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S. HRG. 113–773 

NRC’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FUKUSHIMA 

NEAR-TERM TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS 

AND OTHER ACTIONS TO ENHANCE AND MAINTAIN NUCLEAR SAFETY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

DECEMBER 3, 2014 

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

( 

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

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

ROGER WICKER, Mississippi 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

BETTINA POIRIER, Majority Staff Director 

ZAK BAIG, Republican Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

DECEMBER 3, 2014 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

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

Vitter, Hon. David, U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana ............................ 3 

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

statement .............................................................................................................. 5 

Fischer, Hon. Deb, U.S. Senator from the State of Nebraska, prepared statement ...................................................................................................................... 182 

Crapo, Hon. Mike, U.S. Senator from the State of Idaho, prepared statement . 408 

WITNESSES 

Capps, Hon. Lois, U.S. Representative from the State of California .................. 5 

Macfarlane, Allison M., Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ........ 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 29 

Senators Boxer and Markey ..................................................................... 47 

Senator Markey ......................................................................................... 54 

Response to an additional question from: 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 56 

Senator Crapo ............................................................................................ 57 

Svinicki, Kristine L., Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ...... 140 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 141 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 142 

Senators Boxer and Markey ..................................................................... 144 

Senator Markey ......................................................................................... 146 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 147 

Response to an additional question from Senator Crapo .............................. 150 

Ostendorff, William C., Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission .. 151 

Response to an additional question from Senator Boxer .............................. 152 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Vitter ................................ 153 

Baran, Jeff, Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ..................... 158 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 159 

Senators Boxer and Markey ..................................................................... 160 

Response to an additional question from Senator Markey ........................... 162 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Vitter ................................ 163 

Response to an additional question from Senator Crapo .............................. 171 

Burns, Stephen G., Commissioner, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ........ 172 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 173 

Senators Boxer and Markey ..................................................................... 174 

Senator Markey ......................................................................................... 176 

Response to an additional question from Senator Crapo .............................. 177 

Hirsch, Daniel, Lecturer, University of California, Santa Cruz .......................... 340 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 343 

Blakeslee, Hon. Sam, Ph.D., former State Senator, State of California, and 

former Commissioner, California Seismic Safety Commission ........................ 363 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 365 
Page

IV 

Pietrangelo, Anthony R., Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer, 

Nuclear Energy Institute ..................................................................................... 391 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 394 
(1) 

NRC’S IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FUKUSHIMA 

NEAR-TERM TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS AND OTHER ACTIONS TO ENHANCE 

AND MAINTAIN NUCLEAR SAFETY 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2014 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:03 a.m. in room 406, 

Dirksen Senate Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer (chairman of the 

committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Boxer, Carper, Whitehouse, Gillibrand, Markey, Vitter, Inhofe, Barrasso, Crapo, Wicker, and Fischer. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. The hearing will come to order. 

Welcome, everyone. 

We know that Congresswoman Capps is right outside the door, 

so we are looking forward to her testimony. 

I am going to have testimony from myself and Senator Vitter. At 

that point, we will not have opening statements because we have 

votes starting very soon. We are going to have to get through the 

first panel in short order and then move to the second panel after 

a series of five votes. 

It is going to be a really big break, an hour or hour and a half, 

so second panel, you can enjoy the sights or something while you 

wait for us to come back. 

Today, we are holding our 10th hearing with the NRC since the 

earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan three and a 

half years ago. 

Japan is still struggling to recover at the accident site as efforts 

to build a giant underground ice wall to stop radioactive water 

from flowing into the sea recently failed. It will take years and tens 

of billions of dollars to clean up. 

Children in Japan are forced to play in new indoor playgrounds 

because playing outdoors is still too dangerous in some locations. 

The Fukushima disaster is a warning to us that we must do 

more to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants here in the 

United States. Instead of heeding this warning, I am concerned 

that the Commission is not doing what it should to live up to its 

own mission ‘‘to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials for 
2 

beneficial civilian purposes while protecting people and the environment.’’ 

Although Chairman Macfarlane said, when she announced her 

resignation, she had assured that ‘‘the agency implemented lessons 

learned from the tragic accident at Fukushima.’’ She said, ‘‘the 

American people can be confident that such an accident will never 

take place here.’’ 

I say the reality is not a single one of the 12 key safety recommendations made by the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force has 

been implemented. Some reactor operators are still not in compliance with the safety requirements that were in place before the 

Fukushima disaster. The NRC has only completed its own action 

4 of the 12 task force recommendations. 

Further, I recently learned shockingly that the NRC has joined 

forces with Russia to block a European proposal requiring nuclear 

reactors to be retrofitted to ensure that they can be protected 

against severe earthquakes or other disasters. 

That is great. That is what I have learned, and that means going 

right along with Mr. Putin and his plans for safety. The sad irony 

is obvious. All we have to do is remember Chernobyl. 

Not only is the NRC delaying action on the post-Fukushima safety measures, the NRC is apparently acting to block a European 

proposal to require reactor safety upgrades worldwide. This is unacceptable. 

The National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that the 

Fukushima meltdowns resulted because the power plant’s operator 

failed to protect the reactor’s key safety equipment from flooding, 

even though the large tsunami risk for the plant was well known. 

The Academy went on to recommend that nuclear reactor operators act quickly to protect reactors from newly discovered risks. 

NRC’s failure to heed these expert warnings is especially relevant at my home State of California’s Diablo Canyon power plant. 

Even after learning of newly discovered strong earthquake faults 

close to the power plan, the NRC has declined to act on a senior 

inspector’s warning, its own senior inspector’s warning, that the reactor should be shut down if it did not come back into compliance 

with its seismic licensing requirements. 

An examination of NRC and PG&E documents provides evidence 

that the Diablo Canyon reactor operator also failed to comply with 

NRC safety regulations when it replaced its steam generators and 

other key reactor equipment without doing the analysis required to 

show that the new equipment could meet seismic safety standards. 

These are my people. These are Lois Capps’ people. We represent 

them. This is a dangerous situation that has been created here. 

Safety should be the highest priority and it is supposed to be at 

the NRC. 

I have many other matters to discuss, but I am going to stop 

short of my time because here is the deal—we need to finish this 

first panel by the time of votes. Senator Inhofe, Senator Vitter and 

I will be making our statements. Then we will turn to Lois Capps. 

Senator Vitter. 
3 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA 

Senator VITTER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I will submit my full statement for the record. 

I just want to express real regret that when Republicans on this 

committee unanimously requested what is completely standard a 

hearing on Mr. Baran’s nomination to a full term, we were denied 

that opportunity before the committee vote yesterday. 

I do not understand that. It is completely unprecedented. It was 

a very basic, very straightforward request that we get this hearing 

given that Mr. Baran is nominated now to a full term before a committee vote. That was completely denied even though it was very 

simple to give us that opportunity today. 

We laid out a way that we could have gotten that focused opportunity today and had the committee action later today and not delayed a thing. 

I just think it is very, very unfortunate that we were shut out 

of the normal process in that way. We will move forward, including 

in this hearing. 

I will submit my full statement for the record. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Vitter follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID VITTER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Thank you, Chairman Boxer, for convening today’s hearing, and I would like to 

thank our NRC commissioners for returning to testify in front of this committee. 

I would also like to thank our industry experts and stakeholders for being here 

today. 

Before getting started I would like to bring some attention to the committee 

mark-up that occurred yesterday to consider several nominations, including the 

nomination of Commissioner Baran to fill the remainder of Chairman Macfarlane’s 

term. 

While it is true that we recently held a hearing to consider Baran’s qualifications 

on September 11, 2014, the sole purpose of that hearing was to decide whether or 

not he was qualified to hold this position for the remainder of former Commissioner 

William Magwood’s term, which will expire on July 30, 2015. 

Chairman Macfarlane’s term is set to expire on June 30, 2018. The difference between these two term lengths is drastic, and many questions remain concerning the 

qualifications of Baran, who only recently visited a nuclear reactor power station for 

the first time after being nominated. 

While I appreciate Chairman Boxer’s commitment to the safety of our nuclear reactor fleet, it is clearly a misstep to move forward on Baran’s nomination for a drastically longer term without holding a full EPW nominations hearing. There is no 

precedent for disregarding the importance of making sure each member of the NRC 

is qualified for the exact position and term for which they have been nominated. 

The decision to hold yesterday’s EPW meeting is a clear change in committee 

precedent and will have long-term ramifications as we move into a new Congress. 

There is no doubt that many will attempt to counter this statement, saying we 

can ask Commissioner Baran any questions we would like during today’s oversight 

hearing. However, dividing our time and focus between the important oversight of 

the Commission and the future of the NRC’s leadership undermines the purpose of 

this committee. 

The bottom line is that no nominee, including Baran, should be given a free pass 

into office based solely on the merits of being handpicked by Majority Leader Harry 

Reid. 

Ensuring our commissioners are well-qualified and that the NRC is conducting 

business in a fact-based and ethical manner is crucial to the health, reliability, and 

safety of our nuclear fleet. 

It is the primary reason that our nuclear reactor fleet remains the safest in the 

world. 
4 

The NRC has made great strides since the departure of the previous chairman, 

and I fear that Senate Democrats continue to undermine that progress as they 

prioritize politics over facts, policy and safety. 

