materials are dispersed through the air 

from Japan. While the levels in some of the rainwater exceed the applicable Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 3piC/L for drinking water, it is important to note 

that the corresponding MCL for iodine-131 was calculated based on long-term chronic exposures over the course of a lifetime 70 years. The levels seen in rainwater are 

expected to be relatively short in duration and are not expected to present any 

threat to public health. 

Results from samples of milk taken March 28, 2011 in Phoenix, Arizona and Los 

Angeles, California showed approximately 3 pCi/L of iodine-131, which is more than 

1,500 times lower than the Derived Intervention Level set by the U.S. Food and 

Drug Administration. These types of findings are to be expected in the coming days 

and are far below levels of public health concern, including for infants and children. 

Iodine-131 has a very short half-life of approximately 8 days, and the level detected 

in milk and milk products is, therefore, expected to drop relatively quickly. Additional information about the broader Federal response can be found at: http:// 

www.usa.gov/Japan2011. 

CONCLUSION

Since the events in Japan occurred, EPA’s Web site has had thousands of views 

and we have received many positive comments from the public on the information 

we have made available. The Agency will continue to provide monitoring results to 

the public in a very open and transparent manner. While we do not expect radiation 

from the damaged Japanese reactors to reach the United States at harmful levels, 

I want to assure you that EPA will continue our coordination with our Federal partners to monitor the air, milk, precipitation and drinking water for any changes, and 

we will continue our outreach to the public and the elected officials to provide information on our monitoring results. 

Madam Chairman, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify. I welcome any questions you may have. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you much, very much, Administrator 

Jackson. 

Before you testify, Mr. Chairman, I just want to say to you, to 

the other Commissioners, to the folks on your staff at the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission, how much we appreciate the way you 

have stepped up and to respond to try to be as helpful as we can 

to the people of Miyagi and to say we appreciate your continued 

vigilance and we just encourage you not to let up. 

Thank you. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF GREGORY B. JACZKO, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR 

REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Madam Chairman and Ranking Member Barrasso. I also appreciate the opportunity to appear before you to address the response of the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission to the recent tragic events in Japan. 
22 

People across the country and around the world who have been 

touched by the magnitude and scale of this disaster are closely following the events in Japan and the repercussions in this country 

and in many other countries around the world. 

As many have indicated, our hearts go out to all those who have 

been dealing with the aftermath of these natural disasters. 

About 2 weeks ago, I made a brief visit to Japan to convey a message of support and cooperation to our Japanese counterparts there 

and to assess the ongoing situation. As part of that visit, I met 

with senior Japanese government and TEPCO officials and consulted with the NRC team of experts who are in Japan as part of 

our efforts to support U.S. Government assistance to Japan. 

Just to briefly recap, on Friday, March 11, when the earthquake 

and tsunami struck, the NRC’s headquarters Operations Center 

began to operate on a 24 hour basis consistent with the emergency 

authorities and responsibilities of the agency under the Reorganization Act of 1980. 

For the past 3 weeks, the Operations Center has been monitoring 

and analyzing events in Japan. In spite of the evolving situation, 

the long hours and the intensity of the efforts, the NRC staff has 

approached their responsibilities with dedication, determination 

and professionalism. They still remain focused on our central safety 

and security mission for reactors and facilities here in the United 

States. I am, needless to say, incredibly proud of their work. 

As regards the current situation of the reactors in Japan, from 

the information we have, we believe the situation currently is static 

and we do not see significant changes on a day-to-day basis with 

the reactors. It is not yet, however, what we believe to be stable, 

namely that, given additional events or other circumstances, that 

there would not be the potential for significant additional problems 

at the reactors. 

So, the efforts continue to be on these efforts, I think, to transition from static to stable to ensure long-term, ultimately, the ability to cool the reactors and to provide cooling for the spent fuel 

pools. 

Looking forward to the work that we have as an agency dealing 

with facilities in this country, on Monday, March 21st, only 10 days 

after the events in Japan, the Commission acted quickly to move 

forward and establish a senior level task force to conduct a comprehensive review of our processes and regulations to determine 

whether the agency should make improvements to our regulatory 

system. This is a responsibility that we have to the American people, to undertake a systematic and methodical review of the safety 

of our own domestic nuclear facilities in light of the Japan situation. 

This review will be conducted in the short term and a longer 

term timeframe. The short-term review, which will take approximately 90 days, has already begun and will identify potential or 

preliminary near-term operational or regulatory issues. A longer 

term review will begin as soon as we have sufficient information 

from Japan. But we expect that review to be completed within 6 

months from the beginning of the evaluation and, in fact, the Commission tasked our staff to do it in that time. 
23 

As we move forward with these efforts, we also recognize the importance of sharing our lessons learned with other regulatory counterparts in other countries throughout the world. I recently returned from the Fifth Review Meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety which provided an important opportunity for participating nations to address the events in Japan and begin to formulate plans for short- and long-term cooperation. 

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that we continue to take our 

domestic responsibilities for licensing and oversight of the U.S. licensees as our top priority and that, I want to stress, we believe 

that plants in the United States continue to operate safely. Based 

on the 90-day review and the longer term review that we have undertaken, we will take all appropriate actions necessary to ensure 

the continuing safety of the American people. 

On behalf of the Commission, I thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before you today and would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jaczko follows:] 

STATEMENT OF GREGORY B. JACZKO, CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR

REGULATORY COMMISSION

Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 

Barrasso, and Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear 

before you to address the response of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to the recent tragic events in Japan. People across the country and 

around the world who have been touched by the magnitude and scale of this disaster are closely following the events in Japan and the repercussions in this country 

and in other countries. 

I would first like to reiterate my condolences to all those who have been affected 

by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Our hearts go out to all who have been 

dealing with the aftermath of these natural disasters, and we are mindful of the 

long and difficult road they will face in recovering. We know that the people of 

Japan are resilient and strong, and we have every confidence that they will come 

through this horrific time and move forward, with resolve, to rebuild their vibrant 

country. Our agency stands together with the people of Japan at this most difficult 

and challenging time. As part of that, I made a brief visit to Japan 2 weeks ago. 

I wanted to convey a message of support and cooperation to our Japanese counterparts there and to assess the ongoing situation. I also met with senior Japanese government and TEPCO officials, and consulted with our NRC team of experts who are 

in Japan as part of our assistance effort. 

The NRC is an independent regulatory safety agency, with approximately 4000 

staff. We play a critically important role in protecting the American people and the 

environment. Our agency sets the rules by which commercial nuclear power plants 

operate, and nuclear materials are used in thousands of academic, medical and industrial settings in the United States. We have at least two resident inspectors who 

work full-time at every nuclear plant in the country, and we are proud to have 

world-class scientists, engineers and professionals representing nearly every scientific discipline. 

Since Friday, March 11th, when the earthquake and tsunami struck, the NRC’s 

headquarters 24-hour Emergency Operations Center has been fully activated, with 

staffing augmented to monitor and analyze events at nuclear power plants in Japan. 

At the request of the Japanese government, and through the United States Agency 

for International Development (USAID), the NRC sent a team of its technical experts to provide on-the-ground support, and we have been in continual contact with 

them. Within the United States, the NRC has been working closely with other Federal agencies as part of our government’s response to the situation. 

During these past several weeks, our staff has remained focused on our essential 

safety and security mission. I want to recognize their tireless efforts and their critical contributions to the U.S. response to assist Japan. In spite of the evolving situation, the long hours, and the intensity of efforts over the past week, NRC staff has 

approached their responsibilities with dedication, determination and profes-
24 

sionalism, and I am incredibly proud of their efforts. The American people also can 

be proud of the commitment and dedication within the Federal workforce, which is 

exemplified by our staff every day. 

The NRC’s primary responsibility is to ensure the adequate protection of the public health and safety of the American people. Toward that end, we have been very 

closely monitoring the activities in Japan and reviewing all currently available information. Review of this information, combined with our ongoing inspection and licensing oversight, gives us confidence that the U.S. plants continue to operate safely. To date, there has been no reduction in the licensing or oversight function of the 

NRC as it relates to any of the U.S. licensees. 

Our agency has a long history of conservative safety decisionmaking. We have 

been intelligently using risk insights to help inform our regulatory process, and, for 

more than 35 years of civilian nuclear power in this country, we have never stopped 

requiring needed improvements to plant designs, and modifying our regulatory 

framework as we learn from operating experience. 

At the same time the NRC is providing a very high level of support in response 

to the events in Japan, we continue to remain focused on our domestic responsibilities. 

I’d like to begin with a brief overview of our immediate and continuing response 

to the events in Japan. I then want to further discuss the reasons for our continuing 

confidence in the safety of the U.S. commercial nuclear reactor fleet, and the path 

forward for the NRC in order to learn all the lessons we can, in light of these 

events. 

On Friday, March 11th, an earthquake hit Japan, resulting in the shutdown of 

more than 10 reactors. The ensuing tsunami appears to have caused the loss of normal and emergency alternating current power to the six unit Fukushima Daiichi 

site. It is those six units that have received the majority of our attention since that 

time. Units One, Two, and Three were in operation at the time of the earthquake. 

Units Four, Five, and Six were in previously scheduled outages. 

Shortly after 4 o’clock AM EDT on Friday, March 11th, the NRC Emergency Operations Center made the first call, informing NRC management of the earthquake 

and the potential impact on U.S. plants. We went into monitoring mode later that 

morning at our Emergency Operations Center, and the NRC’s first concern was possible impacts of the tsunami on U.S. plants and radioactive materials on the West 

Coast, and in Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. Territories in the Pacific. We were in communication with licensees and NRC resident inspectors at Diablo Canyon Power 

Plant and San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California, and the Radiation 

Control Program Directors for California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii. 

On that same day, we began interactions with our Japanese regulatory counterparts and dispatched two experts to Japan to help at the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. 

By Monday, March 14, we had dispatched a total of 11 NRC staff to provide technical support to the American embassy and the Japanese government. We have subsequently rotated in additional staff to continue our on-the-ground assistance in 

Japan. The areas of focus for this team are: (1) to assist the Japanese government 

and respond to requests from our Japanese regulatory counterparts; and (2) to support the U.S. Ambassador and the U.S. Government assistance effort. 

On Wednesday, March 16th, we collaborated with other U.S. government agencies 

and decided to advise American citizens to evacuate within a 50-mile range around 

the plant. The 50-mile evacuation recommendation that the NRC made to the U.S. 

Ambassador in Japan was made in the interest of protecting the health and safety 

of U.S. citizens in Japan. We based our assessment on the conditions as we understood them at the time. Since communications with knowledgeable Japanese officials were limited and there was a large degree of uncertainty about plant conditions at the time, it was difficult to accurately assess the potential radiological hazard. In order to determine the proper evacuation distance, the NRC staff performed 

a series of calculations using NRC’s RASCAL computer code to assess possible offsite consequences. The computer models used meteorological model data appropriate 

for the Fukushima Daiichi vicinity. Source terms were based on hypothetical, but 

not unreasonable, estimates of fuel damage, containment, and other release conditions. These calculations demonstrated that the Environmental Protection Agency’s 

(EPA’s) Protective Action Guidelines could be exceeded at a distance of up to 50 

miles from the Fukushima site, if a large-scale release occurred from the reactors 

or spent fuel pools. The U.S. emergency preparedness framework provides for the 

expansion of emergency planning zones as conditions require. Acting in accordance 

with this framework, and with the best information available at the time, the NRC 

determined that evacuation out to 50 miles for U.S. citizens was a prudent course 

of action, and would be consistent with what we would do under similar cir-
25 

cumstances in the United States, and we made that recommendation to the Ambassador and other U.S. Government agencies. 

We have an extensive range of stakeholders with whom we have ongoing interaction regarding the Japan situation, including the White House, congressional 

staff, our State regulatory counterparts, a number of other Federal agencies, and 

international regulatory bodies around the world. 

The NRC response in Japan and our Emergency Operations Center continue with 

the dedicated efforts of over 250 NRC staff on a rotating basis. The entire agency 

is coordinating and working together in response to this event so that we can provide assistance to Japan while continuing the vital activities necessary to fulfill our 

domestic responsibilities. 

It is important to note that the U.S. government has an extensive network of radiation monitors across this country. Monitoring by nuclear power plants and the 

EPA’s system has not identified any radiation levels that affect public health and 

safety in this country. In fact, natural background radiation from sources such as 

rocks, the sun, and buildings, is 100,000 times more than doses attributed to any 

level that has been detected in the U.S. to date. Therefore, based on current data, 

we feel confident that there is no reason for concern in the United States regarding 

radioactive releases from Japan. 

There are many factors that assure us of ongoing domestic reactor safety. We 

have, since the beginning of our regulatory programs, used a philosophy of Defensein-Depth, which recognizes that nuclear reactors require the highest standards of 

design, construction, oversight, and operation, and does not rely on any single layer 

of protection for public health and safety. Designs for every individual reactor in 

this country take into account site-specific factors and include a detailed evaluation 

for natural events, such as earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and 

tsunamis, as they relate to that site. 

There are multiple physical barriers to radiation in every reactor design. Additionally, there are both diverse and redundant safety systems that are required to 

be maintained in operable condition and frequently tested to ensure that the plant 

is in a high condition of readiness to respond to any situation. 

We have taken advantage of the lessons learned from previous operating experience to implement a program of continuous improvement for the U.S. reactor fleet. 

We have learned from experience across a wide range of situations, including most 

significantly, the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. As a result of those lessons 

learned, we have significantly revised emergency planning requirements and emergency operating procedures. We have addressed many human factors issues regarding how control room employees operate the plant, added new requirements for hydrogen control to help prevent explosions inside of containment, and created requirements for enhanced control room displays of the status of pumps and valves. 

The NRC requires licensees to have a post-accident sampling system that enables 

the monitoring of radioactive material release and potential fuel degradation. One 

of the most significant changes after Three Mile Island was an expansion of the 

Resident Inspector Program, which now has at least two full-time NRC inspectors 

onsite at each nuclear power plant. These inspectors have unfettered access to all 

licensees’ activities related to nuclear safety and security. 

As a result of operating experience and ongoing research programs, severe accident management guidelines have been developed for use at nuclear power plants. 

These procedures were developed to ensure that, in the event all of the above-described precautions failed and a severe accident occurred, the plant would still protect public health and safety. Severe accident management guidelines have been in 

effect for many years and are evaluated by the NRC inspection program. 

As a result of the events of September 11, 2001, we identified important equipment that, regardless of the cause of a significant fire or explosion at a plant, the 

NRC requires licensees to have available and staged in advance, as well as new procedures and policies to help deal with a severe situation. 

Our program of continuous improvement, based on operating experience, will now 

include evaluation of the significant events in Japan and what we can learn from 

them. We already have begun enhancing inspection activities through temporary instructions to our inspection staff, including the resident inspectors and the regionbased inspectors in our four Regional offices, to look at licensees’ readiness to deal 

with both design-basis accidents and beyond-design-basis accidents. 

We have also issued an information notice to licensees to make them aware of the 

events in Japan, and the kinds of activities they should undertake to verify the continued operability of these mitigation measures. It is expected that licensees review 

the information related to their capabilities to mitigate conditions that result from 

severe accidents, including the loss of significant operational and safety systems. 
26 

During the past several decades, there have been a number of new rulemakings 

that have enhanced the domestic fleet’s preparedness against some of the problems 

we are seeing in Japan. The ‘‘station blackout’’ rule requires every plant in this 

country to analyze what the plant response would be if it were to lose all alternating 

current electricity so that it could respond using batteries for a period of time, and 

then have procedures in place to restore alternating current electricity to the site 

and provide cooling to the core. 

The hydrogen control rule requires modifications to reduce the impacts of hydrogen generated for beyond-design-basis events and core damage. There are equipment qualification rules that require equipment, including pumps and valves, to remain operable under the kinds of environmental temperature and radiation conditions that you would see under a design-basis accident. 

With regard to the type of containment design used by the most heavily damaged 

plants in Japan, the NRC has had a Boiling Water Reactor Mark I Containment 

Improvement Program since the late 1980s. This program resulted in the installation of hardened vent systems for containment pressure relief, as well as enhanced 

reliability of the automatic depressurization system. 

A final factor that underpins our belief in the ongoing safety of the U.S. fleet is 

the emergency preparedness and planning requirements in place that provide ongoing training, testing, and evaluations of licensees’ emergency preparedness programs. In coordination with our Federal partner, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), these activities include extensive interaction with State and 

local governments, as those programs are evaluated and tested on a periodic basis. 

Along with our confidence in the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, our agency 

has a responsibility to the American people to undertake a systematic and methodical review of the safety of our domestic facilities, in light of the natural disaster 

and the resulting nuclear situation in Japan. 

Examining all available information is an essential part of the effort to analyze 

the event and understand its impact on Japan and its implications for the United 

States. Our focus is always on keeping nuclear plants and radioactive materials in 

this country safe and secure. 

On Monday, March 21, my colleagues on the Commission and I met to review the 

status of the situation in Japan and identify the steps needed to conduct that review. We consequently decided to establish a senior level agency task force to conduct a comprehensive review of our processes and regulations to determine whether 

the agency should make additional improvements to our regulatory system, and to 

make recommendations to the Commission for its policy direction. 

The review will be conducted in both a short-term and a longer-term timeframe. 

The short-term review has already begun, and the task force will brief the Commission after 30, 60, and 90 day intervals and these meetings will be public web-cast 

meetings. At the 90-day interval, the staff will produce a public report to identify 

potential or preliminary near-term operational or regulatory issues. The task force 

then will undertake a longer-term review as soon as NRC has sufficient information 

from the events in Japan. That longer-term review will be completed in 6 months 

from the beginning of the evaluation. 

The task force will evaluate all technical and policy issues related to the event 

to identify additional potential research, generic issues, changes to the reactor oversight process, rulemakings, and adjustments to the regulatory framework that may 

warrant action by the NRC. We also expect to evaluate potential interagency issues, 

such as emergency preparedness, and examine the applicability of any lessons 

learned to non-operating reactors and materials licensees. We expect to seek input 

from all key stakeholders during this process. A report with appropriate recommendations will be provided to the Commission within 6 months of the start of 

this evaluation. Both the 90-day and final reports will be made publicly available. 

As we move forward with these efforts, we also recognize the importance to sharing our lessons learned with our regulatory counterparts. I recently returned from 

the Fifth Review Meeting of the Convention on Nuclear Safety, which provided an 

important opportunity for participating nations to address the events in Japan and 

begin to formulate plans for short- and long-term cooperation. We look forward to 

continuing this dialog. We also commend International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA) Director General Amano’s announcement of the Agency’s intention to host 

a ministerial-level conference in June. We are pleased to support the IAEA as it 

works to address and incorporate the events at Fukushima into its activities, as well 

as continuing its work in areas that have already been identified as nuclear safety 

and security priorities. 

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that we continue to make our domestic responsibilities for licensing and oversight of the U.S. licensees our top priority and that 

the U.S. plants continue to operate safely. In light of the events in Japan, there will 
27 

be a near-term evaluation of their relevance to the U.S. fleet, and we are continuing 

to gather the information necessary to take a longer, more comprehensive and thorough look at the events in Japan and their lessons for us. Based on these efforts, 

we will take all appropriate actions necessary to ensure the continuing safety of the 

American people. 

Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, Chairman Carper, Ranking Member 

Barrasso, and Members of the Committee, on behalf of the Commission, thank you 

for the opportunity to appear before you. I look forward to continuing to work with 

you to advance the NRC’s important safety mission. 

RESPONSE BY GREGORY B. JACZKO TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR BOXER

Question 1. On April 11, PG&E asked the NRC to delay issuance of the Diablo 

Canyon license renewal until after PG&E has completed the 3-D seismic studies and 

submitted a report to the NRC addressing the results. According to press accounts, 

the NRC is moving forward with safety and other reviews of Diablo Canyon in preparation for a ruling on PG&E’s request for a license extension. What specifically did 

PG&E communicate to the NRC regarding its request for a license extension? Why 

is the NRC continuing its review of PG&E’s application? 

Will the NRC ensure that all stakeholders, including local citizens, are able to 

comment on the relevance of the 3-D seismic studies as part of the normal NRC 

relicensing process? 

Response. The NRC received a letter dated April 10, 2011, from Pacific Gas and 

Electric Company (PG&E) requesting that the NRC not issue renewed operating licenses for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants, if approved, until after PG&E 

has completed 3-D seismic studies and submitted a report to the NRC addressing 

the results of those studies. PG&E also noted that it believes it would be prudent 

to complete the seismic studies prior to issuance of the coastal consistency certification that is required under the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA). PG&E indicated that the 3-D studies and the report addressing the study results are expected to be completed by December 2015. On April 12, 2011, counsel for PG&E sent 

a letter to the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that states ‘‘PG&E has 

not requested any suspension or delay in the NRC staff’s ongoing safety and environmental reviews of the [Diablo Canyon] license renewal application.’’ It further 

notes that ‘‘PG&E also is not requesting any delay in the schedule for the licensing 

hearing process.’’ 

