REMARKS OF NRC CHAIRMAN GREGORY JACZKO

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

PRESS CONFERENCE

IAEA MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE

VIENNA, AUSTRIA

JUNE 21, 2011

I want to spend a moment recapping for you what the United States is doing and then 

look forward a bit. 

The NRC is a little more than two-thirds of the way through a 90-day review of the 

Fukushima accident to see if there are issues to address in the short term. The report of that work 

should be out in about three weeks and our commission will meet on July 19 to hear the staff 

recommendations.

While it is my opinion that U.S. nuclear plants are safe, the early work suggests there are 

a number of possible areas for improvement. To name a few, several of us on the commission 

have noted that our regulations for what is called a station blackout – essentially what happened 

in Fukushima – do not take into account an extended loss of AC power. Other areas that have 

drawn attention are spent fuel pools, emergency planning, of course seismic issues, contingency 

planning for situations beyond the design basis of a plant, and others.

The NRC has also run some preliminary inspections on areas like coping with 

unanticipated disasters, station blackout preparations, and severe accident mitigation. Again, 

while I see nothing that calls into question the safety of our plants, I see areas where performance 

was not as good as would be preferred.

I believe there is a likelihood that the agency will need to make some changes, although it 

is too early to say right now precisely what those changes might be.

On the global front – and this is a truly global issue – the real question is where to go 

from here? 

This conference is building on the work started here in April and continued last month in 

Paris at the G-20 and NEA.

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No. 11-113 June 21, 2011
Let me offer a few thoughts about how I think the issue can be approached.

The meeting discussions indicate that each regulator is ensuring that appropriate actions 

are taken in the near term to improve public safety. This issue is going to linger and the approach 

that should be taken is methodical, taking lessons over both the short and long term.

National efforts should be developed with the maximum possible transparency in mind. 

For example, in the United States, our work is public. Inspection results are being made public, 

as usual. And our initial report will be public.

In addition, I believe there are multiple ways to approach safety assessments and 

implement the lessons learned. Each nation can learn from others. Each nation’s path forward 

will depend on national and international circumstances.

In the United States our agency is doing sampling inspections to compare the existing 

plant conditions with the regulatory requirements and industry commitments, as well as taking a 

very introspective look at our regulatory system. And the industry in the United States is taking 

its own steps. Listening in one of the working sessions yesterday, I heard something similar from 

others. 

Clearly, safety can be strengthened by sharing feedback among nations as we are doing 

here this week.

I also believe that the IAEA is very well positioned to develop international best practices 

– a center for global coordination if you will – and those best practices can help strengthen the 

international nuclear safety effort.

Finally, I would say that the work being done here this week will provide a firm 

underpinning for the further development of improved nuclear safety at the General Conference 

in September.

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