Again, thank you very much for being here, and I look forward to hearing from 

you on these important issues. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Senator. 

I had a minute remaining. Let me say, the committee held a 

hearing to consider Mr. Baran’s nomination on September 9. The 

90-minute hearing was attended by eight members of the committee, four Democrats and four Republicans. Mr. Baran was asked 

88 questions for the record, 83 submitted by Republicans. 

Some have noted Mr. Baran is not qualified to receive a longer 

term as commissioner because he only visited one nuclear power 

plant before he was nominated to be an NRC commissioner. Publicly available travel records indicate that before Republican Commissioner Kristine Svinicki was nominated, she had visited no nuclear power plants. 

Yet, no member of this committee, not one, not a Democrat, not 

a Republican, raised any similar concerns. I feel really comfortable 

that Mr. Baran, who is well known on Capitol Hill for his service 

here, has absolutely been vetted fully and completely. 

I do respect that we have a difference of opinion here, but the 

facts are the facts. There were 88 questions answered in a 90- 

minute hearing. I just don’t know what else you wanted from this 

guy. 

Senator VITTER. Madam Chair, if I can reclaim my time. 

Senator BOXER. Yes, you can. 

Senator VITTER. It would have been nice to have the opportunity 

to explore all of this at a normal nomination hearing which is the 

complete norm, particularly for a full term on the NRC. It is absolutely unprecedented when the minority asks for that sort of a 

hearing for a full term for it to be completely denied. 

We aren’t given the opportunity and we don’t have the opportunity today to fully debate this, unfortunately. That is what you 

shut down and I think that is what you wanted to shut down, but 

I am talking about the process. It is very, very unfortunate that 

once again the minority was completely shut down and shut out of 

our normal rights. 

Senator BOXER. Well, a shutdown is in the eye of the beholder. 

I don’t feel we did that in any way. I have tremendous respect for 

my colleagues and I look forward to getting past this and onto the 

hearing. 

We will now turn to Congresswoman Capps. I would ask you to 

keep your remarks to the 5-minute limit. 

Senator INHOFE. Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

Senator INHOFE. Are we not going to have an opening statement? 

Senator BOXER. We are not. We don’t have time because we have 

votes at 10 o’clock. 

Senator INHOFE. We are not going to have an opening statement? 

Senator BOXER. No, but listen, the two of us and then I will call 

on you first for your questions. Then I will call on Senator Carper 

and then go back to the regular order. 

Senator INHOFE. Let me submit my statement for the record. It 

is one I wanted to give. 
5 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

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

Chairman Boxer, thank you for holding this hearing. 

Over the last several years, I have consistently voiced my concern about the overregulation coming out of this Administration. It has been across every industry, including nuclear. 

It started with Utility MACT and the Cross State Air Pollution Rule a few years 

ago; then came the 316(b) Water Rule this past year. Now, after a false start on 

the cap-and-trade bill, EPA is pressing ahead with aggressive and unauthorized 

greenhouse gas regulations for power plants. And when you also weigh the Waters 

of the United States rule and the new proposal to reduce the Ozone NAAQS standard, it’s no surprise that the economy has not recovered under the Obama administration. 

In fact, if the EPA brings the ozone standard down to 60 parts per billion, as it 

is taking comment on, it would put all 77 counties in Oklahoma out of attainment, 

making it impossible to do things like build new highways and factories. It could 

also stall much of the new oil and gas development going on around the country. 

These are the things that we have tried to raise attention to over the last few 

years, and I anticipate that will continue to be the case. 

But a few years ago, if there is an agency that I did not think would get brought 

into this thrall of overregulation, it would be the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

I have always seen the NRC as being a leader of working cooperatively with industry to craft regulations in a way that appropriately balances safety and cost, particularly when it comes to the cumulative cost of regulations. So when I see that 

the NRC is working on some 50 or 60 new policies and regulations, knowing that 

many of them are redundant of other policies already on the books, I have to wonder 

where things went wrong. 

Many of these regulations will only have marginal, if any, impact on improving 

safety—whether security or operational—and yet their cost is massive when everything is added together. 

I want the nuclear fleet in the United States to be safe, and it is safe. The NRC 

on the whole has been doing its job well. 

But the fact of the matter is that NRC has grown too large, and it doesn’t have 

enough to do. I’ve said several times here that I helped push the Agency’s budget 

higher because we thought a nuclear renaissance was coming. It did not, but the 

NRC got the money anyway. And what do Government agencies do when their 

budget grows faster than their mission? They overregulate. 

I support reducing the NRC budget because I think a smaller NRC, at this point 

in time, will enable the Commission to focus its efforts on its core mission and not 

on the development of unnecessary and redundant regulations. 

I appreciate you taking the time to come testify. I look forward to hearing your 

thoughts on these matters and look forward to working with you to craft solutions. 

Senator BOXER. I will give you extra time in your questioning. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Senator Carper, do you want that as well? 

Senator CARPER. That would be great. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Senator BOXER. Congresswoman Capps. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LOIS CAPPS, 

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Representative CAPPS. Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Vitter 

and members of this committee, thank you for holding this hearing 

and for the opportunity for me to testify. 

I also want to thank the NRC commissioners for being here as 

well as the experts we will hear from on the second panel. 

I have worked closely with the NRC over the years and appreciate your hard work on these important issues. I am pleased you 

will also be hearing from my constituent and former State senator 

from California, Sam Blakeslee. 
6 

In addition to representing Diablo Canyon and the surrounding 

communities for many years in Sacramento, State Senator 

Blakeslee is also a scientist with a Ph.D. in Seismic Studies. He 

has unique and diverse experience on this important issue. 

I am here today because my congressional district, as you mentioned, Senator, includes the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant 

which generates electricity for roughly 3 million Californians. 

Owned and operated by PG&E, Diablo Canyon is an important 

economic driver in San Luis Obispo County, supporting hundreds 

of quality jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity. 

Also Diablo Canyon is the only nuclear power plant in the Nation 

operating at the highest seismic risk area as determined by the 

NRC. 

In the early 1970s, while the plant was originally under construction, scientists discovered the Hosgri Offshore Fault less than 

3 miles away, forcing a major redesign of the plant, pushing the 

project billions of dollars over budget. 

Then in 2008, scientists discovered yet another fault, the Shoreline Fault which lies less than half a mile from the plant. As a result, seismic safety has always been a high priority at Diablo Canyon and its surrounding communities. 

The issue took on new urgency in the wake of the Fukushima catastrophe in 2011. That tragedy put in such stark terms how little 

we actually knew about the seismic situation at Diablo Canyon and 

the potential consequences. 

I last testified before this committee in April 2011, just weeks 

after the Fukushima catastrophe in Japan, to call attention to 

these issues and to push for additional seismic studies. Since then 

I have worked closely with the NRC, with you, Senator Boxer, with 

State Senator Blakeslee and State officials to investigate the seismic situation at Diablo Canyon and to make necessary safety improvements based on the best available information, which is why 

we pushed for additional seismic studies and independent analysis 

of the data. 

These studies were completed earlier this year. PG&E released 

its internal analysis last September. The data is now being reviewed by the NRC and an independent peer review panel established by the California Public Utilities Commission. 

I am pleased with this progress. I am eagerly awaiting the results of the independent analysis. In my view, this independent 

analysis is the most critical part of the process. Up until the release of this new data, the only seismic studies available were from 

the internal PG&E studies and the NRC’s own review of those 

studies. 

While the NRC and PG&E certainly have well qualified experts 

of their own, we all know independent analysis by outside experts 

is essential to the scientific process. The stakes are simply too high 

for us not to do everything in our power to fully identify and understand the risks and prepare for them. 

Independent analysis and transparency also helps to build public 

confidence in this process. The more information that is available 

and accessible to the public, the more our constituents can engage 

in the oversight process and make their voices heard. 
7 

Considering how and when these faults were discovered, many of 

my constituents are understandably skeptical about the NRC process and the reliability of the seismic safety information they have 

been given. 

Limiting independent review or public access to information only 

feeds skepticism. Congress established the NRC to be an independent watchdog of our nuclear facilities. The public needs to 

trust that the Commission is doing its job. 

The best way to build that trust is through transparency and 

public engagement. Yet, one of the most common complaints I hear 

from my constituents is the frustration with the NRC’s process and 

the lack of transparency. 

While I know the NRC makes a strong effort on several fronts 

to engage with the public, clearly more needs to be done to address 

these concerns. 

Madam Chair, the Fukushima tragedy has taught us that we 

constantly need to be questioning our emergency preparedness and 

doing all we can to be ready for any scenario. Even after the independent reviews are completed, even after the NRC finishes its review, we must not stop asking questions and demanding answers. 

It is often the scenario we never thought could happen that ends 

up causing the greatest alarm. 

Thank you again for holding this hearing. I look forward to continuing to work with this committee and the NRC on this very important issue. 

Senator BOXER. Congresswoman, thank you. We know you have 

other obligations. You can stay or go. However, you are free to go. 