As a result of PG&E’s requested deferral of issuance of renewed operating licenses 

for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plants, the NRC staff has updated the staff’s 

review schedule and milestones to reflect the delays in the license review process 

associated with the projected completion of the seismic studies and the CZMA’s 

coastal consistency certification. While the staff review schedule delays are not a 

stay or suspension of the license renewal process, the revised review schedule allows 

for the time to consider information associated with the anticipated 3-D seismic 

studies. 

Stakeholders, including local citizens, will be able to comment on the relevance 

of the 3-D seismic studies in at least one of two ways. Stakeholders will be able to 

comment on the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) regarding the Diablo Canyon license renewal application when it is published. After the EIS is published, 

members of the public will have the opportunity to comment on the EIS in person 

at an NRC-sponsored public meeting to be held near the plant or in writing through 

www.regulations.gov. Stakeholders may also petition the NRC for an action on the 

Diablo Canyon license renewal at any time. Please see www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/enforcement/petition.html for a complete discussion of this process. 

Question 2. The NRC license renewal process does not require a review of emergency planning, security, current safety performance or seismic issues because, according to the NRC, these items are dealt with on an ongoing basis. As a Commissioner you argued that ‘‘considering emergency preparedness during the license renewal process would be good public policy and a very valuable exercise.’’ Do you still 

believe in the value of this analysis? 

Are there other issues that could be appropriately addressed within the license 

renewal process? 

Response. Yes, I believe consideration of additional review areas, such as emergency preparedness, as part of license renewal continues to have merit; however, it 

is unlikely that the agency would change our regulations given the number of plants 

that used the existing requirements and past considerations used in developing the 

license renewal regulations. 
28 

If we were to adopt more of a full scope license renewal review process, an additional area for consideration would be review of a plant’s design basis and supporting analysis. 

Question 3. Do you have an estimate of how long it will take before the Japanese 

are safely able to maintain cooling and effectively shutdown the reactors? How long 

does the NRC expect to have staff on the ground in Japan? 

Response. Based on the information available, it appears that Tokyo Electric 

Power Company (TEPCO) is able to effectively maintain the reactors in shutdown 

condition and maintain cooling. 

The reactors at Fukushima were shut down immediately after the earthquake and 

remain shutdown today. It is unlikely that damaged cores such as those present in 

the Fukushima Daiichi plants can achieve a geometry and material composition to 

spontaneously restart. In June, TEPCO installed a circulating cooling system for the 

Fukushima Daiichi Units 1 through 3. The normal reactor injection system consists 

of two independent trains of three injection pumps. TEPCO also installed redundant 

and diverse systems as backup for cooling the reactors, which includes a train consisting of three pumps to inject fresh water via an alternate injection path. Additionally, TEPCO has six dedicated fire trucks capable of injecting into Units 1 

through 3. Finally, TEPCO placed additional fire trucks on high ground, which 

should survive another severe tsunami. 

The NRC has reduced the staff on the ground in Japan from the initial level sent 

over shortly after the accident. The NRC anticipates having some presence in Japan 

for the foreseeable future to advise the US Ambassador on the safety of American 

citizens and military assets in Japan. Additional NRC objectives are to gather lessons learned that can be applied to US plants. 

Question 4. Can you describe the enhanced inspection activities your resident inspectors are undertaking here in the U.S. in response to the disaster in Japan? 

Response. Inspections were performed to assess licensee preparations that have 

been put in place at every operating power reactor to prevent or mitigate possible 

loss of functions (due to large fires or explosions), station blackout (loss of all alternating current), flooding, and flooding with earthquakes. The associated inspection 

reports were issued on May 13. NRC inspectors found that all the reactors would 

be kept safe even in the event that their regular safety systems were affected by 

these events. The NRC will use its Reactor Oversight Process to further evaluate 

the inspection results and ensure any issues are fixed. 

Inspections were also completed to assess licensees’ readiness to implement their 

severe accident management guidelines. These guidelines outline licensee actions in 

the event of severe accidents beyond what the plant was licensed for. The associated 

inspection results were issued on June 6, 2011. Overall, the NRC believes plants 

are safe; however, NRC inspectors found many of the plants should improve either 

training of their staff on these procedures, or ensure the guidelines are appropriately updated. The NRC’s task force incorporated these inspection results into its 

short-term review to help determine if any immediate changes to NRC requirements 

are called for. The inspection results will also help inform the NRC’s long-term review of possible revisions to agency licensing and oversight processes. 

Question 5. The NRC recently issued an information notice to licensees to make 

them aware of events in Japan and the kind of activities they should undertake. 

It is my understanding that this notice does not require specific action, but encourages it. Is this understanding correct? If so, do you expect the NRC will issue new 

requirements (rather than just recommendations) in response to the disaster in 

Japan? 

Response. Information Notices are issued to provide significant recently identified 

information about safety, safeguards, or environmental issues. Recipients are expected to review the information for applicability to their facilities and consider actions, as appropriate, to avoid similar problems. Information Notices do not require 

action per se. 

The NRC’s task force studied the events at Fukushima and assessed their impacts 

on U.S. plants, and issued its report with recommendations to the Commission on 

July 12, 2011. The Task Force developed a comprehensive set of 12 recommendations including improvements in dealing with a loss of power, dealing with earthquakes, flooding, spent fuel pools, venting and preparedness and updating the regulatory framework so that it is more logical, systematic and coherent. The Commission continues to deliberate on the Task Force report, and will vote on the recommendations, supplemented by additional staff papers that the Commission directed the staff to provide, that require a Commission policy decision. 
29 

As described in the response to Question 4, the NRC also issued two temporary 

instruction procedures to assess licensee’s preparedness for events that exceed the 

design basis of the plant. Also, on May 11, 2011 the NRC issued Bulletin 2011–01 

to companies licensed to operate U.S. nuclear power plants, requesting information 

on how the plants are complying with requirements to deal with the potential loss 

of large areas of the plant after extreme events. The Bulletin sought information 

on the plants’ approach to ensuring their strategies remain effective over time. 

Plants responded to the Bulletin in June 10, 2011 with information confirming their 

mitigative-strategy equipment is in place and available, and that the strategies can 

be carried out with current plant staffing. Plants also responded to the Bulletin in 

July with further information in areas including: 

• how essential resources are maintained, tested, and controlled to ensure availability; 

• how strategies are re-evaluated if plant conditions or configurations change; and 

• how arrangements are reached and maintained with local emergency response 

organizations. 

RESPONSE BY GREGORY B. JACZKO TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FROM

SENATOR INHOFE

Question 1. Please provide a list of all dates when the NRC Operations Center 

was activated in a response mode since 1980. Please include the basis for its activation, the duration of its activation, which mode it was in, and a description of the 

various response modes. 

Response. For an incident at a specific licensed facility, the NRC response mode 

is determined by consideration of the licensee emergency classification (Table 1) and 

the NRC’s independent assessment of incident conditions. The NRC response mode 

for other types of incidents (e.g., a transportation incident involving regulated material, regional electric grid incident affecting multiple licensed facilities, large-scale 

natural disaster, international disaster, national-level domestic threat, and/or terrorist threat/attack not focused at a specific facility) is determined by the NRC’s 

independent assessment of the aggregate of available incident-related information, 

including information from licensees and other sources. 

• Since 1980, the NRC Headquarters Operations Center (HOC) has never entered 

the EXPANDED ACTIVATION Mode. 

• Since 1980, the NRC HOC has never entered the ACTIVATION Mode. 

• Since 1980, the NRC has staffed its HOC on 15 occasions while in the MONITORING Mode. The basis and durations for these 15 events are listed below. Please 

note, however, that prior to 2001, the NRC Events Data base was not used to document the agency’s entrance into MONITORING Mode. Thus, the duration of the 

NRC’s response for events prior to 2001 is not available. 

• Davis Besse Loss of Feedwater Event (06/09/85) 

• Sequoyah Fuels Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6) Release Event (01/04/86) 

• Chernobyl Reactor Event (04/26/86) 

• Vogtle Station Blackout Event (03/20/90) 

• GE Wilmington Potential Criticality event (05/29/91) 

• Hurricane Andrew (08/23/92) • TMI Security Intrusion Event (02/07/93) 

• Tokaimura Criticality Event (09/30/99) 

• 9/11 Terrorist Attacks (09/11/01) 

• Northeastern U.S. Electrical Blackout (08/14/03 @ 16:40–8/15/03 @ 20 

o’clock) 

• BWXT-Lynchburg Criticality Alarm Event (07/13/05 @ 23:20–07/14/05 @ 

00:26) 

• Hurricane Katrina (08/28/05 @ 17 o’clock –09/06/05 @ 19 o’clock) 

• BWXT-Lynchburg Material Event (08/02/07 @ 12:15–08/02/07 @ 14:15) 

• B&W N.O.G-Lynchburg Fuel Event (07/15/09 @ 20:47–07/16/09 @ 01:03) 

• Japan Earthquake/Tsunami (03/11/11 @ 09:46–05/16/11) 

• Unless otherwise designated, the NRC is in a constant State of readiness or 

NORMAL Mode. NORMAL Mode is the NRC’s routine, or normal State of operations. 

The NRC’s response is flexible and tailored to the specific incident(s). Pre-designated response modes enable the agency to activate response capabilities in a 

structured manner and focus the agency’s response, as appropriate, at the region, 

headquarters, or incident site. This flexibility permits the NRC response to be com-
30 

mensurate with incident characteristics and severity and with licensee activities. 

The NRC’s response modes are described below: 

• NORMAL Mode.—The routine, or normal, State of NRC operations includes all 

activities designed to maintain incident response readiness, such as 24/7 staffing by 

Headquarters Operations Officers (HOOs). In addition, the NRC is poised to respond 

at its alternate Continuity of Operations (COOP) site. The regional offices are prepared to back up each other and headquarters. When warranted, such as during national special security events, the NRC may dispatch staff to the Department of 

Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Operations Center (NOC) and other sites to 

enhance coordination and communications. 

• MONITORING Mode.—The NRC escalates to the MONITORING mode, a 

heightened State of readiness for incident assessment, upon a decision by designated headquarters and regional managers. For a facility-specific or region-specific 

incident, the responsible regional office has the lead for agency response and appropriately staffs its incident response center. Headquarters supports the region and 

may have specific individuals participating in monitoring and/or analysis activities, 

but the HOC is not staffed and activated. 

The NRC may escalate to the MONITORING mode for situations that are not facility or region-specific, including but not limited to, natural phenomena potentially 

involving one or more licensees, multi-region electric grid incident, international incident, or terrorism-related incidents. For such situations, headquarters has the 

lead for agency response and the regions provide appropriate support. 

• ACTIVATION Mode .—The NRC escalates to the ACTIVATION mode if an incident is sufficiently complex or uncertain that it warrants extensive analysis and 

evaluation by the agency, if it warrants consideration for sending an NRC site team 

to the vicinity of the incident, or if the incident involves terrorist activities. In the 

ACTIVATION mode, the lead for agency response shifts from the region to headquarters. The HOC is fully staffed by the needed support teams under the leadership of the Executive Team (ET). As conditions develop and the incident is better 

understood, staffing may be reduced accordingly. For a facility-specific or locationspecific incident such as a transportation incident, the responsible regional office 

continues staffing of its incident response center and may prepare a site team to 

travel to the licensee’s site or the location of the incident. Headquarters and the regional office maintain continuous communication, evaluate available information, 

make appropriate notifications, and prepare for escalation of response should it be 

necessary. Other regional offices provide appropriate support. 

• EXPANDED ACTIVATION Mode.—The NRC escalates to the EXPANDED ACTIVATION mode if the incident severity and/or situation uncertainty warrants the 

dispatch of a site team, delegation of selected authority to the Site Team Director, 

and turnover to the site team. EXPANDED ACTIVATION may be initiated in response to a facility-specific incident at a licensee’s site, incident(s) involving multiple 

licensees’ facilities, terrorist attack or other incidents in which the site team capabilities of the NRC are needed to support the overall Federal response. Headquarters continues to lead the agency’s response in the EXPANDED ACTIVATION 

mode. The ET Director leads the agency response, and the HOC maintains full staffing by the ET and support teams. Team membership is tailored to the specific incident. The regional office incident response center maintains full staffing which is 

adjusted to accommodate the site team. Other regional offices may partially staff 

their incident response centers or provide resources and/or personnel to the NRC 

site team. 

The EXPANDED ACTIVATION mode involves dispatch of an NRC site team to 

the licensee’s site or the vicinity of an incident under the leadership of the Regional 

Administrator or designee. The Site Team Director may be delegated specific authorities from the ET Director to lead NRC response activities. The focus of NRC 

response is at the incident site, and the site team may have the lead for most of 

the agency response. At the site, the Site Team Director may assume supervision 

of NRC personnel, may represent NRC in interactions with other agencies (e.g., represents the NRC locally as coordinating agency or cooperating agency in accordance 

with the national response framework), and may decide what response actions must 

be taken, consistent with the delegated authority. The ET Director retains any authority not specifically delegated to the Site Team Director. 
31 
32 

Question 2. Please provide a list of all the occasions since 1980 that an NRC 

Chairman has exercised emergency authority granted under Section 3 of the Reorganization Plan of 1980. Please indicate the basis for and duration of the exercise 

of emergency authority. 

Response. A list of the times and the associated duration in which the NRC has 

responded to an emergency situation is contained in the response to the previous 

question. 

Question 3. Please provide a comprehensive list of all actions you have taken 

under your emergency authority since March 11th. 

Response. I have kept my fellow Commissioners currently and fully informed of 

the NRC response to the events in Japan. These information exchanges have taken 

the form of direct briefings of Commissioners once per day in the first week after 

the accident (including one planning for a Commission meeting) and on an ad hoc 

basis after March 18. The Commissioners’ staffs received numerous briefings from 

the Executive Team in the NRC Operations Center, as well as written status report 

at regular and frequent intervals. 

Specifically, I orally briefed the Commission as a collegial body on nine separate 

occasions on the Japan accident, and individual Commissioners on ten separate occasions. 

Commissioner’s Assistants received 62 briefings from the Executive Team between 

March 11 and May 4. Three of these briefings occurred within the first 12 hours 

after the NRC entered into the mode of monitoring the accident on March 11 and 

a fourth was conducted within the first 24 hours. 

As of May 4, the Commission had also received 96 written status updates from 

NRC’s Headquarters Operations Officer. In addition, the Commission received other 

written information and one page documents with pertinent information and analysis, and had access to the internal NRC Website where all of those reports were 

maintained. 

In addition, I worked with my fellow Commissioners to create a Task Force to examine the agency’s regulatory requirements, programs, processes, and implementation in light of information from the accident following the March 11 earthquake 

and tsunami. The Task Force presented its report to the Commission on July 12, 

proposing recommendations on improving several safety-related areas. 

Question 4a. and b. On April 1st, the NRC appointed a task force to examine the 

agency’s regulatory requirements, programs, processes, and implementation in light 

of information from the Fukushima Daiichi site in Japan, following the March 11 

earthquake and tsunami. 

How much do you estimate this review will cost? 

Will the Commission need to reprogram funds from other programs to support 

this review? If so, from which programs? 

Response. The cost in fiscal year associated with NRC staff efforts to respond to the situation in Japan is $19 million. This amount was contained in the NRC’s fiscal 

year reprogramming action that was approved by Congress. The cost in fiscal year 

to implement the task force’s near-term recommendations to ensure that the NRC’s 

regulations, requirements and processes reflect the lessons learned from the 

Fukushima nuclear emergency is still to be determined, and depends on what actions are approved by the Commission. 

Question 4c. On April 1st, the NRC appointed a task force to examine the agency’s 

regulatory requirements, programs, processes, and implementation in light of information from the Fukushima Daiichi site in Japan, following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. 

In addition to the announced task force members, how many staff will support 

this review. Please indicate the offices and programs where they currently work and 

the estimated time they will spend in support of the review. 

Response. The task force members have consulted with senior management and 

technical staff in various offices, including the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, 

the Office of New Reactors, the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, the Office 

of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, and the Regional Offices on specific topics that are being addressed. The Task Force spent over 100 hours talking to agency 

staff, in addition to e-mails and other written communications. 

Additionally, during the task force’s deliberations, the importance of severe accident management guidelines (SAMG) was highlighted. In order to evaluate the current status of SAMGs onsite and determine the need for any further recommendations, a temporary instruction (TI) inspection was issued on April 29, 2011, requesting that information regarding SAMGs at the 65 operating power reactor sites be 

gathered, assessed, and summarized. Approximately 900 direct inspection hours by 

NRC inspectors were spent to complete the TI inspection requirements. 
33 

Question 5. What, if any additional resources are needed to ensure that adequate 

funding of the Fukushima task force does not impair progress on new plant licensing and design certification. 

Response. As discussed in the response to Question 4, the NRC reprogrammed 

$19 million in fiscal year from prior year unobligated carryover funds to cover the 

costs of the near and long term evaluation of the need for NRC actions following 

the events of Japan. Accordingly, the NRC did not require additional resources in 

fiscal year to continue efforts devoted to new reactor plant licensing and design certification reviews. Depending on how the Commission votes on the Task Force recommendations, and supplementary staff papers, the agency will likely be required 

to adjust its fiscal year budget to address potential changes to NRC’s regulatory requirements, programs, and processes. 

Question 6. Please provide a list of the fees billed under 10 CFR 170 to license 

renewal applicants currents under review and the 20 most recently issued license 

renewals. 

Response. See the attached tables starting on the next page. 
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Senator CARPER. Well, thanks to both of you for your testimonies. 

Madam Chairman, Chairman Boxer? 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

First, I want to thank both of you because you have been available to those of us on both sides of the aisle here to answer our 

questions. I appreciate that so much. 

I want to put in the record something I got from USGS that 

shows how many earthquakes, because Senator Barrasso said look, 

this earthquake happened over in Japan, it did not happen here. 

Obviously. But, how many earthquakes, I would say to my friend, 

have we had in America that they have managed to document? It 

is 157 earthquakes all over this great Nation and in every part of 

this country. So, I want to put that into the record. These are over 

6.0. 

Senator CARPER. Without objection. 

[The referenced material was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. One hundred fifty-seven earthquakes over 6.0. 

I also ask for the documentation on tsunami. What I do have is 

the areas where the highest risks are. That would be Alaska, Hawaii, very high, West Coast, high, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, 

high, the others low to very low. So, I am going to put those, both, 

in the record. 

Senator CARPER. Without objection. 

[The referenced material was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Mr. Jaczko, I know you have been very involved, Mr. Chairman, 

in helping the people in Japan. We, every one of us on both sides, 

are grateful because I think America is at its best when we are 

there for our friends and we certainly are. 

Well, right now you described, you said that it is a static situation, not a stable situation. So let me ask you, what is the best 

thing that could happen right now with those reactors, and what 

is the worst thing that could happen? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, I am reluctant to speculate on what the worst 

thing is that could happen because, again, there is always things 

that one could postulate that are possible although very unlikely. 

Senator BOXER. Well, I think it is important. What is the worst 

thing could happen? I think we all believe you have to look at this. 

What is the best thing that could happen, what is the worst? Now, 

we all hope for the best, but what is the worst thing that could 

happen? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, right now what our focus is on, it focuses on 

ensuring that we can continue to provide, or the Japanese can continue to provide, cooling to the reactor and water into the spent 

fuel pools. That is a process that is working right now. 

As I said, it is not necessarily the most stable configuration. So, 

for instance, there was an aftershock, I believe it was last night, 

and as a result they had to remove some individuals from the site. 

They lost some of the offsite power. So, some of the pumps in the 

systems that were working were not able to continue to work for 

about 50 minutes. 

So what we want to see is to move into a situation in which that 

kind of situation would be dealt with in a more predictable manner 

and with less possibility of the loss of the cooling systems. So, 
98 

every day that the reactors continue to have cooling and continue 

to receive water and other types of cooling, the likelihood of a more 

significant release continues to go down. 

Senator BOXER. So the cooling, obviously here, is the key and 

there is nothing else that could happen in your mind, that could 

go wrong? 

Mr. JACZKO. That really is—— 

Senator BOXER. If there is cooling going on. 

Mr. JACZKO. That is correct. The primary focus is to maintain 

cooling. If you lose the ability to cool the reactor cores, then you 

have the possibility of a further degradation in the fuel which could 

lead to possibly a greater release than what is going on now. 

Senator BOXER. Are the leaks still going on into the ocean? 

Mr. JACZKO. We believe right now that some of them have been 

stopped. But there is the possibility that there are other leaks and 

other material being released. 

Senator BOXER. How radioactive is that water? 

Mr. JACZKO. Right now, the Japanese are surveying the water 

that is going out and being, into the ocean, and they are doing surveys. I have not seen the latest figures about that level of contamination. 

Senator BOXER. Would you let me know, as soon as you know, 

what contamination is flowing into that ocean? 