I wanted to say to my colleagues who just arrived, I think that 

is Ed and Roger, the two of us did openings. With Senator Vitter’s 

approval, I am going to call on those of you who didn’t get to do 

openings first. We will withhold our questions so you can have the 

time to do an opening statement and questions ahead of us. We 

will give you an extra minute to do that. 

We would ask the Commission to please come up right now. We 

have Hon. Allison Macfarlane, Hon. Kristine Svinicki, Hon. William Ostendorff, Hon. Jeff Baran, and Hon. Stephen Burns. Welcome. 

Chairman Macfarlane, we are going to start with you. You get 

to have 5 minutes. The other commissioners get to have 2 minutes 

if they wish. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ALLISON M. MACFARLANE, CHAIRMAN, U.S. 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Good morning, Chairman Boxer, Ranking 

Member Vitter and distinguished members of the committee. It is 

good to see you this morning. 

My colleagues and I appreciate the opportunity to appear before 

you on behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

As you know, this is likely the last time I will appear before you 

in my capacity as Chairman of the NRC. Therefore, let me share 

with you some of the accomplishments we have made over the past 

two and a half years. 

The NRC continues to make significant progress in implementing 

post-Fukushima safety enhancements. We have seen the first reac-
8 

tors come into compliance with the mitigating strategies and spent 

pool fuel instrumentation orders. Licensees have purchased backup 

diesel generators, pumps, piping, cabling and other equipment and 

have strategically placed around their sites. 

Some have built earthquake-proof structures to ensure that this 

equipment is protected from natural disasters. They have standardized connections on the components so that backup equipment can 

be quickly and easily connected. 

Other licensees are preparing to make safety system modifications so they can complete their enhancements on time as required 

during their spring refueling outages. 

As a result of these activities, nuclear power plants in the United 

States will have more defense and depth to cope with the prolonged 

loss of offsite power and other severe accident conditions. The NRC 

continues to work closely with licensees to monitor and inspect 

their progress. 

The industry’s two national response centers in Memphis and 

Phoenix are now operational. While the work is not done, the 

progress we have made is substantial and impressive. I believe it 

is essential that both the NRC and the industry keep this sustained focus until all of the Near-Term Task Force recommendations are addressed. 

The NRC continues its oversight of new reactor construction at 

Watts Bar Unit 2, Plant Vogtle and V.C. Summer. While we have 

had to address quality control challenges with construction suppliers, we are satisfied with the overall work that is underway. 

Licensees have an essential role in vendor oversight and construction quality. This responsibility must remain paramount for 

any new reactor construction. We expect to issue a decision on the 

operating license for the Watts Bar 2 plant in mid-2015. 

We have renewed our focus at the NRC on the back end of the 

fuel cycle in part as a result of a number of recent reactor shutdowns. Licensees have requested certain license amendments and 

exemptions from NRC regulations to reflect changes that will occur 

when fuel is permanently removed from the units. 

For instance, the NRC has granted Wisconsin’s Kewaunee Power 

Station exemptions from specific emergency planning requirements, 

but we denied a separate exemption request related to certain 

physical security regulations that we believe were important to 

keep in place. Now that multiple reactors are decommissioning, I 

believe it is time for the NRC to examine whether specific regulations for decommissioning should be developed. 

In August 2014, after a 2-year rulemaking process that included 

extensive public engagement, the Commission approved the NRC’s 

final continued storage rule and generic environmental impact 

statement. 

The implementation of the rule in October enables the NRC to 

complete several licensing actions that have been suspended pending the outcome of this rulemaking. The NRC will continue to ensure that spent fuel is stored safely and securely at reactor sites. 

I firmly believe that this should not be a reason to slow or stop 

progress on permanent disposal solutions for the United States. 

During my tenure, the NRC has also taken steps to enhance its 

public engagement including improving our public meeting process. 
9 

I am proud of the progress we have made in this area and I believe 

public engagement is equally important for industry. 

Maintaining effective relationships with the local community 

around a nuclear power plant builds trust and facilitates open, effective discussions and decisionmaking. 

We have also emphasized engagement at the interagency and 

international levels, recognizing that the NRC is best positioned to 

ensure safety and security when the interagency understands and 

supports our important mission. 

Internationally, we have worked to further our cooperation and 

assistance to enhance global nuclear safety and security. 

The NRC continues to be prudent in expending agency resources 

and is working to improve the transparency of our fees. We have 

engaged an independent firm to study and provide recommendations on fee allocation methods. We plan to hold a public meeting 

in early 2015 to address generic issues raised and public comments 

on the fee rule for fiscal year 2014. 

The commission has also directed the NRC staff to take a hard 

look at how we can effectively, efficiently and flexibly meet our 

safety and security mission under any future circumstances. 

The staff is currently working both internally and externally to 

analyze where the nuclear industry will be over the next 5 years 

and anticipate commensurate changes to the NRC skill sets and resources. 

It has been an honor to lead the agency during the past two and 

a half years. I have learned much during my tenure, and I leave 

satisfied that the good work of the agency will continue well into 

the future. 

I am grateful to the agency’s talented and dedicated staff for 

their tireless efforts to support our important mission and to my 

colleagues for their support and for our collaboration. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. I am happy now 

to answer your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Macfarlane follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

We will turn to Commissioner Svinicki. We are going to take a 

little time off because the Chairman went over. We will go a 

minute and a half per commissioner because we have votes coming 

shortly. Sorry to do this. 

Go ahead. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Thank you, Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member 

Vitter and members of the committee. 

In the interest of the Senate’s voting schedule, may I request just 

to submit my statement for the record? 

Senator BOXER. Of course. Without objection. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Svinicki follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Now we will turn to Commissioner Ostendorff. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM C. OSTENDORFF, COMMISSIONER, 

U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. Thank you, Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member 

Vitter and members of the committee. 

Regarding lessons learned from Fukushima, the NRC and industry have made significant progress. We determined these activities 

must be accomplished without haste, the Tier I activities that are 

most safety significant. 

Several licensees as noted by the Chairman have already complied with the mitigating strategies order. These modifications will 

be subject to NRC inspection to ensure appropriate implementation 

followed by codification and a rulemaking. 

As I reflect on the work that has been completed by the agency 

and industry and the activities that still remain, I am proud of the 

agency’s reliance on solid principles of science, engineering and risk 

management. 

I appreciate this committee’s oversight role and I look forward to 

your questions. 

Thank you. 

[The responses of Mr. Ostendorff to questions for the record follow:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Commissioner. 

We will now turn to Commissioner Baran. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF BARAN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. NUCLEAR 

REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Mr. BARAN. Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Vitter and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear 

today before the Environment and Public Works Committee. 

Since I started on the Commission in October, it has been a 

privilege to work with my fellow commissioners. Together, we bring 

a diversity of experience and perspectives to our deliberations. 

On a personal note, I want to publicly say that I deeply appreciate the warm welcome they have given me. I believe we are all 

working very well together and building productive, collegial relationships. 

It has been a busy time at the Commission. We have held commission meetings on a number of topics, including Watts Bar 2 

Unit licensing, small modular reactors, NRC’s international activities and Project Aim 2020, which is NRC’s effort to appropriately 

match resources to workload and increase the agility and efficiency 

of the agency. 

I have also met with a broad range of stakeholders, including the 

Nuclear Energy Institute, the American Nuclear Society, NRDC 

and the Union of Concerned Scientists. I have had the opportunity 

to meet the senior leadership of many of NRC’s licensees at the annual MPO CEO’s conference. 

I also recently visited Watts Bar Units 1 and 2 and look forward 

to touring additional NRC-regulated facilities in the near future. 

I remain committed to bringing an open-minded and thoughtful 

approach to the policy and adjudicatory issues pending before the 

Commission such as decommissioning plant licensing exemptions, 

staff guidance for the use of qualitative factors and cost benefit 

analysis, updates to the Force-on-Force Inspection Program and the 

examination of NRC’s foreign ownership and control standards. 

These are complex issues but I am confident that the Commission has the positive working relationships and wide range of experience needed to successfully address them. 

Thank you. 

[The responses of Mr. Baran to questions for the record follow:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Commissioner. 

Commissioner Burns. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHEN G. BURNS, COMMISSIONER, U.S. 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Mr. BURNS. Thank you, Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member 

Vitter and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today. 

As many of you know, I first started at the NRC as a junior attorney back in the late 1970s. I would not have imagined I would 

be sitting before you today as a commissioner. 

The mission of the agency remains as vitally important today as 

it was then. The protection of public health and safety and the 

common defense and security against the potential hazards posed 

by radiological materials is a critically important task and one to 

which I have committed my entire career. 

The NRC also has a responsibility to ensure that its decisions are 

based on sound legal and technical footing and are transparent to 

all stakeholders. 

Over the past few years, I have spent outside the NRC and the 

international community and that has allowed me to take stock of 

the agency. I continue to believe it is one of the finest organizations 

in our Government. 

I can say from the perspective of the international community 

that the NRC is enormously respected and is often looked to for 

technical and policy leadership. 

However, acknowledging the agency’s high caliber should not be 

understood to mean that we cannot improve. We all recognize that 

the climate in which the agency operates has changed over the last 

number of years. It is our obligation to be agile in responding to 

changes in that environment. 