Mr. JACZKO. Absolutely. We can provide you with detailed information about that. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Administrator Jackson, your Scientific Advisory Board found that EPA’s fixed radiation monitors had a potential sampling bias against the collection of larger particles which 

could include hot particles. Have you taken any actions to address 

the SAB’s concerns? 

Ms. JACKSON. Yes, Chairman, we have. That report was done 

several years ago, and since that report was done, EPA responded 

to the request from the SAB to do an additional study on the efficacy of our monitoring equipment in capturing all sizes of particles. 

The really problematic ones are the smaller ones, and what we 

found through that study is that our fixed monitors can collect the 

very smallest particles reasonably effectively. 

Now, I do want to say, having newer monitors, there are newer 

monitors out there that get even greater capture, but if you look 

at the purpose of the system, which is to give broad levels of background for events that are known, the current system is certainly 

effective. 

Senator BOXER. Well, my time has expired. I just want to say to 

Chairman Jaczko, I have these two nuclear plants that were built 

a very long time ago and now apparently PG&E and Southern California Edison have withdrawn their re-licensing processing now. 

I guess what I want to say, and you do not need to answer this, 

but I am going to be talking to you about this, for me. Again, nobody has to respond to this. It is just, I am thinking common sense. 

You have now 7.4 million people that live within a 50-mile radius 

of one of my plants, and you have got about a half a million that 

live within a 50-mile radius of the other. Both of these sit on or 

near earthquake faults. 
99 

So, all I am going to say to you and the other Commissioners 

when we do get a chance to speak with the others, and I think we 

will, is that to my mind, I think the Commission, when you are relicensing, have to look at this as if it is a new opportunity. Would 

you license a plant that came to you now with that circumstance, 

right by or near earthquake faults, studies that say there will be 

more frequent earthquakes, both involved near tsunamis, or the 

one is more vulnerable to a potential tsunami? 

I just hope that you, and again, I do not, I am not asking you 

to answer this because you have got to think a long, hard time 

about this. But to me, as someone whose highest responsibility is 

the health and safety of all of these millions of people, if you would 

say no to a new operator, I hope you will think about how it makes 

any sense to just keep on going unless there is major reinforcements and hardening of some of these buildings and the rest. 

So, I just leave you with that thought. Those are my concerns. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator Barrasso. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate both of you being here today and Chairman Jaczko, 

I appreciate the time you have been available to me by phone, visiting in the office and addressing some of these various concerns 

that are critical and questions that need to be answered. So, I appreciate that. 

I noted that last week the California Coastal Commission concluded that ‘‘a nuclear emergency such as is occurring in Japan is 

extremely unlikely at the State’s two operating nuclear power 

plants.’’ Would you agree with that California Coastal Commission’s conclusion? 

Mr. JACZKO. We think it is very unlikely to see a large earthquake and a tsunami. 

Senator BARRASSO. They went on to say that the combination of 

a strong ground motion and massive tsunami that occurred in 

Japan cannot be generated by the kind of faults that exist close to 

the, in the vicinity of, the two plants, nuclear plants in California. 

Do you agree with their assessment there? 

Mr. JACZKO. It is my understanding that the type of fault in 

Japan was a different type of fault that does not exist off the coast 

of California. 

Senator BARRASSO. OK. Thank you. 

Administrator Jackson, I mentioned in my opening statement 

that an April 6th Inside EPA story was entitled Activists Step Up 

Efforts to Strengthen Oversight on Uranium Recovery and I mentioned how those activist groups are using the nuclear emergency 

in Japan as a reason to place additional red tape on approving uranium mines domestically here in the United State. 

Do you see a connection between the Japanese nuclear emergency and the uranium mining in the United States? 

Ms. JACKSON. No direct kind of connection, Senator. 

Mr. BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, when we last had an opportunity to visit in my 

office, I discussed my concerns about the delay in approving permits for uranium mines in Wyoming. You had mentioned that the 

delay was because you were still working things out with the EPA 
100 

and you thought that we had finally achieved the resolution that 

was necessary. You thought you now had a template to move forward with approving additional uranium mines. 

Do you believe you have worked out any of those issues now with 

the EPA in terms of uranium mining permitting so that now we 

can proceed with a faster permitting process? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, I believe we have worked out, come to a good 

understanding of, how we deal with our environmental impact 

statements. We are, however, continuing to work through issues 

that are our responsibilities under, to consult with tribal governments as part of other requirements, and that is the last activity 

that we are working on as we finalize our efforts on these uranium 

recovery applications. That is not necessarily an issue involving the 

EPA. 

Senator BARRASSO. So then, Administrator Jackson, you are comfortable with that statement? Do you commit to work with any 

issues that we need to resolve between the NRC and EPA in a 

timely manner? 

Ms. JACKSON. I remain committed to working to resolve any 

issues we might have with respect to Wyoming. I do not believe the 

article in question actually referenced any sites in Wyoming 

but—— 

Senator BARRASSO. Just the overall approval. Thank you. 

I wanted to get back, Mr. Chairman, with the NRC’s response in 

Japan and I know you have about 250 NRC staff working on a rotating basis, full functioning, and working hard on this. 

Given the commitment of the NRC’s resources to Japan, if we 

had any sort of an emergency in the United States, would you be 

able to redeploy in a way that we would not put ourselves at a disadvantage? 

Mr. JACZKO. Absolutely. As this event has gone forward, we have 

looked at our staffing levels and actually we have transitioned our 

approach now to the staff in our Operations Center to have a 

smaller team there who can respond quickly but then would reach 

back to our larger agency to get information requests as they need. 

So, it is, it allows us to respond in the same timely way, but to do 

it in a way that allows us to continue with our other important responsibilities. 

Senator BARRASSO. Finally, I think Senator Inhofe raised the 

issue about your invoking of emergency powers as a result of this. 

Could you describe to me how that, how you interacted with your 

fellow Commissioners during this nuclear incident? Have you relied 

on them for some of their expertise in making decisions as well? 

Mr. JACZKO. Sir, there is not so much, I think, invoking of, 

through the emergency authorities, that is an authority that the 

Chairman has. But most of the activities that I have engaged in 

as part of this response have been in my normal supervisory authorities over the staff at the agency and my communication responsibilities. 

I would note, and we could provide this information for the 

record, but immediately after we entered our monitoring mode on 

March 11th, an email was sent out indicating that we had done 

that. Within the first 24 hours, we had had four briefings of the 

assistants to each of the Commissioners. Over the last several 
101 

weeks, I have done at least 26 briefings to my colleagues on the 

Commission, including one public Commission meeting that was 

held about a week after the event started. 

There have been about, overall, 60 briefings to staff of the Commission assistants and about 80 products have been provided to the 

Commission indicating the status of our response efforts and the 

activities that are ongoing. 

So, I think there has been very good communication with the 

Commission about what we are doing and how we are dealing with 

the response. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Chairman, as a point of personal privilege, 

since the Senator mentioned the plants in my State, I appreciate 

his concern, let me put into the record two letters by the California 

Coastal Commission saying that before there is a re-licensing they 

want new earthquake studies. That is No. 1. 

No. 2, what my friend said about the fact that it would be unlikely we would have such an accident in California, absolutely 

very unlikely. It is unlikely. That is exactly what they said about 

Japan. To the word. So, we have got to move beyond talk and get 

to the serious question of what do we do to everything in our power 

to make it safe. 

Senator CARPER. Is there objection to the request? Hearing none, 

so ordered. 

Alright. I would ask a question, my first question, of Chairman 

Jaczko if I could. 

You have, I think, heard me say before that I like to quote Albert 

Einstein. Albert Einstein once said, in adversity lies opportunity. 

When Chairman Boxer asked the question, what is the worst that 

can happen, following up on this tragedy, one of the worst things 

in my mind that could happen is that we would not learn anything 

from it. That is one of the worst things that I think could happen. 

We have had not a whole lot of time, but some time has passed 

since this sad chapter began unfolding. Talk to us about some of 

the lessons that we have learned in the past weeks and maybe that 

would suggest that what we are doing is appropriate, good, smart, 

safe, and maybe some things that we have learned that would suggest that we could do better. 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, I think one of the issues that we have really 

come to recognize is that the station blackout event is a very serious event. I think the good aspect about it is that we have always 

known that that is a very serious type of event. It is a situation 

in which you lose all of the ability to have electrical power to the 

site. 

Fundamentally, right now, we think that is really the primary 

cause of the problem. What we are really working to establish is 

why exactly they got into this situation where the station blacked 

out and what were really the lead factors affecting that. 

I think we have seen the importance of emergency planning and 

having the ability to respond and provide emergency guidance to 

the population around a nuclear power plant and we have seen 

that that carries on its intended function, which is it moves people 
102 

out of an area in which they can be exposed to harmful levels of 

radiation. 

So, if we just look at the kinds of things that we have right now, 

those are, I think, some of the big lessons that we have learned. 

We have this 90-day task force that is going to be looking at 

some very specific things in the next 2 months, 2 1⁄2 months, and 

I do not want to get too far in front of the work that they are doing 

because I think we have put together some really talented people 

at the agency who are going to do a good, thorough look at this, 

and I do not want them to start giving the answers that they hear 

me say at a hearing. 

So, I think at this point, I think that if there is any one other 

lesson I could say that we have learned is that after Three Mile 

Island we learned that it was very important to go about this kind 

of review in a systematic and methodical way with the appropriate 

sense of urgency and the need to move expeditiously. 

I think that is what we are doing, and that will be the continued 

focus that I have with the agency because we want to make sure 

that we put in place the kind of changes that make safety better, 

and not the kind of changes that in the end wind up undermining 

safety. So, that is why it is so important that we do it systematically and methodically. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thank you. 

I think it was Senator Alexander who said earlier, mentioned 

that if you took all of the spent fuel in this country and you stacked 

it up on a football field it would be about 20 or 25 feet high. To 

some that might sound like a lot, to others not so much. 

We have a Blue Ribbon Commission that has been working at 

the direction of the President to consider what we should be doing 

with that spent fuel. Give us some idea when we expect to hear 

back from that Commission? I think what they find or recommend 

to us might actually tie in closely with what they are facing in 

Japan. 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, I think that we are anticipating, I think an 

interim report from the commission sometime this summer and 

then with a final report sometime later, by the end of the year. 

When we look at these issues of spent fuel, this is something, 

again, the agency, the Commission, has put a strong focus on, on 

making sure that spent fuel can be stored safely and securely. 

The structures, whether in pools or whether in dry cask storage, 

are very robust structures that are designed to deal with a large 

earthquake, that are designed to deal with natural disasters and 

significant security-related events. So, we have kind of a multitiered system of protection that exists at all of our plants and that 

includes these unlikely events like these natural disasters and then 

a layer of protection on that to look at, if that kind of unlikely 

event happens and all the safety systems do not function well, we 

have additional procedures in place to address that kind of situation and ultimately equipment that is put in the plants to kind of 

do that last line of defense in terms of providing cooling to the 

pools or, ultimately, to the reactor core. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. 

We have 104 nuclear power plants. I said earlier that I thought 

the first one was built about 50 years ago. I think it was built 42 
103 

years ago, not 50 years ago. But there are a number of plants that 

are up for re-licensure and some have already been relicensed. We 

have a number of applications before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build new plants with new technology, new design. 

How do the events from Japan, the tragic events from Japan, 

how do they figure into the re-licensing process for the, oh, I do not 

know, the dozen or so that are before the Commission today, or will 

soon be, for re-licensure? How do the lessons learned figure into the 

approval process, the review process, for the new design? 

Mr. JACZKO. Fundamentally, we think about these issues not 

necessarily for a plant that is 41 years old or 42 years old or 1- 

year old or 10 years old. We think about this in terms of the plants 

that are there now and the safety of the existing fleet of reactors. 

So, the reviews that we are doing, the first review is really to 

identify any issues that we would need to address immediately. So, 

we would not wait for re-licensing or any other type of activity related to license extension to make changes to the plants. So, fundamentally, the kinds of changes we are looking at or possibly 

would need to make would be applicable to all of the plants in the 

country, whether they are getting their license extended or not. 

In addition, we have a very robust process of reviewing the license applications and the renewed license applications that gives 

the public an opportunity for input, that gives them an opportunity 

to raise issues. We think those procedures and processes are robust 

enough to deal with the new issues that come about from the 

Japan situation. 

But fundamentally, some of these changes may take time to implement and in the interim we will evaluate every situation as it 

comes up. If there is something we need to do to slow down, we 

will slow down. If we can move forward appropriately, we will 

move forward appropriately. But I think we will know, we will be 

in a much better position, after this 90-day review is done to see 

if there are any real immediate actions that need to be taken. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you very much. 

Senator Alexander, you are next. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you both for 

your testimony. 

Ms. Jackson, as we look at electricity produced in the United 

States, we use about, I think, about 25 percent of all electricity in 

the world for our country. I believe about 44 percent is produced 

by coal, 20 percent by nuclear power, 23 percent by natural gas, 

7 percent by hydroelectric power, we usually think of those as base 

load powered, base load electricity, electricity that is reliable over 

long periods of time, about 3 percent is wind, much less than 1 percent is solar. 

What would be the effect on our country’s ability to comply with 

EPA’s clean air standards if we did not, if we replaced nuclear 

power with either coal plants or natural gas plants? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, nuclear powerplant emissions are low to zero 

for the pollutants that EPA regulates so there would be, presumably, an increase in pollution. Even with the best pollution control 

technology, fossil fuel plants are going to have higher emissions, including greenhouse gas pollution which nuclear power does not 

have. 
104 

Senator ALEXANDER. But probably half our coal plants do not 

have that—— 

Ms. JACKSON. About half of our coal plants in the country are not 

controlled for air toxics like mercury, arsenic, cadmium, acid gases. 

In fact, we just recently proposed a rule to address that issue. 

When it comes to carbon pollution, of course it is quite different. 

Senator ALEXANDER. We have a lot of discussion, Senator Carper 

and I have worked a long time on the mercury issue. But the point 

is, to keep it in perspective, nuclear power provides about 20 percent of our electricity but about 70 percent of our emissions-free 

electricity, which is important as we think about clean air and climate change. 

Mr. Jaczko, how, for how long can the 104 reactors we have safely store spent fuel onsite? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, the Commission recently restated what we 

refer to as our Waste Confidence Finding and that said that we believe at least about 40 years beyond the expected lifetime, I am 

sorry, about 60 years beyond the expected lifetime of a plant we 

can safely store spent fuel. That gets you generally to about 100 

years of time that you could store this fuel safely and securely. 

We actually, as part of this recent decision, asked the staff to go 

back and really look longer than that and see are there, if there 

are any issues right now that would make it challenging to store 

that fuel for 200 or 300 years or a longer timeframe. So we expect 

to begin looking at that in the next year and have an answer in 

probably a couple of years about that question. 

But right now, we do not see any major issues that would 

present a significant challenge for that longer term storage of the 

fuel. 

Senator ALEXANDER. For purposes of understanding what we are 

trying to store, does it sound about right to say, as I did earlier, 

that all of the used nuclear fuel that has been produced in the last 

35 years would fill a football field then about 20 feet high? 

Mr. JACZKO. I have heard that statistic many times. I have actually never sat down and calculated it and made sure that it is 

right. But it sounds reasonable as an approximation. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Now, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 

established a fund into which ratepayers, those of us who pay our 

electric bills, have paid about $30 billion to build a final resting 

place for used nuclear fuel. A second step of the Obama administration’s plan for used nuclear fuel, which I heartily endorse, is not 

just to store it safely onsite but then to do advanced research to 

find a better way to reuse nuclear fuel which will greatly reduce 

the mass of it and permit it to be used over and over again. 

But in the end, are we not still going to have some stuff left that 

needs to be stored over a long period of time? We still have this 

football field full of nuclear fuel spread around at 104 sites. Where 

are we going to put that? I mean, we have got $23 billion sitting 

in a fund we have collected from electric bills. Should we not be 

using it to find a way to put that since Yucca Mountain does not 

seem to be going anywhere? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, from the NRC’s perspective, our job is to make 

sure that that fuel, regardless of how it is being used, or stored, 

or reprocessed, or whatever the approach may be, is done safely 
105 

and securely. So that is our No. 1 focus. We, of course, work with 

the industry, we communicate with the rest of the Federal Government as approaches are being developed to possibly deal with that 

in the long term. 

The Commission staff have been briefing the Blue Ribbon Commission and providing them with information about our approach 

to safety and security as they work to formulate their opinions 

about ultimately what could be done with this fuel in the long 

term. 

Senator ALEXANDER. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. You are welcome. Thank you. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks to each of you for the knowledge 

and energy that you bring and I use that term directly. Obviously, 

we feel pretty comfortable. However, the long history that Japan 

had with nuclear power and established nuclear regulatory system 

looked like Japanese installations were absolutely safe. But clearly, 

they were not. 

Now, what assurances do we have that our nuclear plants are as 

prepared as we could get for our worse case scenario? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well that, Senator, I would say that there are really 

three or four levels of protection that we have at the plants. First 

and foremost, the plants are designed for these very unlikely 

events based on what we think the maximum historical natural 

phenomenon is, so, like a hurricane or an earthquake or a tsunami. 

So, we start with that and we design the plants to be able to deal 

with that kind of a situation. 

Then, on top of that, all of the plants have a set of procedures 

and guidelines for what you would do in the situation that all of 

those systems that you built in to deal with the situation fail. 

Those are what we refer to as Severe Accident Management Guidelines. Those give you the procedures, the approaches to dealing 

with these very severe events if they were ever to occur. For that 

to occur, a lot of safety systems that are redundant and have a lot 

of backups would have to fail and not work properly. 

Even beyond that, if all of those systems were to fail, we have 

required all of the plants in this country to have an additional set 

of procedures to deal with very extreme damage conditions at the 

plant, much like you are seeing in Japan. We required all of the 

utilities to put equipment in place to respond and ultimately to be 

able to supply cooling to the reactors and cooling to the spent fuel 

pools. 

So, we have a robust system to really ensure that we can minimize or mitigate any potential releases to the public. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. What we see is rather frightening in scope 

because almost no matter what you do, you cannot guaranty that 

there will be zero risk in the production of nuclear energy and nuclear facilities. So, we keep on developing new policies as a result 

of, unfortunately, some terrible experience, and we have, we hope 

that we have no further terrible incidences. 

Ms. Jackson, you know New Jersey is home to four nuclear reactors, including the oldest nuclear plant in the country, the Oyster 

Creek Nuclear Generating Station, 2 years older than the damaged 

Japanese plant. 
106 

Now, with your long experience of protecting health and the environment in New Jersey, how confident can we be that the nuclear 

plants in our State are sufficiently safe to protect all of our people 

at all times? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, I would defer to the Chairman on the safety 

issue, except to note what was recently announced, which is that 

that plant is voluntarily, the owners of that plant have agreed to 

shut it down. I think it is part of the solution with respect to that 

particular facility. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Well, we are, it is little reassurance, honestly, because if they said OK, we will even cut short the period 

that the license covers, which means that there is an element to 

worry out there, and they cannot be—— 

Mr. JACZKO. Senator, if I could just comment? My understanding 

of the, part of the reason for not extending the plant operation was 

motivated by the cost and some of the economic factors. Certainly, 

from the NRC’s perspective, we did not see a safety reason for the 

plant to not operate beyond, I think, 2019 when the plant will operate. 

Again, when we do our license renewal, what we do is we add 

on additional requirements to the licensees for them to monitor the 

plant to make sure that as the plant equipment and the systems 

that are important for safety get older, that they have the way to 

monitor and make sure that those, that aging of those equipment 

does not have any adverse impact on safety. 

So, in addition to the standards in the regular strong safety program that we have, we add on top of that these additional requirements to make sure that as the plants age they do it in a way that 

is protective of public health and safety. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Tom, I have one more question. One last 

question. The rest, beyond that, I will send to you for the record 

and look for a response. 

The NRC requires evacuation plans only within 10 miles of a 

plant. But the American Government has warned Americans in 

Japan to stay at least 50 miles away from the damaged reactor. 

They only confirmed that when we turned our ships around about 

50 or 60 miles out, I am not really sure. 

I guess, when all else fails, we have to be absolutely certain that 

a way to evacuate these areas is foolproof in terms of its ability and 

its durability. Would it make sense to require evacuation plans in 

our country to address the same distance to U.S. facilities for new 

plants? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, that is something we are going to look at as 

part of the reviews that we are doing. The 10-mile evacuation 

zones that we currently have are designed to be the region in 

which you pre-stage and pre-prepare evacuations. If conditions 

were to warrant some additional option beyond that, those options, 

of course, could always be taken. 

But I think, as we have seen in Japan, nuclear events tend to 

develop over a long period of time. This is 3 weeks into this event 

and we have had the time and ability to make protective option 

recommendations and to update those and modify them as conditions at the plant change. 
107 

So that 10 miles is really based around the idea of what you need 

to have prepared right away so if you have an event that develops 

quickly, you can address that and have pre-staged and pre-prepared what to do. But there is always the possibility to go farther, 

if necessary, or to modify the plans to deal with the existing conditions and the exact conditions on the ground. 

But I also want to stress that this is something we are going to 

take a look at as part of the reviews that we are doing to see if 

there are changes we should make to the requirements for emergency preparedness. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks very much and thanks to each of 

you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator Merkley. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for 

your testimony. 

The first question I want to ask about, Mr. Jaczko, is, the venting system to release the hydrogen in the Japanese plants succeeded in getting the hydrogen outside of the core only to have it 

explode outside. 

The United States went through, in the 1980s, a hardening of 

our vent systems on our Mark I reactors and I understand the Japanese plants also went through an upgrade. But what is our initial 

understanding of why the venting system did not succeed in disposing of the hydrogen such that it would not explode after it left 

the core? Is there a difference in the venting system between the 

Japanese plants and the U.S. plants that should give us confidence 

that we would not have a similar problem? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, at this point, it is not exactly clear what the 

source of the hydrogen was. Obviously, we saw hydrogen, or some 

fires, in the Unit 4 reactor. Well, that likely came from the spent 

fuel pools, the spent fuel pool in that building, because the reactor 

core there was not, did not have fuel in it. 

So, at this point, we do not have definitive information about the 

source of the hydrogen. It is possible that it came from the spent 

fuel pools and not necessarily from the venting operation. That is 

something that we will look into as we get some more, really as we 

get past the more emergent crisis in Japan, we will get the detailed 

information about that effort. 

But I would say that, really, the fundamental issue that we see 

here really is the station blackout event. In the United States, 

when we are talking about a station blackout event, we have a lot 

of protections in place to prevent that complete loss of electrical 

power to the site. We require each plant to have at least two diesel 

generators for each reactor. So, if there a multiple reactor site, they 

will have at least four diesel generators on the site. Those diesel 

generators have to have their fuel in an area that is protected so 

that it can be, it can supply the diesel generators in the event of 

some type of natural hazard. 

Then, beyond that, we have something that we call our station 

blackout or coping requirements which requires the utilities to be 

able to deal with that loss of offsite power until they are able to 

restore the offsite power. 
108 

Senator MERKLEY. I am going to interrupt you because I only 

have a limited amount of time and actually you dodged the basic 

question which was, is our venting system different from the Japanese system? 

Also, I think it is understood that a fair amount of hydrogen in 

1 and 3 came from both the splitting of water molecules and from 

probably explosion of the zirconium clouding. So, in that situation, 

and understanding that scenario, why did the hydrogen explode 

after it was vented rather than be dispersed safely into the atmosphere? 

If we have no insight, that is fine. But again, back to the core 

question, is our venting system different in some significant way? 

Mr. JACZKO. At this point, we do not have the detailed information to know. 

Senator MERKLEY. Let me go on to a second question then. 

In at least one of the reactors, I believe it is vessel 2, that there 

was discussion of plugs in the bottom of the reactor vessel, the 

core, that were used for loading fuel in and the concern that that 

design left a vulnerability and that plugs that were inserted after 

fuel was put in melted at a lower temperature than the rest of the 

containment, the rest of the core containment vehicle, and could 

have been a flaw that would allow, if you will, fuel to escape. 

Is that just specific to that one reactor or is that a common design? Has that been a discussed concern in the past? Do we have 

that design in the United States? 

Mr. JACZKO. We can get you specific information on that design. 

But again, I would stress that right now the information about the 

condition of all of the reactors is very preliminary and very uncertain. You indicated the hydrogen explosion. Again, it is correct that 

that is a result of, usually of exposure of fuel. But that can, of 

course, occur both in the spent fuel pools as well as in the reactor 

core. 

So again, the exact source of the hydrogen at this point is not 

clearly understood and it probably will be some time before we 

know definitively where that hydrogen came from, whether it was 

an interaction with the zirconium clouding in the spent fuel pool 

or the reactor core itself. That is where there is a bit of, some uncertainty right now. 

Senator MERKLEY. Here again you did not answer my core question which is, these plugs that are apparently in the design of at 

least one of those reactors that are on the bottom side, are those, 

do we have a similar design and that is a concern in American nuclear power plants? 

Mr. JACZKO. Again, as I said, we can get you that information. 

I do not have that off the top of my head right now. But again, I 

do not want to speculate necessarily that that was a contributing 

cause to any of the condition in Reactor 2 at this point. 

Senator MERKLEY. OK. Another issue is really the containment 

vessel itself. In 1972, there was a report from the predecessor organization, the Atomic Energy Commission, that recommended the 

Mark I system be discontinued because of unacceptable safety 

risks, basically because of the smaller containment design and it 

was susceptible to explosion and rupture from a buildup in hydrogen, obviously something that seems like it was an interesting in-
109 

sight given what we have now witnessed. Indeed, apparently the 

reason for this smaller and lighter container vehicle was simply the 

cost of the heavier and stronger containment vehicle. 

There was later, in the 1980s, discussion. An NRC official noted 

that Mark I reactors had a 90 percent probability of bursting if fuel 

rods overheat and melt. 

Have we, but there has been some changes to containment vehicles. Have we, do we feel like we have satisfactorily addressed the 

issues about the weakness of the containment vessel that were 

raised in the 1970s and the 1980s? 

Mr. JACZKO. Fundamentally, the issues, the actions that were 

taken were, as I think you indicated, one was to provide hardened 

venting which provides a release path, a sensor to release material 

as pressure builds up in the containment, to release that pressure 

and to do it in a way that you release, that you prevent as much 

of the release of radioactive material as possible when you do that 

process. 

The other thing that was done was efforts to do what is called 

inerting, or nitrogen inerting, which essentially means you introduce nitrogen into that containment atmosphere and based on the 

chemistry of that you reduce the likelihood of a hydrogen combustion. 

So, those came out of results and studies that were done in the 

late 1980s in what we called our Individual Plant Examinations 

and then a series of followup studies that looked at what are these 

kinds of severe accident risks and how do you ultimately mitigate 

them. 

So, for the Mark I containments, that was, those were the 

changes that were made to address that. Now, again, we are going 

to look at the information from Japan to see how similar or different their designs were at the time of the accident to our designs 

to see if there are additional lessons that we would learn to apply 

to those particular containments. 

Senator MERKLEY. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. You are welcome. Thank you. 

Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. Thanks. 

I want to followup on earthquake faults because we have written 

the Commission and we have asked you for an explanation of how 

many of our reactors, or let us just say our plants, are located on 

or near seismically actively faults? Do you have that number for 

me today? 

Mr. JACZKO. The number, and I think you mentioned it in your 

initial statement—— 

Senator BOXER. I know. 

Mr. JACZKO. Generally, we would say that there are two plants 

that are near, in high seismic areas, and about nine plants that are 

in more medium areas. 

But I want to stress, we design, require all plants in the United 

States to be designed to deal with seismic events. Some of us who 

are here in Washington know, it was only a couple of months ago 

that we felt an earthquake here in Washington. 

So, they are all designed to deal with seismic events and we design them, again, based on the accelerations that the plant itself 
110 

would feel, or the actions and motions that the plant would feel at 

the actual site of the plant rather than based on the magnitudes 

of the earthquake because—— 

Senator BOXER. OK, before you get into all that, I do not have 

a lot of time. In Japan, they would give the same answer. They 

gave the same answer. TEPCO said we are proud of the robustness 

of our containment vessels. In the case of an earthquake, everything would safely stop, blah, blah, blah. I would put this into the 

record if I could. 

Senator CARPER. No objection. 

Senator BOXER. Not the blah, blah, blah, but the actual 

words—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. No, I think we should put in the blah, blah, 

blah. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BOXER. The point is it is eerie to me because I do not 

sense enough humility from all of us here. We are, as some great 

scientist once said, we think we have all the answers but Mother 

Nature may not agree with us. 

A lot of what you are saying is the same thing that they said. 

You are right, you are being conservative because even though 

plants do not sit on or near, you are being, you are thinking ahead. 

But the fact is, if you take one of my, we have the two plants that 

are high intensity seismic areas, one is built to, they are both built 

to withstand a certain level of earthquake, and yet, so was the Japanese plant, it was, I believe, 7.5 it was built to withstand. They 

got a 9.0. 

We cannot know for sure what is going to happen. So I guess, 

are you doing a major inspection as Senator Feinstein and I asked 

you to, the NRC, of our two plants that are in these high propensity earthquake zones? 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, we are looking at all the plants to make sure 

that we have—— 

Senator BOXER. I am asking about my two plants. 

Mr. JACZKO. We are not doing anything specific to those two 

plants, but we are looking at all the plants in this country to see 

if there are lessons learned from Japan—— 

Senator BOXER. Well, you just said that there are two plants that 

are in the highest risk and yet you are not treating them any differently. That is a little worrisome to me. 

Mr. JACZKO. Well, Senator, I would not necessarily say that they 

are in the highest risk. 

Senator BOXER. Well, you said there were two plants on the highest seismic activity areas and those two are my plants in our State. 

Mr. JACZKO. What we look at, ultimately, is the consequences. 

The plants that are in California are designed to deal with much, 

much higher seismic activity than any other plants in the country. 

Senator BOXER. Well, there may be a reason for that, Mr. Chairman—— 

Mr. JACZKO. Absolutely. 

Senator BOXER. Because they are more at risk. Look, we just had 

the new report that says that they are not built to high enough 

earthquake-proof standards because we have reports there is a new 
111 

fault at Diablo. We will hear that from Senator Blakeslee, who is 

coming forward. We, and in the case of San Onofre, there are reports that say there will be much more frequent activity than were 

suspected, both in perhaps tsunami and this. 

So look, I am asking you again. I do not know if we got the letter 

back from them on this, a response? If you could just, you know 

how Senator Feinstein and I feel. We, it is on our watch. I do not 

know how many people are in the States of Delaware? How many 

people in Delaware? 

Senator CARPER. Almost 1 million. 

Senator BOXER. How many in your State? Half a million. I have 

got a half million people who live within 50 miles of one of my 

plants, and 7.4 million who live within 50 miles of my other. So, 

this is not about some theoretical catastrophe if something went 

wrong. 

I know you feel you do ongoing inspections and all the rest. Well, 

some of those ongoing inspections found some safety problems, too. 

So, let me just press you. I know Senator Blakeslee is coming up. 

He is from the other political party and we are working together 

on this. I think that is an important point. This has nothing to do 

with partisanship. 

If I will not be here for his testimony, can I send you his testimony and ask you to take another look because, we have both of 

these plants are up for renewal, although their licenses run until 

about 2022, something like that, 2027, 2022? So, they are not going 

anywhere. But they are up. 

They are both now going to undertake new 3D earthquake studies, which is great, and I praise both of the operators for doing 

that. But it seems to me that while that is happening, correct me 

if I am wrong, but I think Congressman Bilbray said, tell me if I 

heard him right, that the chance of something like this happening, 

an event like this, is between 7,000 and 10,000 years—— 

Mr. JACZKO. I think he said the frequency of a 7.0 magnitude 

earthquake is about every 7,000 years, approximately. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Mr. JACZKO. But I do not want to speak for the Congressman. 

Senator BOXER. But again, I would say to you, take a look at the 

record and the 157 earthquakes we have had over 6.0. So, and as 

we know, listen, I was told when I was a County Supervisor they 

said 100 year flood, we have to plan for a 100-year flood. I was a 

lot younger then and I said, oh, gosh, do we really need to do this? 

It is a 100-year flood. Well, that does not mean it is going to happen in 100 years. It could happen seven times within 10 years, and 

then not happen again, as you know. 

So, we have got to respond in a much different way. I just do not 

feel the humility from all sides here. I do not think we are humble 

enough in the face of what Mother Nature could do. I think that 

is, although I have to admit that the statements made by all parties here, I thought were very reasoned. 

But I just think we need to inject a little more humility in this 

because look at what happened in Japan. They are so proud, they 

are bragging about how this could never happen. They arrogantly 

boasted of their world best nuclear power technology. Now, they 
112 

cannot even figure out how to stop the darn thing from leaking and 

all the rest. 

So, anyway, enough said. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Senator Barrasso? All right. 

Administrator Jackson, I do not want you to feel like you are 

being ignored here, so I am going to—— 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. JACKSON. I am happy. 

Mr. JACZKO. I thought since she was here I would not get so 

many questions. 

Ms. JACKSON. I very much appreciate it. 

Senator CARPER. You can barely see her lips move when you 

speak, Mr. Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. Administrator Jackson, if you could, we were 

talking earlier, I do not know if it was Senator Alexander or somebody else, we were talking about the number of people who have 

died in the 41, 42-year history of nuclear power plants in this country because of the radiation, folks either, folks who worked in those 

plants or lived in the area around those. 

I think I asked this question of Chairman Jaczko the last time 

he was here and I think he said, to the best of his knowledge, no 

one has died of radiation poisoning or sickness. Is that close to 

what you said? 

Mr. JACZKO. At nuclear power plants. There have been in some 

of the related industries, some accidents that let to fatalities. But 

in the nuclear power, at the plants themselves, no, there have not 

been. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Administrator Jackson, you have been great to work with us on 

a wide range of clear air issues involving sulfur dioxide emissions, 

nitrogen oxide emissions, mercury emissions, and I do not know, I 

do not want to put you on the spot. 

But, I would like to just get a sense for the range of injuries, 

death, brain damaged children born, babies born, because of emissions from fossil fuel plants that put out not just CO2 but also sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide and mercury. Can you just give us 

a sense for that? 

I think we are talking about people who, we are talking about 

the loss of not just tens of lives or hundreds of lives but far greater. 

Can you just give us a sense of that over, I do not know, 40 years? 

Just give us a sense of the magnitude. Are we talking about thousands of folks who lives have been shortened, whose lives have 

been taken? Just give us a sense of that magnitude. 

Ms. JACKSON. I would be happy to. But first let me thank you 

for your leadership on clean air issues. You have a long and outstanding record. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks for saying that. 

Ms. JACKSON. Why do I not simply say that we recently released 

a proposed rule to deal with mercury and other toxic emissions 

from fossil fuel plants, primarily power plants that burn coal, and 

the estimates were annual estimates of tens of thousands of fewer 
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bronchitis incidents, and 150,000, I believe the number was, fewer 

asthma-related doctor or hospital visits. 

When it comes to fine particle pollution, it is not just sickness, 

it is death. So, literally tens of thousands per year of avoided 

deaths, premature deaths, as a result, each and every year. 

So I do not have a number for 40 years that accumulates, but 

of course, the Clean Air Act has been around for 40 years and has 

a long and proud history of, I think the most recent estimate was 

$2 trillion in avoided health costs and benefits by 2020 alone. Of 

course money is not the same as lives saved and the tragedy of a 

sick child, but it has quite, those emissions have real impact for 

public health. 

Senator CARPER. One of our colleagues earlier in the hearing 

made the point that for almost any source of electricity in this 

country, there are risk concerns related to them. Obviously, we 

have the kind of concern, the risk has been borne in Japan. We 

need to be mindful of, to learn as much from this as we can, to 

make sure that kind of tragedy does not occur here or hopefully in 

any other country. 

But whether it is coal-fired plants, in our State we want to deploy offshore windmill farms and hopefully we will start doing that 

in about a year or so, but there are people who think they are unsightly, there are people who are concerned about the lives of birds. 

We have concerns with respect to tapping the great reserves of natural gas that we are happy to have found but there are concerns 

raised about the fracking. There are concerns with respect to solar 

panels and some of the materials that we use to create those. 

There are all kinds of concerns. What we have to have here at 

the end is to be as vigilant as we can for all of them. But I would 

just ask us to be as mindful and concerned about our air pollution 

problems that relate to fossil fuel plants as we are the potential 

loss of life or endangerment of health due to nuclear power plants. 

Sometimes, I think we lose our sense of balance. 

I want to ask you, as a followup to that, Administrator Jackson, 

about the EPA’s radiation monitoring, if I could. In the next panel, 

we have got several State and local officials. Let me just ask, how 

does the EPA inform State and local officials about potentially high 

levels of radiation in milk or water in their community, and what 

actions will be taken if high levels of radiation are found by EPA 

monitoring? 

Ms. JACKSON. Let me first State that every model we have seen, 

and we agree with the inputs to the model, do not show that we 

will see any high levels. We have not seen high levels. If anything, 

I would characterize them as trace increases from background. One 

of the wonderful things about our RadNet system is that we have 

decades of background data. So, we have a good understanding of 

what is normal, if you will, for these monitors. 

What we have done is set up a system where we do post the data 

for rainwater and drinking water and milk, we post those on our 

Web site along with the air monitoring data which is both near real 

time. There is about a 4-to 6-hour delay, as well as some filter and 

cartridge data that takes a longer period of time. 

Even when we see a trace, a blip above background levels, we 

alert the States, entities that are affected where those monitors. 
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We work very closely with our partners at Health and Human 

Services, because the CDC and FDA, depending on whether we are 

talking about foodstuffs like milk or other issues, it is very important that the health officials in those States are not surprised by 

even trace increases. Because we want them to feel comfortable 

that they know what the data says, what they mean, and to conceptualize that for citizens because most people are not used to 

speaking of radiation or understand some of these units that are 

coming at them. 

So, we have worked very hard at that. We have not gotten it perfect every time. We also work with elected officials, so that includes 

Members of Congress and Governors’ offices as well. 

Senator CARPER. All right. I am going to stop. A number of our 

colleagues, some of them were here, some of them were not, will 

have questions to submit in writing. How long do they have to submit them, do we know? Two weeks. So, colleagues have 2 weeks to 

submit their questions in writing if they wish and we would just 

ask that you promptly respond to those. 

Thank you so much for being here and for testifying today. 

Again, our thanks to you and the teams that you lead at EPA and 

at the NRC for the continued vigilance that has been demonstrated 

in response to this disaster. Thanks so much. 

With that, we invite up our second panel, actually third panel. 

As our third panel participants take their seats, I am going to go 

ahead and begin the introductions. 

The first introduction is that of California State Senator Sam 

Blakeslee of the 15th District of California. Next we have Mr. 

James Boyd who serves as Vice Chair of the California Energy 

Commission. 

Next we have a familiar face and a friend from Delaware, Lew 

Schiliro. Mr. Schiliro retired from the FBI before becoming a Cabinet Secretary of Delaware’s Department of Safety and Homeland 

Security. You are welcome. It is great of you to come. 

Next we have Mr. Curtis S. Sommerhoff and he is the Director 

of Miami-Dade County’s Department of Emergency Management. 

Thanks so much. Next we have Mr. Charles Pardee. Actually, 

Charles Pardee is quite a notable citizen in the State of Delaware, 

so you have a namesake who you can be proud of in our State. This 

Charles Pardee is Chief Operating Officer at Exelon Generation. 

Finally we have Dr. Thomas B. Cochran, whose initials are the 

same as many of my colleagues and me, and he is a Senior Scientist with the Nuclear Program at the Natural Resources Defense 

Council. I welcome Dr. Cochran. 

For all of your statements, if you would actually use, I will give 

you about 5 minutes. Do not try to go much over that. If you do, 

I will have to rein you in a little bit. But 5 minutes, and your full 

statements will be included in the record. 

Let me start with Senator Blakeslee. My first question is to you. 

How many State Senators are there in California? We know you 

have 53 House Representatives. 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. We have 40 State Senators in California representing about 37 million people. So, just a little bit under 1 million constituents per Senator. 

Senator CARPER. How many State Reps do you have? 
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Mr. BLAKESLEE. Fifty-three Members of Congress and 80 members of the Lower House. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Great. Thanks. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF SAM BLAKESLEE, SENATOR, CALIFORNIA 

STATE SENATE, DISTRICT 15 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. 

My name is Sam Blakeslee. I am a California State Senator and, 

as Chairman Boxer indicated, I am a Republican. In fact, I am the 

former Minority Leader in the Lower House. 

I am a former research scientist who earned his doctorate for 

California Earthquake Studies from U.C. Santa Barbara, and as a 

geophysicist I worked for a number of years in the oil and gas industry for Exxon in Houston, Texas. I now live with my wife and 

two daughters in San Luis Obispo, 10 miles from Diablo Canyon. 

The seismic setting for the Diablo Canyon site has been a source 

of well-documented controversy for over four decades. In 1967, the 

operator of Diablo Canyon, PG&E, stated in their initial permit application the site had only ‘‘insignificant faults that are showing no 

movement for at least 100,000 years and possibly millions of 

years.’’ 

Four years later, using oil industry seismic data, researchers discovered the Hosgri fault only three miles offshore which the USGS 

has estimated is capable of producing a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. 

In the end, it took 15 years, major retrofits, and more than $4.4 

billion in cost overruns before the plant became operational. 

Upon being elected to the California legislature in 2005, I called 

on Pacific Gas & Electric to use more sophisticated oil and gas 3D 

seismic imaging technologies to assess the complex seismic setting 

just off the coast. PG&E’s response to my call was a column written by a PG&E Vice President stating ‘‘Freshman Assemblyman 

Sam Blakeslee’s proposed legislation to conduct another seismic 

survey of Diablo Canyon is unnecessary and bad policy for California customers.’’ 