In closing, I thank the committee for their continue support of 

the NRC and the opportunity to appear here today. 

I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The responses of Mr. Burns to questions for the record follow:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you. We have covered our panel. Thank 

you all for being succinct. 

I am going to go last so I am going to start with Senator Carper, 

go to Senator Fischer, then Markey, Whitehouse and each of you 

will have 6 minutes rather than 5. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Welcome everyone, especially our two new members. Mr. Burns, 

it is good to see you. Mr. Baran, congratulations and welcome 

aboard. Chairwoman Macfarlane, thank you so much for your willingness to serve on the NRC and to serve at a difficult and tumultuous time in the history of the Commission and to provide the 

leadership that helped to steady the ship and, as you leave, to put 

us on a better course. We thank you for that. 

As you know from our earlier conversations, and my colleagues 

know, I am one who thinks a lot about morale, work force morale. 

I chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. We have jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security which, although not a very old agency, has had a history of not very good morale. 

The new Secretary, Jeh Johnson and Deputy Secretary Ale 

Mayorkas are working hard, with a lot of good people there, to turn 

that around and we are trying to help them. 

I would start, Madam Chair, by asking a little bit about the morale. NRC has historically had among the top rated morale as one 

of the best places to work within the Federal Government. When 

you think about the morale, the work force and the people when 

you became Chairman and today, is it the same, is it better, is it 

worse? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I think things are much improved from when 

I arrived at the agency. The folks there are fantastic. They are like 

a family. They come and stay, they are there, they work there for 

decades. They are really dedicated to the mission of the agency. 

Senator CARPER. Why do you think it has gotten better? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Why do I think it has gotten better? 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I think things are calmer. The Commission is 

working very collaboratively, very well and I think that trickles 

down. 

Senator CARPER. When you think back to what you have been 

able to accomplish, you went through a list of accomplishments, as 

you prepare to leave and turn over the leadership to a new Chair, 

what are some of the to do’s that have to be at the top of a to do 

list? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Thanks for that. I think important to remember for the new chairman would be to make sure that when you 

are considering whatever issues, internal or policy issues, listen to 

as many viewpoints as possible and understand the full range of 

views on an issue, that you use the agency staff. The staff is a fantastic resource and is to be relied upon. 

In the end, make your decisions data-driven. I have always tried 

to make my decisions data-driven. I think that is very important. 

I would hope that the future chairman would continue the collegial behavior that we have been able to demonstrate at the Commission. 
179 

Senator CARPER. Last year, along with Senators Sessions, 

Barrasso and Cardin, we sent a letter to the Commission. I know 

you get a lot of letters but this was one encouraging the NRC to 

streamline the licensing process for dry cast storage. Could you 

give an update on this issue, please? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I think we are working well on our licensing 

process for dry cast storage. We have licensed many cast designs 

and continue to do so. I think that is going quite well. Further detail, I will take for the record. 

Senator CARPER. All right, thank you. 

Another question for you, is the NRC on track to issue the final 

rules dealing with station blackout? I think you may have mentioned this but I am not sure, and strengthening emergency operating procedures and severe accident management. 

I think these are expected to go final by 2016? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. If not on track, why not? How are we doing 

there? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We are doing well on that. We are on track 

with that rulemaking. 

Senator CARPER. If you were to give some advice to these new 

commissioners coming onboard, how long have you served on the 

Commission now, 3 years? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Two and a half. 

Senator CARPER. It seems like 3. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Maybe 4 or 5. 

Senator CARPER. It hasn’t been that long since you sat in their 

seats, but what advice would you have for them as new members 

of the Commission? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Again, I would encourage them to really think 

broadly about all the issues that face us and to develop and have 

good staffs to support them, that has been essential for my own 

work, to be broad minded and engage not just internally with folks 

in the agency but outside the agency as well. That is a real important part of our mission. 

Senator CARPER. I would say to our new members, the Chairman 

mentioned having good staff. I have always tried to surround myself with people smarter than me. My wife says it is not hard to 

find them. That is always good advice. 

Give us a quick update, if you will, on how we are doing in this 

country with respect to modular reactors? Give us a little update 

on that, please. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Sure. We are working well in terms of talking 

with the potential small modular reactor designers. We are working on developing design-specific guidelines for the small modular 

reactor design certification applications as they come in. 

None has come in yet. We are expecting the first one in 2016. 

Right now it is a wait and see game. 

Senator CARPER. Tell us what you will be doing next and how 

your service here will better inform you for the challenges that lie 

ahead for you. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I am going back to the university. I am going 

to George Washington University where I will direct the Center for 

International Science and Technology Policy. 
180 

Certainly, what I have learned over the past 2 to 3 years has 

been essential and will inform all the research that I do in the future. 

Senator CARPER. Good luck and thank you very much for your 

service. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you very much, Senator. 

We will turn to Senator Fischer. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Thank you all for being here today. 

Commissioner Baran, at your September 9 confirmation hearing, 

I asked you about the use of qualitative factors. You responded 

that it is ‘‘important in some cases to consider qualitative factors 

but it must be done carefully.’’ 

Could you explain in the inherent limitations and concerns associated with using those qualitative factors in the context of the 

backfit analyses, and would you agree that it is incorrect to suggest 

that the NRC staff should have that flexibility in the use of qualitative factors and NRC regulatory analyses and backfit analyses? 

Mr. BARAN. Senator, the issue of qualitative factors and whether 

the guidance for staff related to qualitative factors should be updated is an issue pending before the Commission right now. The 

focus of the staff paper before us is not whether qualitative factors 

should be used or whether they should be used more often than 

they are now. 

The question posed by that staff paper is does it make sense as 

part of the staff’s overall, multi-year effort to update the overall 

cost-benefit guidance, and should they as part of that effort update 

the sections related to the use of qualitative factors? 

The staff recommendation is that it would be useful to provide 

tools and methodologies to the staff to better articulate when qualitative factors are used, how are they being used, when are they 

being used, why are they being used so that decisionmakers and 

anyone reading a staff paper is going to be able to understand very 

clearly that analysis and why qualitative factors were used in it. 

Historically and under both OMB and NRC guidance, both quantitative and qualitative factors are used. Qualitative factors tend to 

be used in cases where there either isn’t enough data to do a quantitative analysis or there aren’t developed methodologies to do it. 

I think there is no question that the guidance from NRC at NRC 

now and more broadly places a premium on quantitative analysis, 

but there are times you cannot capture everything with quantitative, so there is a long history of also turning to qualitative factors and having a combined analysis. 

Senator FISCHER. When you have facilities that are already licensed, don’t you think the numbers-based analysis is the way to 

go on that? How much flexibility do you think is appropriate to use 

with qualitative factors, especially on facilities that are already licensed? 

Mr. BARAN. I understand your question as it relates to the 

backfit rule. I think for backfit or for other purposes, it is going to 

be important to consider all the relevant factors. That is what the 

guidance says now both from OMB and from NRC. That means 
181 

looking at both the relevant quantitative factors and the relative 

qualitative factors. 

If there are important factors that cannot be captured quantitatively, it is important that decisionmakers consider those as 

well. Again, there is the question pending before us now of should 

we update the guidance. Should staff update the guidance to provide the staff members doing this analysis at NRC with additional 

guidance about how to go about that and make sure whatever the 

analysis is, that it is being done in a transparent way so the decisionmakers, whether the Commission or others, can look at that 

and understand what has been done. 

Senator FISCHER. You said you are in the process now of staff updating the guidance. Do you support that update. Specifically what 

does that mean to you? When you say updating guidance, what is 

that? 

Mr. BARAN. There is a broad effort, which will take multiple 

years to update the overall cost benefit analysis guidance the agency has. The staff has kind of a plan to work on that over the next 

several years. 

I think right now the guidance doesn’t even use the terms cost 

and benefits but uses other terms. I think that effort makes a lot 

of sense to update the guidance and make sure we have something 

that benefits from our years of experience on that. 

The more narrow question currently before us is should we approve the staff’s recommendation to update the portion of the guidance related to the use of qualitative factors. I haven’t actually 

voted on that yet, but my sense is it probably does make sense to 

have good, updated guidance with the latest methodologies and a 

process laid out for how are these used, when are these used and 

how do you explain that to people so that when a paper comes to 

the Commission, we have an understanding, not just what is the 

ultimate recommendation but how was that derived. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Dr. Macfarlane, thank you for your service. I so appreciate you 

serving the people of this country and the very important position 

you are in. I wish you well in the future. 

In August 2014, the NRC staff paper acknowledges, ‘‘NRC guidance directs the NRC staff to quantify benefits and costs and propose regulatory action to the extent possible.’’ 

Would you agree that whenever it can be done that the NRC 

staff should focus on that quantitative factor in reaching decisions? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. The NRC does focus on the quantitative factors in reaching many of these decisions but nonetheless, there are 

often qualitative factors that are also important in considerations. 

I think some of the quantitative factors considered, they themselves, are not necessarily fully quantitative like the price of the 

cost of a human lung. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Fischer follows:] 
182 

STATEMENT OF HON. DEB FISCHER, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEBRASKA

Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter, thank you for holding today’s hearing. I would like to thank the Commissioners and witnesses for being here and sharing your time with us today. 