Well, in 2006, Governor Schwarzenegger signed the legislation 

directing the Energy Commission to perform an independent review of the data to assess the potential seismic vulnerability of the 

State’s nuclear power plants and to provide recommendations. 

That same year, PG&E moved to initiate the process to relicense 

the facility though there was no compelling need to rush the process as their current licenses last through 2024 and 2025. Then, in 

2007 while the Energy Commission study was being performed, a 

magnitude 6.8, not 9.0, 6.8 struck Japan and the largest nuclear 

power plant in the world was damaged with three of its reactors 

still shut down to this day. 

In 2008, the Energy Commission issued their report stating that 

uncertainties did in fact exist near the Diablo Canyon plant and 

that 3D seismic studies were recommended. PG&E’s written response to the Commission was ‘‘we believe there is no uncertainty 

regarding the seismic setting and hazard at the Diablo Canyon 

site.’’ 

Mere weeks later, the USGA discovered the active Shoreline 

fault running within some hundreds of yards offshore from PG&E’s 
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nuclear power plant and with an orientation that could potentially 

intersect with the much larger and very powerful Hosgri fault. 

Within mere days, PG&E rushed to declare ‘‘we don’t see anything that exceeds the plants design basis.’’ The statement was 

made before collecting the data necessary to determine the precise 

location, length and relationship of the Shoreline fault to the nearby Hosgri. 

Fast forward to the events of just 1 month ago when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck offshore Japan on a fault system believed capable of only a magnitude 7.9. Like the 2007 Japanese 

earthquake, the 2011 earthquake far exceeded the utilities seismic 

and engineering assumptions. 

Three weeks ago, at a California Senate hearing on this issue, 

I asked PG&E is they still continue to maintain, did they believe 

their previous assertion that there was no uncertainty in the seismic setting near their plant. This time PG&E responded that, although there is always some uncertainty, they were ‘‘not concerned.’’ 

I then asked PG&E to suspend or withdraw their license application with the NRC until the seismic data is in hand to allow regulators to make informed decisions because, although PG&E may 

not be concerned about the seismic uncertainty, my community was 

very concerned. Yesterday, 1 day before this hearing, PG&E agreed 

to take this action. 

After 6 years of calling for these seismic studies, State legislation, recommendations by the Energy Commission, direction from 

the California Public Utilities Commission, two devastating Japanese earthquakes, and now a nuclear disaster of Chernobyl proportions, the utility is finally willing to slow its relicensing effort to 

collect long-overdue seismic information. 

In closing, I have two questions for Federal regulators. First, in 

the aftermath of the Japan crisis, will the NRC strengthen its own 

earthquake hazard review procedures that are conducted during 

the relicensing process for these two nuclear facilities that the NRC 

itself has identified as being located in the Nation’s highest seismic 

hazard area? 

Second, given the longstanding reluctance of PG&E to accept 

even the need for such studies, what procedures will the NRC put 

in place to ensure there is independent peer review analysis so that 

we have accurate, scientifically-robust conclusions that are drawn 

by those who have looked at the data independently rather than 

relying solely upon the utility and in-house NRS staff? 

Thank you for the opportunity to present to this body. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blakeslee follows:] 

STATEMENT OF SAM BLAKESLEE, STATE SENATOR, CALIFORNIA STATE SENATE, 

DISTRICT 15 

I am a California State senator who represents the 15th District on the Central 

Coast. For the previous 6 years I was the State Assembly Member representing the 

33d District and served as Republican Leader immediately prior to being elected to 

the State Senate. I am a former research scientist who earned bachelors and masters in Geophysics from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. for earthquake studies at UC 

Santa Barbara. I worked for Exxon as a research geophysicist and later as a strategic planner at their research lab in Houston Texas. I live with my wife and two 

young daughters in San Luis Obispo, 8 miles from Diablo Canyon, one of two operating nuclear power plants in the State of California. 
117 

The seismic setting of the Diablo Canyon site has been a source of well-documented controversy for more than four decades. In 1967, the operator of Diablo Canyon, Pacific Gas and Electric (also known as PG&E) stated in their initial permit 

application the site had only ‘‘insignificant faults that have shown no movement for 

at least 100,000 and possibly millions of years.’’ Four years later in 1971, researchers discovered the Hosgri fault about three miles offshore, which the USGS estimates is capable of a magnitude 7.3 earthquake. This significant discovery led to 

major seismic retrofits. In 1981, PG&E realized that the retrofit blueprints had been 

reversed—structural supports that were meant for one reactor were actually built for the other reactor. In the end, it took 15 years and more than $4.4 billion in cost 

overruns before the plant was operational. 

After reviewing the geophysical work performed by PG&E, I became increasingly 

concerned that they did not appreciate the potential complexity of the seismotectonic setting of major fault blocks near the plant. Upon being elected to the California legislature in 2005 I called on my local utility to use more sophisticated geophysical methods to assess the complex seismic setting on the coast. My experience 

as an industry scientist had allowed me to become intimately familiar with the 

power of 3D seismic imaging techniques to directly image complex fault systems, 

particularly in marine settings. 

PG&E’s response to my call was a column written by the nuclear power plant’s 

vice president stating, ‘‘Freshman Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee’s proposed legislation to conduct another seismic study of Diablo Canyon . . . is unnecessary and bad 

policy for our California customers’’. 

I then drafted Assembly Bill 1632, which was passed by the California legislature 

and signed by Governor Schwarzenegger in 2006, which directed the California Energy Commission to perform their own independent review the data and to assess 

the potential seismic vulnerability of the state’s nuclear power plants and to provide 

recommendations. That same year PG&E moved to initiate the process to relicense 

the nuclear power plant though there was no compelling need to rush the process 

as their current licenses last through 2024 and 2025. 

While the California Energy Commission was being performed a Magnitude 6.8 

earthquake struck Japan in July 2007. The shaking far exceeded what the Japanese 

utility expected was possible for the offshore fault and the largest nuclear power 

plant in the world was badly damaged. Today, nearly 4 years later, 3 of the 7 reactors remain offline with cumulative energy replacement costs in the billions. 

In 2008, the California Energy Commission issued their report, pursuant to 

AB1632, which stated that the uncertainties did in fact exist near the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, and that 3D seismic studies were recommended. PG&E’s 

written response to the Commission was, I quote, [we] ‘‘believe there is no uncertainty regarding the seismic setting and hazard at the Diablo Canyon Site’’. 

Mere weeks later, the U.S. Geological Survey discovered the Shoreline fault running within some hundreds of yards offshore from PG&E’s nuclear power plant and 

with an orientation that could potentially intersect with the powerful Hosgri fault. 

Within days, PG&E declared, ‘‘We don’t see anything that exceeds the plant’s design basis.’’ This statement was made before having completed any of the necessary 

analysis to determine the precise location, length, and relationship to the dangerous 

Hosgri fault. The USGS scientist who discovered the fault, in conversations with 

me, expressed her deep concern that PG&E would rush to make these assertions 

prior to completing the necessary research to determine the facts. 

In a California Assembly hearing as recently as 2009 PG&E stated ‘‘we’re willing 

to go to the 3D, but right now we just don’t think you jump right there as the prudent thing to do’’. This foot dragging on acquiring the necessary seismic data has 

continued; all the while, PG&E has moved rapidly to finalize relicensing with the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

Fast forward to the events of this last month, when yet another Japanese earthquake struck. This time, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck offshore Japan on a 

fault system believed capable of a 7.9 magnitude quake. This massive earthquake 

caused explosions at three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. 

Like the 2007 Chu ̄ etsu earthquake, the To ̄hoku earthquake far exceeded both the 

seismic and engineering assumptions. The devastating series of unexpected events 

revealed unknown vulnerabilities at the nuclear facility and their backup safety systems. 

Professor Akira Omoto of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission, who was involved in the construction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility, admitted that 

the engineering assumptions and redundant failsafe systems believed by experts to 

guard against a nuclear disaster, in the end, simply proved inadequate. ‘‘We thought 

we had taken adequate precautions . . . but what happened was beyond our expectation.’’ Despite having filed with the California Public Utilities Commission to ob-
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tain authorization for ratepayer funding for seismic studies that included an offshore 3-D survey, PG&E recently told local press that it is still evaluating whether 

to complete the studies. 

Three weeks ago the California Senate held a hearing on the Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and resulting nuclear crisis. I asked PG&E directly if they still continued to support their earlier assertion to the California Energy Commission that 

there was no uncertainty in the seismic setting near the plant. PG&E responded 

by saying that although there is always some uncertainty they had no concerns 

about that uncertainty. Under repeated questioning they said that they were not 

concerned about the uncertainty. 

In the wake of their repeated denials regarding any seismic uncertainty, their denial of any concerns, their documented resistance to acquiring necessary geophysical 

data, their premature assertions that all is safe without first obtaining the necessary data to support their conclusions, their rush to relicense a dozen years before 

their current licenses expire, and the tragic events producing the damage and destruction of two coastal nuclear plants due to two separate offshore earthquakes, I 

asked that PG&E suspend or withdraw its license application with the NRC until 

the seismic data is in hand to allow regulators to make informed decisions. They 

refused to answer my question at the hearing but said they would get back to me. 

I followed up a week later and called asking for a meeting with their President to 

discuss the issue. They refused to allow the meeting to occur. They have not yet 

responded to my request. That is why I am here today to seek your help as the utility appears determined to race to re-licensure before the seismic data can be acquired and analyzed. 

We are at a critical juncture in California. In the aftermath of the two Japanese 

earthquakes and nuclear accidents policymakers have a duty to ensure that State 

and Federal regulators have all the necessary data to make informed decisions regarding the conditions of re-licensure for California’s two coastal nuclear power 

plants. 

Failures by Federal and State regulators to provide adequate independent oversight and responsibly enforce appropriate safety measures has recently led to catastrophic human and environmental disasters in the past. 

The Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill, the most significant environmental tragedy 

in the history of the Nation, was attributed by experts as both an industry and governmental regulatory failure. Mineral Management Services adopted a passive 

check-the-box mentality and failed to provide rigorous oversight. 

And here we face another potentially threatening scenario, yet again, with Diablo 

Canyon confirmed by Federal regulators as one of two nuclear power plants in the 

highest risk seismic areas in the Nation. It is unquestionable that there remains 

significant uncertainty about the seismic potential and risk around Diablo Canyon 

Nuclear Power Plant, and this uncertainty is of great concern to the California local 

and State regulators and authorities. In recent years, elected officials and regulators 

with oversight responsibility have reiterated requests that PG&E first conclude the 

necessary seismic work prior to pursuing relicensing. The data that would be collected from these studies must be available to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

before the relicensing application process is completed. As the current operating licenses for Diablo Canyon are valid through 2024 and 2025, we believe that there 

is more than sufficient time for advanced seismic studies and review to be properly 

performed. Relicensing prior to the completion of this rigorous analysis would be 

premature. 

It is our sincere hope that PG&E will earn the trust of local residents, regulators, 

and elected officials by voluntarily withdrawing or suspending its re-licensing activities until the geophysical has been completed. If PG&E will not voluntarily do so, 

I would request that this body direct the NRC to suspend its consideration of 

PG&E’s application until it has received the critical information it needs to make 

a thorough and responsible decision. 
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RESPONSES BY SAM BLAKESLEE TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR BOXER

Question 1. On April 11th, PG&E asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 

delay issuance of the Diablo Canyon license renewal until after PG&E has completed the 3-D seismic studies and submitted a report to the NRC addressing the 

results. We have subsequently learned that PG&E did not request a delay in the 

license hearing process, but merely a delay in the final issuing of the license until 

after PG&E has completed the 3-D study. 

Why is it important for the results of the 3-D seismic study to be considered as 

part of the license renewal hearing process? Do you believe that all stakeholders, 

including local citizens, should be able to comment on the relevance of the study’s 

results as part of a normal NRC relicensing process? 

Response. The critical safety threat to Diablo Canyon is seismic risk. The dominant seismic feature and greatest seismic risk, according to the NRC, is the Shoreline Fault. The NRC cannot adequately conduct a safety review without knowing 

the potential shaking of the site. Strong ground motion shaking is directly related 

to the proximity of the plant to the fault, the total length and size of the fault, and 

the degree to which the fault interacts the Hosgri Fault. This information must be 

in hand while the NRC is conducting the safety review, not after. After reviewing 

the completed seismic studies, the NRC may find it appropriate to condition relicensing on retrofits, which should be part of the safety review. 

Three dimensional seismic reflection mapping is necessary to understand the complex geologic setting of Diablo Canyon. Diablo Canyon was designed to withstand 

a 7.5 M seismic event on the Hosgri Fault. The Shoreline Fault was not considered 

at the time Diablo Canyon was originally reviewed and approved by the NRC. Our 

current understanding of the Shoreline Fault is based on data from a number of 

micro earthquakes that delineate a portion of the fault. The actual seismically active 

segment of the fault could be much larger and could tie directly into the Hosgri 

Fault. An intersection of the two faults would dramatically change our understanding of the seismic setting of the plant and force a reconsideration of the plant’s 

current design. 

In addition to my own efforts, the County of San Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors, the California Energy Commission, California Public Utilities Commission, 

California Coastal Commission, and Congresswoman Lois Capps have all either recommended and/or required the completed 3-D study in advance of any decisions regarding relicensing of Diablo Canyon. The only entity not making the seismic study 

a priority is the very entity charged with the greatest responsibility for ensuring the 

safety of the plant, the NRC. 

The most pressing issue facing Diablo Canyon and the NRC is to resolve the seismic uncertainty, not immediate approval of the license renewal application. The current operating licenses do not expire until 2024 and 2025, well over a decade from 

when the seismic studies should be complete. It is both perplexing and disturbing 

that the NRC would insist on making a decision on the license renewal application 

uninformed by the completed 3-D seismic study. 

Question 2. The NRC license renewal process does not review emergency planning, security, current safety performance or seismic issues because, according to 

the NRC, these items are dealt with on an ongoing basis. Do you agree with this 

approach? 

Do you believe that the use of this information in relicensing could help officials 

determine the true costs to Californians of relicensing the facility by providing information on the costs of potentially needed retrofits or whether such retrofits could 

address plant safety issues? 

Response. Seismic issues at nuclear power plants in active fault zones, like Diablo 

Canyon, should be reviewed in a comprehensive, systematic manner during license 

renewal. This punctuated higher level review should analyze plant systems and how 

they operate in potential events. The analysis should include the expertise of a 

broad range of third parties and include an independent peer review to ensure the 

data and conclusions are thoroughly vetted. An analysis of this caliber is more robust than routine day-to-day monitoring. Ongoing monitoring should not preclude 

a punctuated higher level analysis during license renewal. These activities are not 

mutually exclusive. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming here to testify for us today. Very, very good testimony. Thank you. 

Mr. Boyd, please. Welcome. 
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STATEMENT OF JAMES D. BOYD, VICE CHAIRMAN, CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION, CALIFORNIA LIAISON OFFICER TO THE U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Senator, and to Senator Barrasso, thank 

you for being here. 

I am Jim Boyd, Energy Commissioner, and I happen to be the 

State’s Liaison Officer to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

which may indicate why, perhaps, I am here. I appreciate this opportunity. I appreciate you having this hearing. 

Senator CARPER. A quick question, Mr. Boyd. Are you appointed 

by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate? How does it work 

in California? 

Mr. BOYD. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. OK. How long have you served? 

Mr. BOYD. Nine, I am in my tenth year. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks very much. Please proceed. 

Mr. BOYD. This tragic 9.0 magnitude earthquake and its impacts 

on the Japanese people and this power plant certainly underscore 

the importance relating to seismic understandings in a State like 

California. 

You have heard all about our two plants. You have heard from 

Senator Blakeslee in detail the difficulties we have had with the 

operator of one plant and the need for seismic studies. We have another plant, San Onofre, which, the recommendations apply equally. The 2008 study found that there are seismic concerns there that 

affect tsunami potential as well. 

Subsequently, you heard from Senator Boxer, earlier, who referenced that my agency and the PUC directed the two agencies, 

the operators of these plants, to undertake the studies. But that resulted in a race by PG&E to file for relicensing well in advance of 

what anyone thought would be necessary. 

This new technology, technology that Senator Blakeslee has indicated, has been used by the oil industry for years. PG&E has done 

some studies, mainly because the NRC ordered them to have an active seismic study after all the fiasco of many years ago and to 

have a need to redesign the plant. 

Unfortunately, while we had been pushing for this, the NRC has 

to date indicated that the license renewal review process does not 

include an assessment of seismic vulnerabilities. It does not require 

that these advanced seismic studies be included within the scope 

of their review. 

Until yesterday, when we learned that PG&E has changed their 

mind and they want to hold up their license, we felt that the NRC 

was going to finish their review in 2012, and these studies would 

not even be done until 2013. 

So, I thank you for having a hearing that may have had an impact upon PG&E. But, in spite of that, we still need a condition 

from Southern California Edison, the operator of San Onofre, that 

they will do the same types of studies, and they told me they are 

reconsidering their position. 

For us, lessons learned are first that we are looking to the NRC 

to carry out its short-term and long-term review of events in Japan 

and if they do the good job that they did on Three Mile Island, we 

expect a lot of positive recommendations and results. But we need 
135 

to implore the Congress support the NRC, not only in these efforts 

but in implementing and ensuring that followup actions are taken 

and implemented at all U.S. reactors as soon as feasible after they 

finish their studies. 

Not only should they include the lessons learns from Japan, but 

we have some thoughts we would like to pass on to the NRC, and 

have in previous correspondence, in addition to lessons learned 

studies that we have underway with regard to seismic. 

First is in the Waste Confidence Decision. The Chairman referenced to that. The NRC’s Waste Confidence Decision which concluded that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely onsite at reactors for 100 years should be reexamined, particularly spent fuel 

stored in seismically active coastal areas. The safety of long-term 

storage of spent fuel in seismically active or tsunami prone areas 

need to be reevaluated in light of what is happening in Japan. 

Second, spent fuel management. The Nation’s spent fuel management systems and practices should be reevaluated, including the 

current practice of storing spent fuel in pools in tighter storage configurations than original plant designs called for. 

The Energy Commission, in 2008, recommended that the utilities 

return their spent fuel pools to more open racking configurations 

as soon as feasible. Storing more spent fuel in pools in closer configuration creates greater heat load, thereby increasing the risk of 

fire and other possible problems. 

As more and more spent fuel accumulates at reactor sites, plant 

owners have had to re-rack their pools multiple times to increase 

their onsite spent fuel storage capacity. This is an increasing safety 

issue at California’s two plants, and the station blackout issue is 

another one that affects the operation of spent fuel pools. 

So, in closing, I would say we would like to see that the two utilities in California undertake the studies that have been recommended. We would like to have these studies included in NRC’s 

license renewal evaluation of these plants because they give no 

support in their routine oversight of a plant license for the activities that are being carried out and the recommendations that have 

been made. 

We need to assure ourselves that when these studies are done, 

all of these activities that need to be taken with regard to equipment and process operations should be taken into account. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:] 
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1 California Energy Commission, Nuclear Power in California: Status Report: Final Consultant 

Report; Prepared for the 2005 Integrated Energy Policy Report, available at: http:// 

www.energy.ca.gov/2006publications/CEC–150–2006–001/CEC–150–2006–001–F.PDF 2 California Energy Commission, An Assessment of California’s Nuclear Power Plants: AB 1632 

Report, available at: [http:www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC–100–2008–009/CEC–100– 

RESPONSES BY JAMES D. BOYD TO ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FROM SENATOR BOXER

Question 1. The NRC license renewal process does not review emergency planning, security, current safety performance or seismic issues because, according to 

the NRC, these items are dealt with on an ongoing basis. Do you agree with this 

approach? Do you believe that the use of this information in relicensing could help 

officials determine the true costs to Californians of relicensing the facility by providing information on the costs of potentially needed retrofits or whether such retrofits could address plant safety issues? 

Response. While the NRC position of indicating that these issues should be dealt 

with on an ongoing basis is perhaps strategically correct, our experience is that it 

is not working properly, in California in the case of the license renewal process for 

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. NRC has both not acted on the extensive discussions and correspondence on seismic issues at Diablo Canyon over the past years 

under their ‘‘ongoing basis’’ criteria, nor has it made it a factor to be considered in 

the current relicensing process. One can only assume the same practice if and when 

San Onofre files for license extension. 

The NRC license renewal process should include a site-specific evaluation of significant issues, that vary from plant to plant, including emergency planning and 

preparedness, security, current safety performance and seismic issues. Such an 

analysis will provide information that is needed to determine the true costs and 

benefits of relicensing the facility. This is particularly true for seismic issues with 

respect to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) and Diablo Canyon 

Nuclear Plant, since they are located in the most seismically active areas when compared with other U.S. reactors. 