Chairman Macfarlane, I want to wish you the best as you prepare to leave the 

NRC. Thank you for your work in restoring collegiality at the Commission and for 

your frankness to Congress on NRC matters. It is truly appreciated. 

I am always pleased to have the opportunity to talk about Nebraska’s unique 100 

percent public power system and the important role that nuclear energy plays in 

keeping Nebraska’s electricity rates among the lowest in the entire country. We are 

grateful for the safe and productive operation of Nebraska’s nuclear power plants 

and uranium mining facilities. We are also mindful of the tremendous impact that 

NRC actions and policies have on these operations. 

As we meet today to discuss NRC’s implementation of task force recommendations 

and other actions to enhance and maintain nuclear safety, I hope we can focus on 

the Commission’s principles of good regulation—independence, openness, efficiency, 

clarity, and reliability. 

It is critical that NRC decisionmaking is based on objective, reliable information. 

Deliberate and disciplined cost-benefit analyses are needed to ensure that regulatory requirements yield valid, identifiable safety benefits. We must improve the 

accuracy of cost estimates and critically examine the use of qualitative factors to 

justify changes that are not truly cost-beneficial. 

We on this committee are very conscious of and concerned with the President’s 

Climate Action Plan, which could seriously jeopardize the reliability and affordability of Americans’ electricity. At a time when our energy landscape is changing 

so drastically, we are especially concerned with any actions that could undermine 

access to dependable, affordable, baseload nuclear power. With so much at stake, 

we must have a Nuclear Regulatory Commission that provides regulatory stability 

and pursues justified, defensible safety improvements. 

I look forward to our discussion of these important issues at today’s hearing. 

Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Senator Markey. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Experts agree that the Fukushima meltdowns could have been 

prevented if the reactors had been protected against the tsunami 

threats that they were known to face. 

The 2011 Fukushima Near-Term Task Force report recommended that reactor operators use modern science to predict the 

amount of flooding that might occur at each reactor and then upgrade safety equipment to prevent such a flood from causing damage. 

I have received documents that have not been publicly released 

yet that I request be made a part of the record, that say that NRC 

staff agreed with a Nuclear Energy Institute request to eliminate 

this key Fukushima Task Force recommendation. 

The NRC staff recommended that NRC no longer require reactor 

upgrades to prevent flooding but only an increased ability to respond to potential floods. 

That is a lot like your doctor telling you not to get a flu shot because he can just treat you once you get the flu, expecting you not 

to point out that thousands of Americans die of the flu each year. 

Fifteen senior NRC employees, including one who was actually 

an author of the Fukushima Task Force report, have filed formal 

disagreements with the NRC staff paper. One of these documents 

said that even though the proposal would save the industry money, 

it would gut this post-Fukushima safety recommendation. 

My first question is, do any of you disagree that requiring both 

flood protection and flooding response measures would provide a 
183 

higher level of safety than flooding response measures only. 

Madam Chairman. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. This issue has just come before the Commission, so I doubt that any of my colleagues, I certainly haven’t had 

time to digest it, to look at this issue, so I would request that we 

take this one for the record. 

Senator MARKEY. Why don’t I let the others mention it? I asked 

a general question. I will go with you first, Commissioner Baran. 

Mr. BARAN. I haven’t had a chance to review the paper yet, but 

I agree with your general point that it is important to both prevent 

a problem and have the ability to respond to it. 

Senator MARKEY. Thank you. 

Commissioner. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Senator Markey, the question you have posed is 

the core disagreement between the technical experts who differ and 

the staff recommendation that the Commission officially received. 

I am still exploring to understand the points of departure between 

the two viewpoints. 

Senator MARKEY. Again, do any of you disagree that prevention 

and response is better than just response? 

Commissioner. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. Senator Markey, I appreciate the question. As 

the Chairman noted, it is before the Commission. I will just tell 

you that on Friday of this week, Commissioner Burns and I are 

meeting with non-concurring staff to better understand their viewpoints. 

I know the rest of the Commission, when their schedules permit, 

will be doing the same to better understand where they are coming 

from on this. It is an important issue. 

Senator MARKEY. Commissioner. 

Mr. BURNS. The basic principle of both prevention and mitigation 

is I think fundamental in our regulatory system. As Commissioner 

Ostendorff said, we are going to be briefed on the paper and the 

robust exchange of views we are having on it. 

Senator MARKEY. Do any of you disagree that NRC staff should 

work together to resolve the disagreement by the 15 senior NRC 

employees before it submits the proposal to you for a vote? Do any 

of you disagree with that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Senator, we have at our agency processes that 

allow our staff to formally disagree with senior management, which 

I think is actually one of the strengths of our agency, that we have 

put in place over the past few years these formal processes, the 

non-concurrence process and the differing professional opinions 

process. 

Senator MARKEY. Right now you have three senior managers who 

are in disagreement. I would strongly recommend to you that you 

get that resolved before it comes up to the Commission. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I will tell you my practice, and I know this is 

true of Commissioner Ostendorff. 

Senator MARKEY. I have just one more question I have to ask. 

I just give you that as my recommendation. I know you will be 

gone and again, I thank you for your service but I think the Commission has to resolve these issues. 
184 

Last year, last year language I authored was enacted to require 

NRC to provide non-public documents to Congress after NRC attempted to change its policy in a way that would have automatically denied most congressional requests. 

The agency is still refusing to comply with this law. For example, 

five members of the Chinese military were recently indicted on 

charges of hacking into U.S. company systems in 2010 and 2011 

and stealing nuclear reactor trade secrets from Westinghouse. 

At the very same time these thefts occurred, Westinghouse was 

hosting dozens of unescorted Chinese personnel at U.S. nuclear reactors for months. 

You have refused to provide to me a meaningful response to my 

letters. Your staff even told mine that you would provide no additional information, even though other members of your staff have 

told my staff that the FBI has no objection to your doing so. 

I have been made aware of many NRC meetings, letters and 

presentations about this Chinese program. I have also learned that 

NRC security staff recommended an increase in security requirements for the Chinese nationals but others at NRC rejected the 

suggestion. Yet, you provided one of these materials to me in violation of the law. 

The law requires NRC to provide non-public documents to Congress. Does each of you agree to follow the law and to fully respond 

to any of my outstanding requests about this Chinese compromise 

of the security at nuclear facilities in the United States? 

Madam Chairman. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Senator, with regard to this particular situation, we did learn about this program. We actually checked and ensured that the licensees were following our security regulations. We 

found that the licensees had granted limited access and we verified 

that the licensees followed our requirements. 

Senator MARKEY. Will you provide the non-public documents to 

me, to the committee, so that we can examine them? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We will have to take that back. 

Senator MARKEY. Again, you are in violation of the law if you do 

not provide that information to the committee. We have a right to 

know what the relationship between Westinghouse and these Chinese who are gaining access to the nuclear facilities in the United 

States is. Will you provide that information to the committee and 

to my office? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Senator, we did ensure that these folks followed our regulations. 

Senator MARKEY. That is not the question I am asking you. 

Senator BOXER. The question is either yes or no. Could you do 

it because his time is running out? I have to turn to Senator 

Barrasso. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I am happy on this particular situation to provide you the information you need. We will provide you briefings 

on this topic. We are happy to do that. 

Senator MARKEY. But you will not provide the documents, is that 

what you are saying? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We are happy to engage with you and engage 

with this committee. 

Senator MARKEY. That is just unacceptable. 
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Senator BOXER. I just think this point is unbelievable, that we 

cannot get a simple yes or no to a request for documents that we 

are entitled to that you swore that you would give to us when you 

were confirmed. 

Anyway, we turn to Senator Barrasso. 

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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the 

opportunity for this hearing today. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is vital to ensuring nuclear 

safety. I think it is important for this committee to ensure that 

their mission is effectively carried out. 

I have concerns that our mission of oversight is being thrown out 

the window in the name of political expediency, thrown out by the 

actions of those who seek to turn the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into a political prize rather than a sacred trust. 

This is nothing new. Once again, in the name of short-term gain, 

the majority has broken the rules of this committee to further the 

goals of partisanship. Since Fukushima, this committee has held 

numerous hearings with the full Commission. Many on this committee fought hard to see that the Commission functions as it 

should. 

However, the Majority Leader chose to push a former one of his 

staffers to serve on the Commission and then become its chairman. 

This was an unmitigated disaster. His deeds are well documented 

by the NRC Inspector General and this committee. 

In the interim, this Administration, along with the Majority 

Leader, has pushed to eliminate other very qualified members of 

the NRC and replaced them with less qualified individuals. We 

have lost good, seasoned commissioners like Commissioner 

Apostolakis and William Magwood. 

In return, the current majority has unilaterally passed Commissioner Baran without one Republican vote and no hearing for this 

longer term to fill the remainder of Ms. Macfarlane’s term. 

As mentioned before, it is against committee precedent to not 

have a hearing on a nominee, so it appears that the current majority is trying to chip away at the NRC brick by brick until all that 

is left are those who do as they are told. This is not good for public 

safety. 

Commissioner Svinicki, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 

taken a number of actions post-Fukushima to improve public safety 

on our nuclear fleet. Can you go into detail as to what the Commission has achieved and learned post-Fukushima? 

Ms. SVINICKI. The NRC has engaged on a number of different 

issues. Chairman Macfarlane’s written testimony describes those in 

detail. 

In the interest of time, I would highlight the immediate orders 

issued to require mitigating strategies for more extreme natural 

events at nuclear power plants. When you visit a nuclear power 

plant in the United States today, you will see that they have additional pumps and emergency equipment with unified quick connections so that it can be used against a whole different range of 

events. 

That is a significant achievement that you can go and visibly see 

at power plants. We continue to work on an integrated set of 

rulemakings and other response measures that will take some time 

to put in place. We are in a very active implementation phase at 

nuclear power plants and regulated sites now. 

Senator BARRASSO. Does anyone else have anything they want to 

add to this? 
319 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. Senator, I would like to add to Commissioner’s 

Svinicki’s response. 

I am very proud of the actions that we have required as an agency. Commissioner Svinicki and I have been here on the Commission 

since Fukushima. I believe we have taken a thoughtful approach 

based on science, engineering and risk principles to ensure that the 

right thing is being done in the proper sequence. I think they have 

been done so far. 

This is not easy and it is taking some time, but I think the actions taken by the NRC and the industry have been appropriate to 

the issue. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Senator, I want everyone to understand right 

now that plants have acquired a lot of extra equipment. I have 

been to many of them and seen it myself. I think some of my other 

fellow commissioners have as well. 

If an accident was to befall a plant now, they are significantly 

better prepared to handle it than they were in the past. 

Senator BARRASSO. Commissioner Svinicki, could you explain 

your perspective on additional things that still need to be done 

post-Fukushima? 

Ms. SVINICKI. There are a number of the Near-Term Task Force 

recommendations that are still under analysis and review. 

As Commissioner Ostendorff mentioned, NRC has taken a stepwise approach, first, of necessity because some of our experts need 

to be working on higher safety priority items right now, but also 

because we do not want to diminish the effectiveness of measures 

already in place by taking subsequent actions. 

We want to be certain that this enhancement and the ability to 

respond that Chairman Macfarlane talked about is something we 

can continue to capture all the benefits of as we move forward on 

subsequent items. 

Senator BARRASSO. Chairman Macfarlane, given all the NRC has 

been asked to do post-Fukushima, are we losing some perspective 

on everything else the Commission is tasked to do? 

For example, as you know, Wyoming has an abundance of uranium. Given all of the work that has been devoted to postFukushima activities, do you believe the NRC has the staffing and 

the resources available to process all the new uranium applications 

and permits for other activities the NRC needs to approve as well? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We do have the appropriate staffing to handle 

all the uranium recovery license applications, license renewals and 

extensions that we have received. I want to assure you of that. 

We have not lost sight of the mission of safety and security at 

nuclear plants given all the extra Fukushima work. We have been 

working very closely with industry to ensure that they have not 

lost sight of that as well as they try to meet some of these new requirements. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

I am going to place in the record a comparison of Commissioner 

Svinicki’s and Commissioner Baran’s experience. What you will 
320 

find is it is identical. I never heard one word from a Republican 

against Commissioner Svinicki. 

[The referenced information follows:] 
321 
322 

Senator BOXER. As a matter of fact, not one Democrat ever criticized her experience even though she worked for Senators Craig 

and John Warner. In her work, she had nothing to do with civilian 

nuclear energy whereas Mr. Baran worked for Congressman Waxman with direct oversight of civilian nuclear energy. 

This outrage over appointing commissioners who worked as congressional staffers is worse than ringing hollow. It is really ridiculous when, in fact, not one Republican ever complained, nor one 

Democrat, about Commissioner Svinicki’s background. 

As a matter of fact, I well remember how happy I was for Senators Warner and Craig because they were smiling from ear to ear. 

With that, I turn to Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

Let me ask this question to the members who will be continuing 

on because this is a forward looking question. 

We have a massive carbon pollution problem in this world. If 

anyone needs a reference, look no further than today’s AP CBS 

news story, ‘‘Hotter, Weirder, How Climate Change Has Changed 

Earth.’’ 

Nuclear power does not contribute to carbon pollution, and there 

are new technologies out there, some actually not so new, but they 

just have not been deployed in the civilian electric power fleet. 

We have small modular reactors. The U.S. Navy has been running submarines and carriers off that kind of reactor safely for decades, yet it has never transitioned into the electric fleet. 

Traveling wave is a technology developed in the United States of 

America that has the potential at least to turn nuclear waste into 

electric power. The Chinese are now developing traveling wave reactors. We are not. 

Thorium was developed as a reactor back in I want to say the 

1970s on an experimental basis in the United States. That initiative collapsed. The Chinese and the Indians are now building thorium reactors, again a U.S.-based technology. 

Over and over again, what I hear is that an American industry 

that wants to go into these strategies and explore them has essentially a regulatory black box at the NRC. It has no idea when it 

walks into those woods, how long the path will be, how winding it 

will be, or what lurks there in the dark. 

The position of the NRC has been very reactive about this. You 

bring it to us, and we will take a look as opposed to looking at this 

as a significant threat, the carbon pollution problem as a grave 

problem, and the nuclear solution as a potential solution. 

I am not suggesting for a minute that anyone should step back 

on being completely safety oriented, but I do think that a clearer 

way in the future of engaging with the industry to let them know 

what they have to look forward to is necessary. 

If you are planning to enter this business on a business basis, 

huge question marks in the business plan are disabling, even if the 

actual answer, if you could open the box, is it is not that bad, because they simply cannot take the risk to find out. You have to be 

able to walk them through it in advance. 

I don’t know why on earth the technology that drives our subs 

and our carriers has never been able to make it into the civilian 
323 

fleet. I don’t know why on earth the Chinese have to be developing 

thorium and traveling wave technologies. 

In the case of thorium, we have actually built and run them in 

this country but have never turned it into a viable technology. 

To now see the Chinese and the Indians out there doing it again, 

using our technology, it is very frustrating, particularly when you 

see this as an alternative to the coal fleet which is doing such immense damage to our country and to our world. 

I would ask Commissioners Baran, Svinicki, Ostendorff and 

Burns to respond briefly. 

Mr. BARAN. Senator, I completely agree that it is NRC’s responsibility to have an efficient and effective licensing process for small 

modular reactors and other reactor designs that may be coming in 

future years. 

As Chairman Macfarlane mentioned, I think the earliest applications we are likely to see for a small modular reactor is in 2016, 

the new scale application. 

The Commission just last month had a public meeting, like a 

hearing, with NRC staff and outside stakeholders to look at these 

very questions. My impression is, and it seems pretty clear to me, 

that the NRC staff is focused and engaged on this. 

They are thinking through in advance what the tough issues, 

technical issues and policy issues are that have to be though 

through in advance, whether it is control room staffing, security, 

emergency preparedness, annual fees or the range of issues where 

the answers might be different for a small modular reactor or an 

advanced design than for our traditional larger, light water reactors. 

That is happening. Information and papers are being prepared. 

There may be some questions that come up to the Commission as 

policy matters but my sense is the staff has been quite proactive 

on this. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Commissioner Svinicki. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Your reaction to the Indian and Chinese programs 

was similar to mine. At the invitation of the U.S. State Department, I have had the opportunity to travel to both of those countries. 

Even knowing the level of activity in advance, it was hard not 

to be a bit overwhelmed at the level of activity and investment 

those countries are making in advanced reactors. 

I would say since my service on the Commission began in 2008, 

I have monitored the NRC activity in this area. I think it has been 

commensurate with the amount of industry interest in the United 

States. It has been scalable to that. 

Also, our extent of pre-application engagement where we meet 

with vendors in advance of their finalizing their design has really 

been somewhat unprecedented. You said there is the regulatory uncertainty question mark. We are really working to try to fill that 

in so we can get high quality applications. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Commissioner Ostendorff. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. My background is in nuclear submarines. I 

spent 16 years in sea duty on six different submarines driving reactors that were not too far different from the size we are talking 

about here. 
324 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. So you can appreciate the question. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. Yes, sir. 

I have been at the Commission four and a half years. I have seen 

us, even in the wake of Fukushima, go through the design certification approval for Westinghouse’s AP–1000 design cert, including 

licensing reactors to be built in South Carolina and Georgia. 

I have seen us recently approve GE-Hitachi’s economic simplified 

boiling water reactor, ESBWR, and design certification. 

Along with Commissioners Svinicki and Baran, I think we are 

ready for the SMRPs. I am very optimistic that we can deal with 

this from a regulatory standpoint. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Commissioner Burns, you have the last 10 

seconds. 

Mr. BURNS. I agree with much of what my colleagues are saying. 

Over the last couple of years, part of my duties at the Nuclear Energy Agency in Paris was to provide support of the Generation IV 

Forum and Framework Agreement. There is a lot of work being 

done there. 

As Commissioner Svinicki said, my experience has been that 

being able to at least stepwise able to engage those who may be 

interested in the new technologies is what is important. 

For example, the generation of the small modular reactors that 

often are still current generation, probably the process is a little 

clearer but we need to make sure we are adept and ready for looking at the advanced technologies in terms of the framework. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. My time is up. 