In my attached letter to the NRC dated April 12, 2010, we identified a number 

of issues that PG&E and the NRC should analyze in depth regarding the possible 

environmental and safety impacts from renewing the operating licenses for Diablo 

Canyon. The issues we identified are: seismic risks, at-reactor accumulation of spent 

fuel, security, emergency planning, reactor vessel embrittlement, evaluation of energy alternatives, plant safety culture, and plant once-through cooling. A thorough 

analysis of these issues will provide information that is essential to assessing the 

true costs and benefits of renewing Diablo Canyon’s operating licenses compared 

with alternatives and the potential environmental and safety impacts from license 

extension. 

Seismic issues should be thoroughly evaluated during license renewal for California’s nuclear power plants, particularly in light of the long history of seismic concerns at Diablo Canyon and SONGS and the fact that construction costs for both 

Diablo Canyon and SONGS greatly exceeded original estimates largely due to seismic retrofit costs. For example, Diablo Canyon’s construction costs exceeded the initial $320 million estimate (1968 dollars) by more than $5 billion largely due to seismic retrofits. 1 Construction costs at SONGS also far exceeded initial estimates $436 

million (1971 dollars) compared with $4.5 billion. 

The discovery in 2008 of a new major fault—the Shoreline Fault—near the Diablo 

Canyon and recent tragic events at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the 9.0 

magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11 underscore the importance of analyzing seismic issues as part of California’s license renewal evaluation. Although the 

NRC says they examine seismic issues on an ongoing basis, the NRC did not require 

PG&E and SCE to complete advanced seismic studies to address major uncertainties regarding seismic hazards at both sites. In addition, although the NRC required 

PG&E to develop a Long-Term Seismic Program, SCE was not required to have one 

nor were either utility required to have an Independent Peer Review Panel to review their study plans and findings. The NRC to date has consistently stated that 

they will not evaluate site-specific seismic issues during their license renewal evaluations. 

The Energy Commission and its consultant conducted a 2-year comprehensive assessment of California’s operating nuclear plants. Assembly Bill 1632 (Blakeslee, 

Chapter 722, Statutes of 2006) directed the Energy Commission to assess the potential vulnerability of ‘‘large baseload generation facilities of 1,700 megawatts or 

greater’’ to a major disruption due to a seismic event or plant age-related issues. 

The Energy Commission adopted this assessment in November 2008 as part of the 

2008 Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR). 2 We believe that the studies rec-
143 

2008–009–CMF.pdf]; also see AB 1632 Assessment of California’s Operating Nuclear Plants: 

Final Consultant Report, MRW & Associates, Inc., October 2008, CEC–100–2008–005–F available at: [http://www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC–100–2008–005/CEC–100–2008–005– 

F.PDF 3MRW & Associates, AB 1632 Assessment of California’s Operating Nuclear Plants, Final 

Consultant Report, October 2008, CEC–100–2008–005-F, pp. 58–59, available at [http:// 

www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC–100–2008–005/CEC–100–2008–005-F.PDF] 4MRW & Associates, AB 1632 Assessment of California’s Operating Nuclear Plants, Final 

Consultant Report, October 2008, CEC–100–2008–005-F, pp. 58–59, available at [http:// 

www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC–100–2008–005/CEC–100–2008–005-F.PDF] 5 California Coastal Commission, http:www.coastal.ca.gov/energy/E–00–014–3mmi.pdf,page 19. 

ommended in the Energy Commission’s AB 1632 Report and the 2008 and 2009 Integrated Energy Policy Reports (IEPRs), including the advanced seismic studies, 

must be included as part of license renewal review evaluations. If these seismic 

studies indicate that there are potentially greater risks or higher stresses for the 

plants’ structural components and additional seismic retrofits are required, this information must be included in the cost-benefit analysis for license renewal. As noted 

in the 2009 IEPR, the comprehensiveness, completeness, and timeliness of these 

studies will be critical to license renewal assessments for Diablo Canyon and 

SONGS. Although PG&E is required to submit its license renewal feasibility assessment to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) by June 30, 2011, PG&E 

does not expect to complete the advanced seismic hazard studies until 2013. In addition, the NRC’s stated plans are to issue the Draft Safety Analysis Report and the 

Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Diablo Canyon’s license renewal review 

in June 2011 before these advanced seismic studies have been completed. These license renewal evaluations, including NRC’s safety and environmental impact analyses for Diablo Canyon’s license renewal, must include the results of the AB 1632 

Report recommended studies that the Energy Commission and the CPUC have directed PG&E to complete. 

Question 2. According to a 2008 California Energy Commission (CEC) report, new 

seismic and geologic data indicates that San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station 

‘‘could experience larger and more frequent earthquakes than had been anticipated 

when the plant was designed.’’ Can you explain how you came to such a conclusion 

and how this information should be used by plant operators and the NRC? 

Response. The AB 1632 Report concluded that the design basis for SONGS is 

based on a safe-shutdown earthquake (SSE) of magnitude 7.0 at a distance of 8 km 

on the Southcoast Offshore Fault Zone. 3 Following NRC review, SCE calculated the 

maximum bedrock acceleration from this earthquake at 0.67 g. As part of the subsequent Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA), SCE evaluated the SSE 

value of 0.67g to be associated with an annual probability corresponding to a return 

period of 7,194 years. The standard for nuclear plant design is a return period of 

10,000 years. A more recently updated PSHA which accounted for blind thrust 

faults, newer ground motion attenuation relationships, and near-source ground motion effects evaluated the return period associated with the SSE bedrock acceleration to be 5,747 years. As a result, the AB 1632 Report concluded that advances 

in seismology have revealed that the SONGS site ‘‘could experience larger and more 

frequent earthquakes than had been anticipated when the plant was designed.’’ 4 In 

addition, the California Coastal Commission’s analysis indicated that ‘‘there is credible reason to believe that the design basis earthquake approved by U.S. Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission (NRC) at the time of the licensing of SONGS 2 and 3 . . . 

may underestimate the seismic risk at the site.’’ 5

Question 3. In your testimony you mentioned that the California Energy Commission recommended that PG&E and Southern California Edison change the way they 

are storing fuel in their spent fuel pools. Can you explain why the Commission 

made this recommendation and how it would increase safety? 

Response. Due to the lack of a Federal permanent spent fuel disposal facility, the 

spent fuel pools at Diablo Canyon and SONGS have been ‘‘re-racked’’ to provide increased storage capability by placing the fuel assemblies closer together (Federal 

regulations permit reracking of spent fuel pools.) The more densely configured spent 

fuel pools are considered to have greater risk than a spent fuel pool that has a more 

open racking arrangement. A loss-of-coolant event precipitated by an accident or extreme event, such as a terrorist attack, earthquake, or tsunami, in a re-racked spent 

fuel pool with its spent fuel more closely packed than original designs, could result 

in extensive radiation release and contamination. Reconfiguring the spent fuel in 

the pools to more evenly distribute radioactive decay heat loads may help reduce 

the vulnerability of spent fuel pools. A 2006 study by the National Academies concluded that it appears to be feasible to reduce the likelihood of a fire involving spent 
144 

6 National Academies, Safety and Security of Commercial Nuclear Fuel Storage, Public Report, 

2006, p. 9. 7 2008 Integrated Energy Policy Report, p. 69, available at: [http://www.energy.ca.gov/ 

2008—energypolicy/index.html] 

fuel following a loss-of-pool-coolant event by using readily implemented measures including reconfiguring the spent fuel in the pools (redistributing the high decay-heat 

assemblies so that they are surrounded by low decay-heat assemblies.) 6

Question 4. What are your recommendations for storing spent fuel at nuclear 

power plants in California? 

Response. The Energy Commission’s 2008 Integrated Energy Policy Report, recommended that PG&E and SCE should return the spent fuel pools to open racking 

arrangements as soon as feasible, while maintaining compliance with NRC spent 

fuel cask and pool storage requirements, and report to the Energy Commission on 

their progress in doing so. 7 The California utilities to date have not reported any 

progress in pursuing the Energy Commission’s recommendation to modify their 

spent fuel pools’ racking to a less dense configuration. With abandonment of the 

Yucca Mountain repository program, a Federal permanent geologic repository or 

centralized dry cask storage facility likely will not be available for decades. This 

means the accelerated additional and continued utilization of onsite dry cask storage. As a result, spent fuel will remain at Diablo Canyon and SONGS indefinitely. 

Question 5. On April 11, PG&E asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 

delay issuance of the Diablo Canyon license renewal until after PG&E has completed the 3-D seismic studies and submitted a report to the NRC addressing the 

results. We have subsequently learned that PG&E did not request a delay in the 

licensing hearing process, but merely a delay in the final issuing of the license until 

after PG&E has completed the 3-D seismic study. Why is it important for the results of the 3-D seismic study to be considered as part of the license renewal hearing 

process? Do you believe that all stakeholders, including local citizens, should be able 

to comment on the relevance of the study’s results as part of a normal NRC relicensing process? 

Response. It is essential that these advanced seismic studies be included in license renewal reviews because, as mentioned previously, new studies may indicate 

a greater seismic hazard for Diablo Canyon than previous estimates, which could 

have significant safety and cost implications if expensive seismic retrofits are required. There are major uncertainties regarding Diablo Canyon’s earthquake hazard, for example, whether the Hosgri and Shoreline Faults may potentially interact 

together creating a larger magnitude earthquake than if either fault ruptured independently. PG&E in a January 2011 report to the NRC indicated that the Shoreline 

Fault is segmented. However, a recent USGS report indicated that there is no objective evidence supporting segmentation of the Shoreline Fault. Segmentation vs. nonsegmentation is important in estimating earthquake magnitude potential. For example, the Japanese greatly underestimated the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami on March 11 and had predicted that the large offshore fault zone was segmented and that these segments would rupture separately. However, five segments 

ruptured together, rather than independently, creating a much larger earthquake 

than had been predicted. 

The Energy Commission in its 2008 and 2009 Integrated Energy Policy Reports 

recommended that PG&E and SCE complete certain studies and actions, including 

completing 3-D and other advanced seismic studies for Diablo Canyon and SONGS, 

and that these studies be included in the California Public Utilities Commission’s 

and the NRC’s license renewal reviews for Diablo Canyon and SONGS. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in June 2009 directed PG&E and SCE 

to complete these studies as part of these plants’ license renewal evaluations. The 

CPUC approved funding for the advanced seismic studies at Diablo Canyon and in 

2011 funded an Independent Peer Review Panel to review PG&E’s study plans and 

findings. 

The California Coastal Commission similarly notified the NRC on April 25, 2011 

that the proposed relicensing for Diablo Canyon ‘‘is subject to Federal consistency 

review by the California Coastal Commission, completion of which is a necessary 

part of the NRC’s eventual relicensing decision.’’ To help conduct its review, the 

Coastal Commission has asked PG&E to provide the results from these advanced 

seismic studies. In addition, California Senator Sam Blakeslee, Congresswoman Lois 

Capps and the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors have called for including these advanced seismic studies in Diablo Canyon’s license renewal evaluations. 

Therefore, an increasing number of State and local officials are calling for completing these advanced seismic studies and including them in the license renewal 
145 

evaluations for Diablo Canyon and SONGS. There is sufficient time to complete 

these studies, thoroughly analyze the results including independent peer review of 

the results, and include this information in cost-benefit evaluations of license renewal for Diablo Canyon. Diablo Canyon’s operating licenses do not expire until 

2024 and 2025 and SONGS’ licenses do not expire until 2022. PG&E recently told 

the CPUC they plan to complete these advanced seismic studies by 2013. 

I agree that stakeholders should be provided an opportunity to comment on the 

seismic study results as part of the NRC’s license renewal review. Although PG&E 

has maintained an extensive Long-Term Seismic Program at Diablo Canyon as a 

condition of their operating license, PG&E did not discover the Shoreline Fault nor 

did they discover the Hosgri Fault. A Shell Oil scientist discovered the Hosgri Fault 

and USGS scientists discovered the Shoreline Fault. Independent reviews of earthquake hazard potential for Diablo Canyon are vital to understanding the seismic 

risks for the site. Interested stakeholders may have significant new data to contribute or different interpretations of PG&E’s study results and should be allowed 

to comment on the study results as part of NRC’s license renewal evaluation for 

Diablo Canyon. 
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150 
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160 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Boyd. 

Next we will introduce Lew Schiliro, Secretary Schiliro. How long 

have you been Secretary now? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Just over 2 years, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. Before that I know you spent a few years in the 

FBI. How many? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Twenty-five years, sir. 

Senator CARPER. Twenty-five years. Thank you for your service 

to our country and to our State. We are delighted that you are here 

today. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF LEWIS D. SCHILIRO, J.D., CABINET SECRETARY, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Thank you, Senator, and good afternoon, Chairman. 

I am Lew Schiliro, the Secretary of Delaware’s Department of 

Safety and Homeland Security. On behalf of Governor Jack 

Markell, I am honored to be here today to address the important 

issue of Homeland Security as it relates to radiological emergency 

plans and preparedness. I would like to thank you for the attention 

and focus on this most important topic. 

In the days and weeks that have followed the nuclear energy crisis in Japan, many citizens have raised concerns regarding radiological emergency preparedness in the United States. In Delaware, 

the citizens’ concerns about the safety of nuclear energy facilities 

and the State’s ability to handle a radiological emergency were directed to our Department. 

Our Department is comprised of several Public Safety Divisions, 

including the Delaware State Police, Capital Police, the Office of 

Highway Safety and, most importantly, the Delaware Emergency 

Management Agency, which we refer to as DEMA. 

While our divisions often work together during a public safety 

emergency, DEMA is primarily responsible for the State’s Radiological Emergency Plan and preparedness activities. I would like to 

open my statement today with information on the nuclear energy 

utility located just off our State’s shore and our State’s Radiological 

Emergency Plan. I will then share some insight into our experiences with the utility. 

Our State’s location along the East Coast puts it within 50 miles 

of four nuclear generating stations. They are Limerick Nuclear 

Generating Station and Peach Bottom Atomic Energy Station, both 

in Pennsylvania, Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Generating Station in 

Maryland, and the Salem/Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station 

in New Jersey. Of these four stations, Salem/Hope, which is a 740- 

acre site operated by PSE&G, is the closest, located just 2.5 miles 

from the Delaware shoreline. Together, these plants comprise the 

second largest nuclear generating facility in the United States and 

generate enough electricity for 3 million homes each day. 

According to the 2010 Census, there are approximately 41,000 

people in Delaware who currently live within a 10-mile radius of 

this utility. The area is more commonly known as the Emergency 

Planning Zone or EPZ. It should be noted that within the last 10 
161 

years, Delaware’s population in the EPZ increased by over 17,000 

citizens, according to the recent census. This increase necessitates 

a mandatory evaluation of our evacuation routes and times. 

The close proximity of Salem/Hope makes it the most potential 

threat to our State and as such, DEMA’s radiological staff continues to work closely with the nuclear people at PSE&G and the 

New Jersey State emergency management officials to maintain and 

update the State’s radiological plan. This comprehensive plan, 

which is approved by FEMA, is DEMA’s roadmap to provide command, control and coordination for any potential nuclear plant incident impacting our State. 

As required by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and FEMA, 

within a 6-year cycle, DEMA conducts three plume exercises which 

really test the State’s emergency response capability within the 

EPZ and one injection exercise which tests the State’s readiness to 

address needs within a 50-mile radius of the utility. 

Historically, Delaware’s Federally-graded exercises have received 

very high marks from FEMA and these are graded exercises that 

are quite thorough and exhaustive inasmuch as they test each and 

every State emergency response resource that could potentially 

have a role in any radiological emergency incident. They involve 

our first responders, our evacuation plans, reception centers which 

are registration and decontamination sites, traffic control access 

points, shelters, schools, hospitals and emergency worker decontamination centers. 

In addition to that, FEMA conducts quarterly radiological drills 

with PSE&G and New Jersey that specifically focus on the EPZ 

and our responder resources. In 2010, 821 people received training 

specific to the REP Plan and Emergency Worker Equipment. 

I am going to cut some of this short, Senator, but we have absolutely an excellent relationship with PSE&G and the emergency response officials in New Jersey. 

I welcome the opportunity, as this goes on, to answer any questions that you may have regarding those plans. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schiliro follows:] 

STATEMENT OF LEWIS D. SCHILIRO, J.D., SECRETARY, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF

SAFETY AND HOMELAND SECURITY

INTRODUCTION

Good Afternoon, Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the 

Subcommittees. I am Lewis D. Schiliro, Secretary of the Delaware Department of 

Safety and Homeland Security. On behalf of Governor Jack A. Markell, I am honored to be here today to address the important issue of homeland security as it relates to radiological emergency plans and preparedness. I would like to thank you 

for your attention and focus on this most important topic. 

In the days and weeks that have followed the nuclear energy crisis in Japan, 

many citizens have raised concerns regarding radiological emergency preparedness 

in the U.S. In Delaware, citizen concerns about the safety of nuclear energy facilities and the State’s ability to handle a radiological emergency were directed to our 

Department. Our Department is comprised of several public safety divisions including the Delaware State Police (DSP), Capitol Police and the Delaware Emergency 

Management Agency (DEMA). While our divisions often work together during a 

public safety emergency, DEMA is primarily responsible for the State’s radiological 

emergency plan (REP) and preparedness activities. I would like to open my statement today with information on the nuclear energy utility located just off the State’s 
162 

shore and our State’s Radiological Emergency Plan. I will then share some insight 

into our experiences and relationship with the Utility. 

NUCLEAR GENERATING STATIONS IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO DELAWARE

Our State’s location along the East Coast puts it with in 50-miles of four nuclear 

generating stations. They are Limerick Nuclear Generating Station and Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, both in Pennsylvania; Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Generating 

Station in Maryland; and Salem/Hope Creek Nuclear Generating Station in New 

Jersey. Of these four stations, Salem/Hope Creek, a 740-acre site operated by PSEG 

Nuclear, is the closest, located just 2.5 miles from the Delaware shoreline. Together, 

the plants comprise the second largest nuclear generating facility in the U.S and 

generate enough electricity for three million homes each day. According to the 2010 

Census, there are approximately 41,000 people in Delaware who currently live within a 10-mile radius of the Utility. This area is more commonly known the Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ). It should be noted that within the last 10 years, Delaware’s population in the EPZ increased by over 17,000 citizens according to the recent census study. This increase necessitates a mandatory evaluation of our evacuation routes and times. 

RADIOLOGICAL EMERGENCY PLAN, EXERCISES AND NOTIFICATION

The close proximity of Salem/Hope Creek makes it the most potential threat to 

our State and as such DEMA’s Radiological Staff continues to work closely with 

PSEG Nuclear and New Jersey State Emergency Management officials to maintain 

and update the State’s radiological emergency plan. This comprehensive plan, approved by FEMA, is DEMA’s roadmap to provide command, coordination and support for any potential nuclear power plant incident impacting our State. As required 

by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and FEMA, within a 6-year cycle 

DEMA conducts three (3) plume exercises which test the State’s emergency response 

capabilities within the EPZ and one (1) ingestion exercise which test the State’s 

readiness to address needs within a 50-mile radius of the Utility. Historically, Delaware’s federally graded exercises have received high marks from FEMA. These federally graded exercises are quite thorough and exhaustive in that they test each and 

every State emergency response resource that could potentially have a role in a radiological emergency incident. They involve our first responders; evacuation plans; 

reception centers which are registration and decontamination sites for the public; 

traffic access controls; shelters; schools; hospitals; and emergency worker decontamination centers. In addition, DEMA conducts quarterly radiological drills with 

PSEG and New Jersey that specifically focus on the EPZ emergency plans and responder resources. In 2010, 821 people received training specific to the State’s REP 

Plan and Emergency Worker Equipment. 

A. Partnerships with Multiple Governmental and Private Agencies 

Over the years, DEMA has successfully forged partnerships with multiple Federal, state, county and local agencies to support our emergency response plans. 

DEMA currently maintains 22 Memorandums of Understanding with various agencies and organizations for resources and assistance. These agencies bring resources 

that would not otherwise be readily available to DEMA. For example, unlike other 

states, our Delaware National Guard is an integral part of our emergency plan. It 

provides support for field monitoring and air sampling as well as staffing for two 

reception centers and an Emergency Worker Decontamination Center. In 2010, 

Delaware participated in drills and exercises that involved 1,070 staff from private 

and governmental agencies. 

B. Emergency Notification and Activation of Plan 

DEMA has established a 24-hour contact through Delaware State Police (DSP) 

Communications for Salem/Hope Creek notifications. Within 15 minutes of a radiological emergency, PSEG shall send an alert to DEMA via DSP Communications. 

This alert triggers the activation of the State’s Emergency Operations Center and 

will start the notification process to our emergency support resources including the 

State Division of Public Health, Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC), National Guard and Department of Agriculture as well 

Federal resources that include FEMA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture and NRC. 

C. Monitoring Sites 

While notification of a radiological incident shall come from PSEG, DEMA also 

has seven (7) stand-alone monitoring sites within the EPZ. These units provide 

readings 24-hours a day and are equipped with battery powered back-ups. These 
163 

units are also programmed to send an alert to DSP Communications for the purpose 

of initiating the notification procedure. An alert from any of the stand-alone units 

would necessitate a call to PSEG to determine and confirm if there had been an incident of concern. If the alarm was not triggered by a PSEG release, DEMA would 

contact DNREC to investigate and determine the source and extent of the incident. 