Senator BOXER. I am sorry. I think that question is so important 

and I appreciate it. 

Senator Gillibrand, just so we know, the vote is about to start. 

Ask your questions and then I will stay and ask all of mine. Then 

the panel will be relieved to know they can go. The other panel will 

take a walk around the block and we will get back as soon as we 

can because I really want to talk about Diablo and hear from the 

people out there. 

Senator Gillibrand. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you all for being here. I am very 

grateful for your testimony and your participation. 

I have three questions. I will ask them all and whoever wants 

to answer them can answer them. 

The first is about emergency planning in an evacuation zone. We 

have Indian Point, as you know, where 17 million people live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. 

You are familiar with the geography of New York. You know that 

in the event of an evacuation of New York City, the only options 

are north or west which means you would have a large number of 

people evacuating toward Indian Point. 

Since Fukushima, the FERC recommended that Americans who 

live in a 50-mile radius be evacuated. That sends a very mixed 

message for preparedness. 

My question is, has the NRC taken any steps to work with 

FEMA and other Government agencies to develop an emergency 

plan that encompasses the shadow evacuation zones? That is my 

first area of inquiry. 
325 

My second is about cyber security. Last year, the Department of 

Homeland Security and the Industrial Control Systems Cyber 

Emergency Response Team responded to well over 200 cyber-related incidents with the majority taking place in the energy sector. 

This represents nearly a doubling of the recent yearly caseload. 

While these incidents have yet to cause a major disruption, the 

possibility of cyber-related terrorism is obviously a threat. 

The question I have is how is the NRC working with utilities to 

address the threat, and are you seeing the same obstacles in the 

energy sector with regard to cyber incidents that other sectors are 

actually facing, whether it is the need for capital improvements, 

better information sharing between the industry and appropriate 

regulators and better training? Are those necessary? 

The third and final question is about seismic activity and seismic 

concerns because New York actually is on a fault line. In November, NRC announced it is requiring Indian Point to conduct a high 

level earthquake risk report for both Units 2 and 3, a requirement 

for plants in the higher seismic risk category. This report must be 

completed by June 2017. 

Do you think that more than two and a half years is an appropriate timeline to complete this study for the plant with recent documented aging infrastructure and its proximity to 17 million people 

and the high risk? 

Once the risk evaluation is complete, when would you suggest 

any action to address be implemented? 

There are three questions and whoever thinks they have the 

most expertise, I would appreciate your response. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Let me try to run through a couple of those. 

Let me take your last question first, your seismic activity question. 

I think two and a half years is probably reasonable. There aren’t 

a lot of seismic experts in the country. These seismic performance 

assessments take a long time to do, and we want to make sure that 

they are done properly and thoroughly. 

In the interim, we have required plants that have qualified to do 

this extra analysis, this extra evaluation, to ensure that they have 

safety systems in place. We are going to be inspecting them for 

that. 

They have given us their plans on that, they will by the end of 

this year and we will be inspecting them. 

Let me also say that with regards to Indian Point, we put them 

in our first priority category to move out on this. They asked to be 

taken out of that first priority category. We refused. 

In terms of emergency planning, emergency preparedness, we do 

closely coordinate with FEMA on this. We do have extensive regulations. We are actually in the process of strengthening our regulations on emergency preparedness based on what happened in 

Fukushima. We do conduct regular drills and exercises with the 

State and local officials. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Do you have a written plan that I can see 

because I just know the experience from Super Storm Sandy. If we 

had had to evacuate, we would not have been able to because most 

of the roads in that region were closed because of downed power 

lines, because of downed trees, so we had days when people could 
326 

not actually use the roads to get their families to school or to work 

throughout Westchester County. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I completely understand and empathize with 

your concerns on this issue. I think you are right on track to be 

concerned about this. We are looking at this and we will get you 

that information. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. I definitely want to see updated reports. 

Also, the confluence of factors during Super Storm Sandy was very 

concerning. We had swells up to, I think it was 10 feet. I think our 

clearance was 12 feet. It was something very close. It was very 

close, so a storm with a little more strength, a little more flooding, 

a little more rain would have perhaps overwhelmed the plant. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Right, and we are looking at that too. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. We only had a second generator, only one 

backup. Again, if you look at Fukushima as an example of all the 

things that can go wrong that you cannot possibly imagine could 

go wrong, I was beginning to see it during Super Storm Sandy. 

If it was 2 more feet, if it flooded the second generator, you could 

see it happening. I saw all the trees and powerlines down and 

there would be no evacuation availability. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. You are right to be concerned about these 

issues. We are, too, and we are taking our lessons from Fukushima 

and Super Storm Sandy and ensuring that there are flood hazard 

analyses being redone for Indian Point and for other plants as well. 

Be assured we are on top of this. 

In terms of cyber security, yes, this is a threat that is constantly 

changing. I think we have been way ahead of the game on this one. 

We required regulations on cyber security for our nuclear power 

plant licensees in 2009. We are working on that. 

I will ask Commissioner Ostendorff to say something more on 

that issue. He is an expert on that one. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I am not an expert, but I have had some experience in this from other jobs. 

I will just tell you that we agree with you, Senator, that cyber 

is a key area of concern. We take it very seriously. 

As the Chairman noted, the NRC put out a rule in 2009 requiring our nuclear power plants to comply with certain cyber requirements. We meet as a commission frequently with the Department 

of Homeland Security CERT group on critical infrastructure concerns as well as the FBI and the National Security Agency. 

For the sake of time, I will just tell you that in a couple of our 

meetings with DHS, the experts they have on industrial control 

systems for critical infrastructure commented very favorably on the 

regulations we have in place. 

Senator GILLIBRAND. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Senator Gillibrand. 

I hope the rest of you can answer her in writing because she hit 

on something that also impacts my people. I remember when I 

went to visit the San Onofre plant, which is now shut down, millions of people live within 50 miles, similar to your situation. 

I asked the sheriff what happens in case of an emergency here 

at the plant. She sort of laughed in a sad way and pointed to the 

freeway and said, that is our answer. In a regular day, you are 

backed up. 
327 

It is a huge issue because a lot of the time these plants are quite 

old. I don’t know how old your plant is. It must be quite old and 

the population was much smaller. Then you discover these new 

earthquake faults or tsunami zones or climate change, the different 

kinds of impact. 

I think you are on to something critical which is the emergency 

preparedness has to be more front and center given the fact we are 

going into these extreme weather events that shock us. I thank you 

very much. 

I would say to the panel that the first vote has started. I am 

going to stay here as long as I can and finish my questioning. If 

anyone wants to come back, they should go vote now and come 

back. If not, we will recess until we finish all five votes. Hang 

around here but you can take at least a half-hour, the second 

panel. 

Madam Chairman, when you talked about your tenure, you said, 

significant progress in post-Fukushima safety. I guess that goes to 

the issue of beauty is in the eye of the beholder because I look at 

the NRC’s Near-Term Task Force, made up of senior staff, who represented together 135 years of experience and made just 12 recommendations to address Fukushima lessons learned. 

They did that in July 2011. They put out their 12 recommendations. July 2012 passed, July 2013 passed, July 2014 passed and 

there isn’t one of these that is in place, not a single one. 

We have a chart just in case. I don’t want you to say I don’t 

agree with you because you can’t not agree because here are the 

facts. None of them are in place, so how you can say you are proud 

of what you did? 

I know you did a lot of other things that are good but how you 

can say you are proud that you helped us post-Fukushima is beyond my belief and understanding. I guess we would have to sit 

and talk for a long time for me to figure it out. 

I am a person who believes there are benchmarks, you lay them 

out and you meet them. If I have to visit so many counties by such 

and such a time, I commit to do it, I do it or I fail. 

Here it is and not one of them has been implemented by the industry. At the same time while this is going on, the NRC has apparently joined with Russia to block a reactor safety proposal overseas that would require existing reactors to be retrofitted to prevent accidents caused by severe earthquakes or other natural hazards. 

Again, I am sure you are proud of your work. I am sure there 

are things you could point to but for me, sitting in a State that now 

has one plant left and one plant closed because, in my opinion, 

there was lax oversight, the problem they faced could have been 

prevented. 

Be that as it may, why haven’t these been done and why did you 

join with this Russian idea that we shouldn’t move forward? Do 

you want to answer that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Let me answer your question about what I 

think you are talking about here. The proposal you referred to in 

terms of Russia is the proposed amendment to the Convention on 

Nuclear Safety. 
328 

Let me state up front that we work closely with our European 

counterparts, and we collaborate with them a lot over Fukushima 

changes that we are all doing. We have been collaborating extensively with them. 

Our view on the proposed amendment to the Convention on Nuclear Safety is that we are already meeting the essence of that 

amendment in other ways. Opening an amendment to the Convention on Nuclear Safety is a difficult, long, time consuming process 

and it may actually damage global nuclear safety. 

Senator BOXER. I have to ask you. It will damage nuclear safety 

to require existing reactors to be retrofitted to prevent accidents 

caused by severe earthquakes or other natural hazards. That is 

your quote. It would be damaging to safety. I don’t understand you. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I want to be clear about what I said. What I 

said was that amending the Convention on Nuclear Safety is a very 

difficult, long-term, time consuming process. 