One additional stationary monitoring unit is located in Dover. This unit is managed and monitored by the USEPA through its RADNET program. 

PUBLIC INFORMATION AND EDUCATION

On a nearly continual basis, DEMA participates in various outreach programs 

throughout the State. Emergency preparedness information provided to the general 

public covers public notification, evacuations, sheltering and distribution of potassium iodide. The public also receives information via the PSEG Nuclear Informational Calendar. It offers detailed planning guidance for residents living within the 

EPZ. DEMA also makes direct contact with civic associations, community groups, 

schools and businesses located in the EPZ to provide plans and training. 

A. Potassium Iodide Distribution 

For the past 10 years, Delaware has offered a potassium iodide public distribution 

program. The NRC has provided the recommended dosage of potassium iodide to all 

Delaware residents within 10-miles of the Salem/Hope Creek Nuclear Generating 

Stations. In determining the amount of potassium iodide Delaware requests, the anticipated growth of the population within the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone was 

taken into consideration, to ensure all persons living within the EPZ are issued the 

appropriate dosage. Besides the public distribution, additional supplies in caches are 

maintained at the Registration sites for distribution to the public upon arrival, if 

warranted. Each year in the fall, DEMA and the Division of Public Health work together to host several potassium iodide public distribution events. In response to recent citizen requests, a potassium iodide distribution event was held last week. 

EXPERIENCE AND RELATIONSHIP WITH PSEG NUCLEAR OFFICIALS

The Department and DEMA have a positive working relationship with PSEG Nuclear officials and have found them to be quite responsive to our needs and concerns. 

PSEG provides approximately $1.4 million each year to fund the State’s radiological 

emergency preparedness program and activities. This is the State’s only source of 

funding for its radiological program. 

PSEG Nuclear has invited Department leaders and DEMA staff to the Salem/ 

Hope Creek Generating Stations on several occasions for plant tours. More importantly, during the quarterly drills, several DEMA radiological staff and public information officers travel to Salem/Hope Creek Generating Station to work as a team 

with PSEG staff and New Jersey officials. This arrangement has allowed our staff 

to become very familiar with not only the emergency plans and procedures but with 

the PSEG facility and its staff. In addition, PSEG hosts annual training on utility 

emergency plans and procedures. Each year, PSEG officials partner with DEMA to 

host an awards luncheon for elementary school students who submit artwork for its 

radiological emergency information calendar that is distributed to residents within 

the Delaware portion of the EPZ. Likewise, a similar activity is sponsored by New 

Jersey & PSEG for the New Jersey portion of the EPZ. 

CLOSING

At this time, the Department does not have any specific concerns regarding the 

Salem/Hope Creek Generating Stations or the other nearby nuclear energy facilities. 

I am confident that DEMA and its supporting partners are prepared to handle a 

radiological incident within our State. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you very, very much, Mr. Secretary. 

Welcome, again, Mr. Sommerhoff. Please proceed. Thank you for 

joining us. 

STATEMENT OF CURTIS S. SOMMERHOFF, DIRECTOR, MIAMIDADE DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

Mr. SOMMERHOFF. Good afternoon, and I wanted to thank Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Boxer, Ranking 

Member Inhofe, Clean Air and Nuclear Subcommittee Chairman 
164 

Carper, Ranking Member Barrasso, and the distinguished committee members. 

I am Curtis Sommerhoff, Director of the Miami-Dade Department of Emergency Management. The community I serve spans 

nearly 2,000 square miles, includes 35 municipalities, and has a 

population of more than 2.5 million. We are a coastal community 

vulnerable to a number of natural and manmade disasters including the threat of hurricanes, flooding, fires, mass migration, oil 

spills and radiological events. 

Miami-Dade County’s response to emergencies and disasters is 

guided by a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan, an allhazards approach which supports the County’s ability to respond to 

any type of emergency. Within our comprehensive plan we have a 

number of hazard-specific annexes, including a Radiological Emergency Preparedness Plan. 

Our plans are regularly assessed and assumptions analyzed, revised and ultimately certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Site visits and evaluated exercises bring together 

local, State and Federal agencies, as well as members of the utility, 

to enhance collaboration and programming. FEMA oversight and 

formal after action reports highlight significant areas that might 

need improvement. 

In the event of an emergency at the nuclear power plant, we 

have a public alert and notification system that includes warning 

sirens in the area around the plant, identified support facilities for 

the delivery of emergency services, fully trained and equipped public safety response personnel, and protective measures that are adjusted to the threat level. 

Our ability to effectively respond to a radiological or other threat 

lies not only in our comprehensive planning but our long history 

of implementing protective actions for the public. Over the past 

decade alone, evacuation orders have been issued to the public on 

10 occasions as a result of hurricanes and tropical storms and, together with our partner agencies, we have coordinated the evacuation, transportation, sheltering, medical care and feeding of tens 

of thousands of evacuees. 

Consider this. In the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone surrounding the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Plant, there are approximately 180,000 residents. Within Miami-Dade’s three designated 

Hurricane Evacuation Zones, there are more than half a million 

residents. 

We have identified shelters for temporary housing with special 

consideration given to individuals with special needs. We have designated areas for the dissemination of emergency supplies, like 

water, ice, food and tarps in the event of widespread destruction 

or power outages. 

We have ready-to-activate Disaster Assistance Centers to provide 

social services to residents in need of financial assistance, prescriptions refills, short- and long-term housing and first aid, and contracts and mutual aid agreements to ensure the continuity of operations during disaster response and recovery. In line with the National Response Framework, all of our plans are scalable, flexible 

and adaptable. 
165 

The County’s Department of Emergency Management fosters an 

ongoing collaborative planning relationship with the County’s mission essential departments and partner agencies to address life 

safety and property implications from existing hazards. We have a 

long-established state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center, our 

nucleus for response and recovery efforts. 

When disaster threatens, our emergency managers, private and 

non-profit sector partners, as well as our media partners, come together under one roof, a critical component for a coordinated response and timely and accurate information dissemination. Local, 

State and Federal coordination enables us to augment and resupply 

personnel and equipment as needed, even over extended periods. 

Our strengths and experiences from hurricane response carry 

over to our ability to implement actions for a radiological event. 

Conversely, our planning for a potential radiological event has a 

positive effect on our ability to respond to other hazards. 

Based on our experiences, we respectfully offer the following recommendations for consideration. 

The recommendation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 

evacuate Americans out to 50 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi 

Plant has raised many questions. We support analysis of the data 

and assumptions behind the recommendation to determine if Emergency Planning Zones in the United States need to be revised. Of 

course, a wholesale change to increase the plume exposure pathway 

must be carefully evaluated and weighed against the value of making the revision. 

It is also important to note that local officials currently have the 

flexibility to revise public protective action based on accident parameters and the situation on the ground. 

As we have seen in the crisis in Japan, as well as other disasters 

across the United States, interaction and coordination with Federal 

partners is sometimes hampered by the lack of familiarity of local 

and State response organizations with Federal processes and systems. Increasing the inclusion of FEMA and other Federal agencies 

in local and State training and exercises would make the transition 

from a local response to a Federally-integrated response more 

seamless and efficient. 

Finally, it is essential to maintain and expand emergency management all-hazard funding programs such as the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program. This year alone, every 

EMPG dollar spent in Miami-Dade County is matched with over 

five local dollars to build emergency management capabilities that 

enhance our community’s disaster preparedness. 

EMPG dollars have also enabled us to invest in staff and resources that have been made available to communities throughout 

the country, including assistance we were able to deploy to New 

York after the 9/11 attacks and, more recently, to neighboring Florida counties directly impacted by 2004s record-breaking hurricane 

season. 

Once again, I thank you for the opportunity to share our experiences, observations and recommendations. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sommerhoff follows:] 
166 

STATEMENT OF CURTIS SOMMERHOFF, DIRECTOR, MIAMI-DADE DEPARTMENT OF

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

INTRODUCTION

Thank you Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Boxer, Ranking 

Member Inhofe, Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee Chairman Carper, 

Ranking Member Barrasso, and distinguished committee members. 

I am Curtis Sommerhoff, Director of the Miami-Dade Department of Emergency 

Management, and am pleased to have the opportunity to share with you MiamiDade’s approach to preparedness, response and recovery, including our plans in the 

event of a radiological emergency. The events at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear 

power station have rightly focused attention on the safety of existing nuclear power 

plants, the soundness of emergency plans, and the readiness of emergency responders. 

Let me begin by sharing a bit about myself and Miami-Dade County. I have spent 

my career in and around emergency management—from addressing water and 

wastewater emergencies . . . to overseeing hazardous materials and response programs . . . to managing Miami-Dade County’s Radiological Emergency Preparedness Plan. I have served during 8 Presidentially Declared or Major Disaster Declarations, including Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina, and was appointed Director of 

Miami-Dade Emergency Management in 2009. 

The community I serve spans nearly 2,000 square miles, includes 35 municipalities and has a population of more than 2.5 million people. We are a coastal community vulnerable to a number of natural and man-made disasters, including the 

threat of hurricanes, flooding, fires, mass migration, oil spills and radiological 

events. 

ABILITIES & STRENGTHS

Miami-Dade County’s response to emergencies and disasters is guided by a Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan . . . an ‘‘all-hazards’’ approach which supports the county’s ability to respond to any type of emergency. Within our comprehensive plan, we have a number of hazard specific annexes, including a Radiological Emergency Preparedness Plan. 

The Turkey Point Power Plant operated by Florida Power and Light is located approximately 25 miles south of the city of Miami, and includes two nuclear power 

reactors. Miami-Dade County’s vulnerability analysis accounts for the possible risks 

posed by nuclear power, and we have a robust planning, training and exercise program to ensure our response capabilities are appropriate. 

Our plans are regularly assessed and assumptions analyzed, revised, and ultimately, certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Site visits 

and evaluated exercises bring together local, State and Federal agencies, as well as 

members of the utility to enhance collaboration and programming. FEMA oversight 

and formal after-action reports highlight significant areas that might need improvement. 

In the event of an emergency at the nuclear power plant, we have a public alert 

and notification system that includes warning sirens in the area around the plant; 

identified support facilities for the delivery of emergency services; fully trained and 

equipped public safety response personnel; and protective measures that are adjusted to the threat level. 

Our ability to effectively respond to a radiological—or other threat—lies not only 

in our comprehensive planning, but our long history of implementing protective actions for the public. Over the past decade alone, evacuation orders have been issued 

to the public on 10 occasions as a result of hurricanes or tropical storms; and together with our partner agencies, we have coordinated the evacuation and transportation, sheltering, medical care and feeding of tens of thousands of evacuees. 

Consider this: In the 10-mile Emergency Planning Zone surrounding the Turkey 

Point Nuclear Plant, there are approximately 180,000 residents. Within MiamiDade’s three designated Hurricane Evacuation Zones, there are more than a half 

a million residents. 

We have identified shelters for temporary housing, with special consideration 

given to individuals with special needs. We have designated areas for the dissemination of emergency supplies like water, ice, food and tarps in the event of widespread 

destruction or power outages. We have ready-to-activate Disaster Assistance Centers to provide social services to residents in need of financial assistance, prescription refills, short and long-term housing and first aid; and contracts and mutual aid 

agreements to ensure the continuity of operations during disaster response and re-
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covery. In line with the National Response Framework (NRF), all of our plans are 

scalable, flexible and adaptable. 

The County’s Department of Emergency Management fosters an ongoing, collaborative planning relationship with the county’s mission essential departments and 

partner agencies to address life-safety and property implications from existing hazards. We have a long-established, state-of-the-art Emergency Operations Center 

—our nucleus for response and recovery efforts. When disaster threatens, our emergency managers, private and non-profit sector partners, as well as our media partners, come together under one roof—a critical component for a coordinated response 

and timely and accurate information dissemination. Local, State and Federal coordination enables us to augment and resupply personnel and equipment, as needed, 

even for extended periods. 

Our strengths and experience from hurricane responses carry over to our ability 

to implement actions for a radiological event. Conversely, our planning for a potential radiological event has a positive effect on our ability to respond to other hazards. 

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on our experiences, we respectfully offer the following recommendations for 

consideration: 

(1) The recommendation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to evacuate 

Americans out to 50 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi Plant has raised many questions. We support analysis of the data and assumptions behind the recommendation 

to determine if Emergency Planning Zones in the U.S. need to be revised. Of course, 

a wholesale change to increase the plume exposure pathway must be carefully evaluated and weighed against the value of making any revision. 

It is also important to note that local officials currently have the flexibility to revise public protective action based on accident parameters and the situation ‘‘on the 

ground’’. 

(2) As we have seen with the crisis in Japan as well as with other disasters across 

the U.S., interaction and coordination with Federal partners is sometimes hampered 

by the lack of familiarity of local and State response organizations with Federal 

processes and systems. Increasing the inclusion of FEMA and other Federal agencies in local and State training and exercises would make the transition from a local 

response to a federally integrated response more seamless and efficient. 

(3) We support recent revisions to radiological emergency preparedness regulations requiring greater variation in exercise scenarios. Variations that are infrequently exercised at the local level, but carry great importance include consideration 

of food embargos, legal and financial challenges to home and business owners, longterm displacement of residents, impacts to the environment and economy, and integration of American Nuclear Insurers into the recovery process. 

(4) Because a nuclear event of Japan’s magnitude invariably engenders a great 

deal of national and international interest, a centralized Web site similar to the 

Deepwater Horizon site ‘‘restorethegulf.gov’’ can provide a one-stop source for official 

information. 

(5) Finally, it is essential to maintain and expand emergency management all-hazard funding programs such as the Emergency Management Performance Grant Program (EMPG). This year alone, every EMPG dollar spent in Miami-Dade County is 

matched with over five local dollars to build emergency management capabilities 

that enhance our community’s disaster preparedness. 

EMPG dollars have also enabled us to invest in staff and resources that have been 

made available to communities throughout the country, including assistance we 

were able to deploy to New York City in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and more 

recently, to neighboring Florida counties directly impacted by 2004s record-breaking 

hurricane season. 

Once again, thank you for the opportunity to share our experiences, observations 

and recommendations. I am pleased to answer any questions you may have. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks so much, Mr. Sommerhoff. 

Mr. Pardee, you are now recognized. Please proceed. Thank you 

for joining us. 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES PARDEE, CHIEF OPERATING 

OFFICER, EXELON GENERATION COMPANY 

Mr. PARDEE. Good afternoon, Chairman Carper, members of the 

committee. 
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My name is Charles Pardee. I am the Chief Operating Officer at 

Exelon Generation and as such responsible for all of the company’s 

generating assets, including 17 units at 10 sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear this afternoon on behalf 

of the nuclear industry to discuss the safety of nuclear power 

plants here in the United States. 

We have been following the events in Japan closely since the historic earthquake and tsunami struck the plant on March 11th. 

Many in the United States nuclear industry have both a professional and a personal interest in the events unfolding there. 

Many of us, myself included, have been to Japan a number of 

times as part of international technical exchange programs to share 

operating experience with the Tokyo Electric Power Company and 

others. In fact, I was at the Fukishima Daiichi station about a 

week prior to the earthquake striking there on one such exchange. 

Our hearts go out to the Japanese people as they respond to the 

humanitarian crisis they are facing. Currently, six Exelon employees are in Japan assisting with efforts there to secure, stabilize and 

ultimately decommission the Fukushima Daiichi reactors. 

It is understandable that many Americans are asking if power 

plants in the United States are safe in light of the events in Japan. 

I firmly believe that they are safe, and I would like to make three 

primary points about the safety of nuclear plants in the United 

States to buttress this belief. 

First, our plants are designed and licensed to withstand a variety 

of natural disasters including earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and, 

where appropriate, tsunamis. Plants are designed to withstand potential disasters based on the most extreme event known in their 

geographic location with significant margin added to that extreme 

event to ensure safety. Margins are reviewed and improved as necessary as additional information or experience becomes available to 

us. 

Second, safety systems, equipment and emergency procedures at 

nuclear power plants are not frozen in time once the plant is built. 

In fact, safety is an issue that is being constantly examined by both 

the industry and our regulators. We have undertaken extensive 

safety enhancing upgrades to our plants in the aftermath of Three 

Mile Island, the events of 9/11, and other events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew that have impacted the United States. 

Particular attention has been paid to putting systems in place to 

avoid a buildup of hydrogen in containment areas, the likely cause 

of the explosions at the Japanese plants. In addition, we require 

multiple redundancies and back up power supplies in the event of 

a loss of offsite power, the precipitating factor in the loss of cooling 

water issues that have led to the most extensive damage at the 

Japanese reactors. 

In addition, full capability simulators have been installed at each 

plant in the United States, giving every operating crew the ability 

to train under realistic conditions on extreme events, such as loss 

of all AC electrical power, to ensure our mitigation strategies are 

robust and our operators are fully qualified to respond. I earned an 

operating license at a plant similar to one of the Fukushima 

Daiichi reactors in the 1990s, and I personally went through this 
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training to learn how to combat scenarios such as the loss of all 

electrical power. 

Third, while it may take months, if not years, to fully understand 

what happened at the Japanese reactors, the industry is not waiting to take action to incorporate lessons learned from this event. 

Indeed, I firmly believe that the nuclear industry is unparalleled 

in its ability to incorporate lessons learned to ensure excellence in 

operations. 

There are two institutions, the U.S.-based Institute of Nuclear 

Power Operations and its international equivalent, the World Association of Nuclear Operators, that are devoted to ensuring excellence by sharing best practices, assessing and incorporating lessons 

learned from events such as this, and rigorously assessing plant 

performance to ensure sound operations. 

In the United States, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations 

ensures that reactor operators do not become complacent in any 

area of operations, particularly when it comes to safety-related 

issues. There is a focus on continuous learning from events, both 

large and small, that occur at other plants. Whenever a significant 

event occurs, INPO performs an analysis to determine relevant lessons learned that are then shared with all operators. 

Within days of the earthquake and the tsunami, the industry 

issued directives to each of our plants to undertake a variety of actions to ensure that seismic and safety-related equipment was in 

good material condition and to review our emergency response 

plans including each plant’s capability to manage a total loss of offsite power. These assessments are ongoing and I am confident that 

both industry and NRC will have additional action items in the 

coming weeks and months to further enhance our ability to operate 

safely. 

Aside from the safety of nuclear reactors, I know that there are 

also concerns about the safety of spent fuel pools in light of the 

events in Japan. As with our reactors, we have taken a number of 

steps in the aftermath of Three Mile Island and 9/11 to bolster security to spent fuel pools. Back-up power systems, abundant onsite 

water supplies and additional high capacity pumps provide us with 

the defense and depth to ensure safety of these pools. 

Let me conclude by recognizing the dedicated employees of the 

United States nuclear industry. Safety is, and continues to be, the 

primary focus of our industry, and we have tens of thousands of 

highly skilled, thoroughly trained employees working tirelessly 

every hour of every day such that our plants operate safely and efficiently. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pardee follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Mr. Pardee, thank you so much for joining us 

today. 

Dr. Thomas Cochran. We have a Senator named Cochran, Thad 

Cochran from Mississippi. 

Mr. COCHRAN. Not related. 

Senator CARPER. What was that? Uncle Thad? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. COCHRAN. Not related. 

Senator CARPER. Oh. OK. 

STATEMENT OF THOMAS B. COCHRAN, PH.D., SENIOR SCIENTIST, NUCLEAR PROGRAM, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL, INC. 

Mr. COCHRAN. Chairman Carper, and also Chairman Boxer and 

members of the committee, I want to thank you for providing 

NRDC and me the opportunity to present our views on the Japanese nuclear disaster and its implications for nuclear power reactors in the United States. 

I have submitted my complete statement for the record. I will 

briefly highlight a few things here. 

You requested that I offer my views regarding the implications 

the disaster has for reactor safety in the United States. First, I 

think we all are in agreement that the first priority is to provide 

assistance to our friends in Japan. But, eventually, and even today, 

we are turning to the issue of the implications for the United 

States. 

Before turning to that issue, I wish to make two observations. 

First, my colleague, Dr. Matthew McKinzie, and I made a rough 

preliminary estimate of the collective radiation dose from the external exposure based on monitoring data from Japan. We should be 

mindful that the uncertainties in the estimated exposures at this 

stage are quite large. There is much we simply do not know. With 

this caution, we find the collective dose from the external exposure 

to date, and the consequentially excess cancers that are projected 

to result, appear to be 10 to 100 times greater than the collective 

radiation dose resulting from the Three Mile Island accident. 

After Chernobyl, the Fukushima nuclear accident ranks as the 

second most dangerous civil nuclear power reactor accident to date. 

The collective dose to date from the Fukushima accident appears 

to be in the neighborhood of 100 times less than that from the 

Chernobyl accident. Similarly, the long-term human health consequences are one to two orders of magnitude less than the immediate non-nuclear consequences of the earthquake and tsunami. 

This is a preliminary comparison and it may change as we learn 

more. 

Second, Dr. McKinzie and I have reexamined the historical frequency of partial core melt accidents. We found the historical frequency of core melt accidents worldwide is far greater than what 

the NRC considers safe. By this measure, operational reactors 

worldwide are not sufficiently safe. 

Because of differences in the numbers of reactors, the reactor 

safety cultures and the regulatory oversight, the next nuclear 

power plant disaster is more likely to occur abroad than in the 

United States. But if nuclear power is to have a long-term future, 
182 

greater attention should be given to current operational reactors. 

Older obsolete designs should be phased out rather than have their 

licenses extended. 

Turning to the implications for U.S. nuclear power reactors, 

there are concerns raised by the Fukushima nuclear disaster that 

bear directly on the safe operation and regulation of our domestic 

fleet. While others will add to this list, our immediate concerns include: 

Are old GE BWRs with poorly designed Mark 1 and Mark 2 

containments and subsequent upgrades imposed by the NRC safe 

enough to continue operation or have their licenses extended? 

What additional improvements should be made to cope with hydrogen production in the event of a fuel clad interaction with 

steam? What improvements must be made to extend the time reactors can cope with loss of offsite power? 

The NRC is overdue in requiring that spent fuel be removed from 

wet pools to hardened dry casks as soon as the spent fuel has 

cooled sufficiently to be passively cooled in air. 

Which reactor sites are located in areas that cannot be adequately evacuated? Which reactor stations impose an undue economic risk to local, State and even the U.S. economy in the event 

of a partial core melt accident? Which U.S. reactors should be upgraded or phased out due to the risk of earthquake, flooding or tornado that is beyond the design basis? 

Potential radiological accidents caused by earthquakes and 

tsunamis should be addressed in emergency response plans for U.S. 

reactors. Nuclear plant owners and operators must assume a larger 

share of financial risk in the event of a catastrophic nuclear accident. 

What are the implications of predicted sea level rise due to climate change on the safety of nuclear reactors near coasts? What 

are the implications for continued failure of the NRC to finalize 

and implement a fire protection rule? 

What changes should be implemented regarding radiation monitoring during routine plant operations following an accident? Perhaps most importantly, what is the best process for addressing 

these concerns? 

I would like to elaborate on a couple of these starting with the 

last, the need for an independent commission—— 

Senator CARPER. Doctor, I am going to ask you not to elaborate 

too much, if you will. 

Mr. COCHRAN [continuing]. Similar to the Kemeny Commission 

that investigated the Three Mile Island accident. Such an independent body could engender public confidence by thoroughly examining nuclear safety issues including assessing the conclusions 

and proposed corrective actions arrived at by both the nuclear industry and the NRC’s 90-day safety review. 

I will just touch on one of these issues that I raised. The 20-year 

license extensions already granted to 23 U.S. operational BWRs 

with Mark 1 and Mark 2 containments should be shortened. Similarly, no 20-year license extension should be granted to the eight 

BWRs with Mark 1 and Mark 2 containments that have not received license extensions. 
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Mr. Chairman, thank you. I will stop there. I have some more 

but I have run out of time and look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cochran follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. Thanks so much for your testimony. As I said 

earlier, the entire statement will be made part of the record. 

I am going to telegraph a pitch and let you know what my last 

question is going to be to the panel. Basically I am going to ask 

each of you to give us a just a really good takeaway, a really good 

takeaway, not just for Chairman Boxer and myself and Senators 

Inhofe and Barrasso, but just really one good takeaway from each 

of you from this hearing for our committee, please. So just be 

thinking about that. 

In the meantime, let me ask a first question of Secretary 

Schiliro, and that would be, after seeing the devastation in Japan, 

are you concerned with our State, with Delaware’s emergency planning process? Could anything be improved? To follow onto that, do 

you feel our plan is flexible enough to be changed if you saw a need 

to expand beyond the 10-mile evacuation plan? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Thank you, Senator. We have a very robust group 

in Delaware and it truly is a team effort. The ability of DEMA to 

incorporate all of our partners from the law enforcement and public 

safety communities, both State and our Federal partners, I think 

is very robust. 

Certainly I think the lesson that we need to learn is what can 

we take away from the events in Japan that would allow us to 

evolve that plan? Because it truly is a living document and certainly something that we need to understand. 

As has been stated, the 10-mile EPZ is something that we do 

practice for and plan for. However, I do think the plan is flexible 

enough, and certainly in the power of the Governor, that in the 

event that the circumstances go beyond that 10 miles, that we certainly could react to. We do, as has been stated, plan for that in 

terms of hurricane evacuations. So, it is adaptable. 

I think, as was stated earlier, what the 10-mile zone allows us 

to do is to really give that early warning and to really just start 

to begin from that. But there is no doubt in my mind, based upon 

the people that we have in Delaware, that if we needed to expand 

it, we certainly could and would do that. So, I feel very comfortable 

with that. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. 

Let me follow that one with a question of Mr. Sommerhoff and 

perhaps of Secretary Schiliro as well. The question is, many of the 

families in Japan have been away from their homes for I guess 

close to a month or so. In your emergency planning, is it explained 

to people being asked to evacuate that it could be not just for a couple of hours or a couple of days? It could be, in this case, for over 

a month for a lot of the folks in Japan, and I guess the clock is 

still running there. 

But do we have long-term emergency housing that can accommodate people for these kinds of extended periods of time? 

Mr. SOMMERHOFF. One of the things we try to do as we, when 

we educate the public and certainly practice these drills and exercises, is we have an emergency reception center concept. The idea 

with the emergency reception center is to have a place, at least 

temporarily, for people to seek shelter and emergency services from 

local government. 
214 

From there, we are also looking at some offsite reception centers, 

some more long-term sheltering capability. Then we would be looking at Federal resources coming in, as well as aids from the nuclear 

industry through American nuclear insurers and others, to provide 

more resources for those long-term housing needs and those types 

of opportunities. 

But all of those things that you mentioned in terms of both 

human and health services type things, as well as the housing 

issues and the mass care issues, all that is provided and explained 

to folks in terms of education, as well as the resources at the reception center concept. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Mr. Schiliro, Secretary Schiliro, anything 

you want to add to that? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Just one quick note, Senator. As you know, we 

have had occasion, unfortunately, to stand up, primarily through 

the Red Cross short-term shelters, one in the event of certain snowstorms that we have recently had and weather-related events, and 

generally that works very well. 

But obviously in the event that we needed longer term, the primary responsibility would be for the public safety and, if that were 

the case, I am confident that through our Federal partners and 

other related resources we would be able to accomplish that. 

Senator CARPER. All right, thank you. 

A question, if I could, of Mr. Pardee. This is a question relating 

to alert systems. In Secretary Schiliro’s written statement, he stated that within, he said within 15 minutes of a radiological emergency, PSE&G must send an alert to Delaware’s emergency response team. Do you know if that is a requirement that is established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? 

Mr. PARDEE. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has very strict reporting guidelines that are applicable to 

all nuclear stations in the United States that ensure timely reporting of events as they are unfolding and regular periodic updates to 

make sure, as further information is acquired by the station, that 

that information is shared with State and Federal officials for the 

purposes of making quick protective action recommendations and 

mustering resources to assist. 

Senator CARPER. OK. During an emergency, how does a company 

communicate with the NRC and with local governments? 

Mr. PARDEE. We have emergency response facilities both local to 

the site and remote from the site, our emergency operating facilities. Those facilities all have dedicated communication links between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission op centers and on a 

State-by-State basis. They are emergency operating centers. These 

are dedicated phone lines, they have back-ups in the form of satellite, radio or cellular communications and such. So, there are 

multiple communications links in which to share the information 

I described. 

Senator CARPER. Did you say earlier that you had spent some 

time in Japan? 

Mr. PARDEE. I have. I have been to both Fukushima Daiichi and 

the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa station that suffered an earthquake about 

3 years ago. In that case, I went about 2 weeks after that earthquake hit. 
215 

Senator CARPER. A member of my staff, I think it might have 

been Laura Haynes, I think, said to me earlier today, suggested 

that the NRC has the ability to monitor control rooms, maybe of 

all the nuclear power plants in the United States. I do not know 

if that is true, but if you know, and the second, like a followup, 

whether that is true or not, do the folks in Japan have a similar 

kind of capability? 

Mr. PARDEE. We in the United States all have something called 

the Emergency Response Data System which is a provision to provide technical data to the NRC Emergency Operations Center and 

other interested parties. I am not strictly familiar with what exists 

within the Japanese regulatory protocol, but I do know that information flow seems to be much more greatly challenged than I 

would ever expect it to be here in the United States. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

I am going to ask a question of Secretary Schiliro and then I am 

going to ask Dr. Cochran and Mr. Boyd and Mr. Pardee to followup 

on this. But here is the question of Secretary Schiliro. In your written testimony, I think you stated approximately 41,000 Delawareans live within 10 miles of PSE&G’s Salem/Hope Creek facilities. Is that about right? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. That is correct, Senator. 

Senator CARPER. All right. If there was a full evacuation of that 

10-mile radius because of an emergency at the PSE&G facilities, 

how long do you think it would take to conduct that full evacuation? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Our modeling, Senator, depending on the time of 

the day and the time of the year, anywhere between three and 6 

hours. 

Senator CARPER. Three and 6 hours. All right. Again, if I could, 

of Dr. Cochran and Charles Pardee and Mr. Boyd, if a nuclear 

power plant in this country faced a full blackout, faced a full blackout, similar to what we have seen at the Fukushima facility, in 

your opinion, would we have a few days before we might see the 

fuel rods degrade and therefore see harmful radiation levels? 

I am going to say that one again. I will just say it again. If a 

nuclear power plant in this country faced a full blackout similar to 

what we have seen at the Fukushima facility, in your opinion, 

would we have a few days before we might see the fuel rods degrade and therefore witness harmful radiation levels? 

Mr. COCHRAN. I do not believe so if you include within that full 

blackout the loss of emergency power generation at the site. For example, you have both batteries and diesel generator backup systems. Diesel generators failed in Japan because of the tsunami. If 

they failed in the United States, you then can rely on, and they 

also relied upon, battery power. At some reactors the batteries are 

only designed for 4 hours, it is my understanding. 

Senator CARPER. Do we have any idea if those batteries can be 

recharged? I just drove one of those new Chevrolet Volts yesterday 

and the Chevrolet Volt, as you may know, the battery provides, 

constantly provides, the force, if you will, for the wheels to move. 

Whether the engine, if the engine is running, the engine does not 

run, turn the wheels. It powers the battery so the battery can be 

charged constantly. 
216 

Any idea if these batteries at the nuclear power plants can be 

charged or recharged while they are drawing down electricity? Does 

anybody know? 

Mr. PARDEE. Yes they can, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks. 

Mr. PARDEE. We have to have the requisite equipment available, 

but they can be recharged. They are big automobile batteries. Very 

big automobile batteries. 

Senator CARPER. I bet they are. Thanks. OK. Doctor, go ahead 

and finish your response now. 

Dr. COCHRAN. Well, in order to recharge them, you have to have 

a source of power. Your original premise was that you lost power, 

that you had a station blackout, so you would not be able to charge 

them under those circumstances. 

I think you have touched on one of several very important issues 

that need to be addressed as a consequence of this disaster. In my 

judgment, the most important thing you need to do is address how 

this process should be undertaken. We support the NRC’s review. 

We support the industry’s review. But we do not feel that is adequate. 

We should rely solely on the NRC to review its own previous failures, and we therefore believe that you need something akin to a 

Kemeny Commission that you had following the TMI accident, 

similar to the Blue Ribbon Commission you had following the BP 

oil spill. 

There are people in the industry, people in the Government, who 

do not want to have an independent review because they see that 

it might threaten their future course of actions. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. May I ask, if I could, Mr. 

Boyd and Mr. Pardee to respond as well to this question. Mr. Boyd? 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Senator. I know, and I just checked with 

my good Senator here, that Diablo Canyon has a real problem with 

regard to evacuation of, you heard the very small numbers of people. But there is incredibly limited access. So, the number we have 

is about 15 hours to evacuate the area because, and that assumes 

the overpasses have not collapsed on the freeway and that assumes 

it leaves one of the only two escape routes available. 

At SONGS, it is a little different with 7 million people. I do not 

have the estimate on the top of my head but it, while we have significant freeway systems there, it is still a very substantial period 

of time that has been modeled over and over again and I can get 

you that information. 

Additional comments on the second question because it relates to 

the evacuation issue. Both of our plants have 8 hour battery 

backup capability. Diablo Canyon’s backup generators are fairly 

high up on the hillside so it would take a very significant tsunami 

to impact them. But, nonetheless, we are in discussions now as a 

result of what happened in Japan with both utilities about the 

whole question of station blackout. 

The SONGS generators are right at the plant which is right on 

the beach although, hopefully, a less earthquake prone area. But 

nonetheless, they have the advantage of the entire Marine Corp 

across the street, Camp Pendleton, and arrangements have been 
217 

made for backup generation, portable generators and what have 

you, in the event of some kind of problem there. 

Diablo Canyon does not have that luxury and we have been talking about helicoptering in batteries and what have you in the event 

there is a serious problem there. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you. One last word, if you 

would, Mr. Pardee, on this question, please. 

Mr. PARDEE. Yes, sir. For the first question regarding evacuation 

times, our times also vary, station dependent, time of day, time of 

year, seasonal varieties, but somewhere on the order of four to 10 

hours is representative of our stations as well. 

To your question about our ability to forestall fuel damage for a 

number of days per station blackout, I do not believe that we would 

have fuel damage, although I do not mean to trivialize the amount 

of work that would be required on the part of the operators to create that result. 

But we do have, even in the event of depleting batteries, we have 

procedures here in the United States for manual operation of our 

emergency pumps that would require no battery power for operation or measurement instrumentation. In other instances, we have 

temporary or portable battery supplies, such as carts with batteries 

on them, that would allow us to operate the equipment necessary 

to keep the core from being damaged. This equipment and these 

procedures are pre-staged. We train on them. We have formal qualification programs on them. 

I am positive that we will learn things out of the Japanese event 

that will make us better. We are already starting to investigate 

how we can extend the lives of our batteries and such. I am sure 

we will have to look harder at spent fuel pools and their ability to 

withstand sustained loss of AC electrical power. But the direct answer to your question is, I would not anticipate fuel damage after 

48 hours. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Thanks very much. 

Let me go back to the pitch I telegraphed earlier and that is to 

ask each of you if you could share with us one takeaway before you 

go back. I will just start, if I could, with, I will start with Senator 

Blakeslee. If you would not mind responding, that would be great. 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. Thank you, Senator. I appreciate the opportunity. 

We have 104 reactors in the Nation and the NRC has identified 

there are only two plants that are in the highest seismic potential 

category and both of them happen to be coastal plants. But only 

one of them has a recently identified fault of significant proportions 

in very close proximity. 

My concern in listening to Commissioner Jaczko’s comments in 

response to Senator Boxer’s questioning was that, although he is 

looking at procedures in a 90-day and a 6-month window, I heard 

nothing that identified the unique needs of these two plants, and 

the one plant in particular, which have these direct analogies to 

the threat faced in Japan through the 2007 and 2011 earthquakes. 

So I would again, the one take away I hope we can walk away 

with is that for these two facilities in California, we upgrade our 

relicensing procedures to formally include seismic safety criteria 
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and standards that directly relate to earthquake hazard in our 

process. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you, Senator. Thanks so much 

for being with us today. 

Mr. Boyd, please. 

Mr. BOYD. The Senator took my first item but I knew he might 

so I have got a couple of others noted here. I will mention one of 

them, and that is the spent fuel pool safety issue that has been discussed today. The re-racking of the spent fuel pools into high density and the slow speed with which these pools are being emptied 

in order to put materials into dry cask storage is a serious concern 

to us, particularly in the high seismic activity areas, again, like 

California’s two plants. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thank you, sir. Secretary Schiliro? 

Mr. SCHILIRO. Yes, thank you, Senator. In my mind, and as you 

know, Senator, our obligation is for the safety of the people of Delaware. But what to me is paramount is that we learn from the 

events in Japan from the standpoint of their reaction and the 

emergency response that they had. We need to learn the lessons 

from that. That information needs to be transparent. It also needs 

to be shared with the State and local counterparts, the people that 

would actually be forced to respond to this kind of event. 

So, what I hope is that once the lessons are learned, and once 

that information is gotten, that there be system to share that with 

us so that we can change and develop our plans to meet that. If 

that does not occur, then to me, that would be the greatest tragedy. 

So, I would hope that as the NRC and the other Federal agencies 

get that that it be shared and that we learn from that. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Good. Thanks so much for joining us 

today. 

Mr. Sommerhoff. 

Mr. SOMMERHOFF. Senator, thank you. Our protective action decisionmaking, it is based on plant conditions and it is based on the 

conditions on the ground. From that, we start making our implementation for protective actions for the public. 

We are always looking first, when we look at issues that are 

going to require evacuation, and evacuation is not always the protective action that we are going to implement, it might be sheltering in place, but we will look at those people who are in close 

proximity to the plant initially and then we are also going to look 

at those vulnerable populations, those difficult to move populations. 

I cannot think of a situation where we would just say, everybody 

within 10 miles evacuate now. It does not happen like that. It happens in phases. That is how we conduct evacuations for all types 

of hazards, including hurricanes and other types of hazards. 

So, I just wanted to make sure that this was this understanding 

that the way we do implement evacuation protective actions, it is 

not everybody evacuate at once. I do believe the 10-mile Emergency 

Planning Zone is the appropriate planning standard for us. 

We have always considered that there could be implementation 

of protective actions outside that 10-mile zone. We have never 

thought that, based on environmental conditions or conditions at 

the plant that somehow radiation would stop at 10 miles and just 

fall to the ground. We always have considered that we would have 
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to move outside that 10 miles and implement actions outside to address the public there. 

So, I just wanted to make sure that that understanding was 

known. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. Thanks so much. Mr. Pardee, 

one good takeaway. 

Mr. PARDEE. Yes. Thank you again for the opportunity. For my 

takeaways, I would simply say that we understand the concern on 

the part of the committee and the general public, the public at 

large. 

We are committed to open, transparent and proactive communications regarding our current State and what changes we are implementing based on the lessons learned from the events in Japan 

and that we share the objective of the committee to protect the 

public health and safety. We will do that through concerted operations and by profitably learning from the lessons learned and taking actions to improve our safety posture. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. Thanks so much. 

Dr. Cochran, you have the last word, please. 

Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, on page 5 of my written statement, 

I gave you just over a dozen take-home lessons. 

Senator CARPER. Cheaper by the dozen? 

Mr. COCHRAN. I would hesitate to choose one or even several as 

more important than others. But, let us take the spent fuel issue. 

We are 50 years into this industry and we do not have a geologic 

repository. We need to start getting that spent fuel in hardened, 

safe, dry cask storage and we ought to do it at the reactor sites as 

well as any interim site. 

Then there is the issue of these BWRs. We have old reactor designs out there. One-third of the U.S. fleet. The issue that you 

should be thinking about is whether we have in place a process 

that ensures that those reactors get relicensed over and over again 

and we try to patch up their design deficiencies, or are we going 

to get the clunkers off the street? We ought to have a process that 

retires these old, obsolete designs and replaces them with better 

technology. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Thanks. Thanks for those closing 

thoughts. 

Before I thank you all and send you on your way, I just want 

to go back to something that Chairman Boxer said earlier in the 

hearing. She was asking our second panel, Chairman Jaczko and 

Administrator Jackson, she asked what is the worst that can happen? I think that is paraphrasing her, but she asked what is the 

worst that can happen? 

I said, a few minutes after that, I said maybe the worst thing 

that could happen was on the heels of this terrible tragedy where 

the folks of Miyagi, which as I may have said earlier and as Secretary Schiliro knows, is our sister State to the State of Delaware, 

the Miyagi Prefecture, I have been there before and feel a real 

sense of empathy and compassion for the folks there. 

But maybe the worst thing that could happen, at least for us 

here, would be for all this pain and suffering to have occurred in 

Japan and for us not to have learned anything from it. Or maybe 
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for us to have learned from it but not to have done enough about 

it, not to have acted on the lessons that we have learned. 

There is a responsibility, I think, for all of us, not just on this 

committee, not just in the Congress, not just in the industry, not 

just at the NRC, but there is a responsibility for all of us to work 

together to make sure that we fully implement the lessons that we 

learn and that we remain vigilant until we have done that. 

I will close with the words I use often in this room and that is, 

everything I do I know I could do better. I think that is true for 

all of us and it remains true of the nuclear industry. We just need 

to remain eternally vigilant, eternally vigilant. I am encouraged 

today that that is our intent and we need to make sure that that 

is not only our intent, but it is actually what occurs. 

With that having been said, I thank you again for joining us here 

today and for providing your input. We look forward to working 

with you in this ongoing dialog. Thank you so much. 

With that, this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:40 p.m. the committee was adjourned.] 

[Additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 
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