Senator BOXER. Just give me a yes or no. The Russian proposal 

opposes that reactors be retrofitted to protect against natural hazards and you oppose that? Will you support that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. That is not what the Russian proposal proposes. The Russians are saying they do not want to amend the 

amendment language. 

Senator BOXER. Right, to make it stronger. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. No, they simply are saying they do not want 

to amend the amendment language. We are heavily involved in 

working with the State Department who has the lead on the negotiations on this issue of whether to amend the Convention on Nuclear Safety. 

Senator BOXER. You are on your way out the door and happily, 

I think, for you because I think you are happy. You are proud of 

what you did, and I am glad that you are proud of what you did. 

I have to say you teamed up with Russia, that is the story, to 

block a reactor safety proposal overseas that would require existing 

reactors to be retrofitted to prevent accidents caused by severe 

earthquakes. That is just the fact and it is disturbing to me that 

we are teaming up with Russia on this. It just is disturbing given 

Russia’s record. 

I have a question and I am going ask each of you to answer. 

Think this through before you answer it. It is not a trick question, 

it is pretty straightforward, but I want you to think it through. 

Do you believe that reactor operators are required to comply with 

their operating licenses? Do you believe that reactor operators are 

required to comply with their operating licenses? Mr. Baran. 

Mr. BARAN. Yes. 

Senator BOXER. Ms. Svinicki. 

Ms. SVINICKI. This is the license issued to each operator? 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Yes. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Yes, we require reactor operators to comply 

with their licenses. 

Senator BOXER. Yes? 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. Yes. 

Mr. BURNS. Yes. 
329 

Senator BOXER. Excellent. Despite your answers, the Commission 

has allowed California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant to continue to operate even though it is out of compliance with the seismic safety terms of its license. 

NRC also declined to act when its own senior inspector said that 

the plant should be shut down until it could be shown that it was 

in compliance with its license. Can you confirm that Diablo Canyon 

is operating without a license that accounts for the new seismic 

faults? I ask that question. Mr. Baran. 

Mr. BARAN. I think the answer is somewhat complicated because 

there was a very complicated licensing history for Diablo Canyon. 

I think there are two questions. One is safety and one is compliance. 

On the safety side, the NRC staff has looked at it, done an independent review of the data and they have concluded it is safe to 

operate the plant. 

The second question, which is more of what you are getting at, 

is how they in compliance with their license. Right now, the staff 

is looking at whether a license amendment would be necessary. 

Senator BOXER. It is not in dispute that PG&E is out of compliance with its license. That is why PG&E asked NRC for a license 

amendment and then it withdrew. Does anyone disagree with that? 

It is not in dispute that PG&E is out of compliance with its license. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I think you are referring to the license amendment request they withdrew with regard to the seismic hazard 

analysis? 

Senator BOXER. Yes, right. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. The reason they withdrew that is that we provided guidance when we required them, after Fukushima, to do a 

new seismic hazard reevaluation. That is why they withdrew that 

license amendment request. 

Senator BOXER. Madam Chairman, can you confirm that Diablo 

Canyon is operating without a license that accounts for the new 

seismic faults? The NRC never approved a new request. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. They are in compliance with their license and 

we consider them safe to operate until we see new information that 

tells us otherwise. If we find new information that suggests they 

are not safe to operate, we will shut them down. Of course that is 

what we would do with any nuclear power plant. 

Senator BOXER. Does their current license cover the new information discovered on the earthquake faults? Does their current license cover that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. This is a very complex issue. 

Senator BOXER. Let me give you my opinion as someone who has 

been in politics a long time. I always tell my constituents when 

someone says this is complicated, they really don’t want to answer 

it. 

I am telling you we have information, you know that very well, 

of new seismic problems there. The license doesn’t match that. 

They need to upgrade their facility. Your own senior inspector said 

it. Why don’t you listen to your own senior inspector, can you answer that question, who says they ought to be shut down or make 

the upgrades? You are saying you did listen to the inspector? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Certainly. 
330 

Senator BOXER. What have you done to make sure they shut 

down until they upgrade the facility? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We considered the concerns of the senior resident inspector who said there was no immediate safety concern 

that he was presenting about Diablo Canyon. 

Senator BOXER. Immediate is not good enough for this Senator, 

and immediate is not good enough for the 500,000 people who live 

within 50 miles. Immediate is what they said at Fukushima, oh, 

there is no immediate problem, and Fukushima happened. This is 

a problem. You know there is a problem there. 

I am going to go into this with the second panel. I am going to 

move along. 

The NRC Inspector General recently issued its report about how 

NRC oversaw efforts by the operator of the California San Onofre 

nuclear power plant to replace its steam generators using a less 

rigorous regulatory process. The flawed steam generators ultimately caused the plant’s permanent closure. 

The NRC Inspector General said that the NRC missed an opportunity to identify the problems with the steam generators when it 

inspected San Onofre’s steam generator replacement efforts in 2009 

with NRC experts saying there were many shortcomings in the 

analysis Southern California Edison provided to the NRC to justify 

the less rigorous regulatory process. 

Do any of you disagree with the conclusion of the Inspector General of the NRC? Does anyone disagree with that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Senator, we actually have lessons learned 

analysis going on for the San Onofre nuclear power plant. Part of 

that analysis will look at what we call the 10 CFR process. 

Senator BOXER. Let me try this again. The NRC Inspector General said that two former senior NRC officials said that Southern 

Cal Edison should have applied for a license amendment for its 

new steam generators which would have required a much more rigorous review by the NRC. Let me add parenthetically, maybe that 

plant wouldn’t have had to shut down. 

They also said the NRC would not have approved such a license 

amendment because the design was fatally flawed. 

Do any of you disagree with the IG’s conclusion that NRC should 

have done a more rigorous review? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We are in the process of looking at their conclusions. 

Senator BOXER. Do you agree? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. We are in the process of looking at their conclusions in terms of the situation at the San Onofre power plant. 

Senator BOXER. Could I just say, it is so frustrating. You have 

senior officials that talk about safety, you have an IG that faults 

you and all you do is continue to look at something. You have 12 

recommendations that are very clear and even most people could 

understand what they are. They are pretty straightforward. 

Not one has been done, and you say you are proud of the work 

of the Commission. Not one is in place, not one. There has been no 

upgrade to the emergency response draining, no longer term study 

of emergency response topics, and no improved reactor inspection 

and oversight. It is unbelievable. 
331 

There is not a study completed to upgrade seismic flooding and 

other hazard protections. Some licenses are still not in compliance 

with pre-Fukushima requirements. 

All I am saying is think what you will about how great a job you 

are all doing, I know you work hard, every one of you cares deeply, 

but you have to do better because this isn’t an academic setting 

where we talk about things that may happen. 

I live in the real world where I go out to these places and look 

in the eyes of the people, some of whom will be here this afternoon. 

Senator Gillibrand says after Super Storm Sandy, she was terrified 

at what could happen at that plant. 

I am just saying from the bottom of my heart, more has to be 

done. I want to address the new commissioners who are joining the 

team here. I hope you four can work as a team. I hope you can find 

common ground. 

If you can’t agree on doing the 12 things, for God’s sake, do two, 

three or four of the things and get it done because one of those 12 

things could be absolutely critical. 

I guess I want to ask another question of Chairman Macfarlane 

or all of you. This is another question so think it through before 

you answer. 

Do any of you disagree that when reactor operators replace 

equipment like steam generators, NRC’s so-called 50.59 regulations 

require the operators to demonstrate that the new equipment can 

perform safely? Do any of you disagree with that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Madam Chairman, I would like to submit, for 

the record, our charts which show the progress that we have made 

on Fukushima upgrades at plants. 

Senator BOXER. Sure. 

[The referenced charts were not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. I will give to you the list of 12, and you tell me 

which ones of those you have put in place. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Absolutely. We are happy to provide all of that 

information. 

Senator BOXER. Let me get back to my questioning. Let the 

record reflect that none of you disagree that the operator has to 

demonstrate the new equipment can perform safely when replacing 

equipment licensed generators. 

I would like to place NRC’s response to questions my staff asked 

about Diablo Canyon into the record. 

[The referenced information was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BOXER. Those responses acknowledge that when PG&E 

replaced both of its steam generators and its reactor vessel head, 

it did not comply with NRC’s 50.59 regulations. 

What is more, the analysis PG&E failed to do was to answer the 

question of whether the new equipment could work safely following 

both a severe earthquake and a loss of ability to cool the reactors 

similar to what happened at Fukushima. 

I would like for Chairman Macfarlane to answer this. Can you 

confirm that NRC has known about PG&E’s failure to meet these 

key NRC regulations, the 50.59, since 2011 but has not taken enforcement action against the licensee for this failure? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Madam Chairman, I did learn recently about 

this issue. I am aware of the general outlines of this issue. I asked 
332 

the staff to get back to me on this issue. They informed me that 

the licensee in 2011 found, PG&E noted the failure to collect this 

kind of information. 

Also at that time, they did the evaluation they needed to previously have done and the NRC concurred on that. 

Senator BOXER. I will put in the record the fact that the NRC 

did not pursue this issue. We have the background on it. They have 

known about it. You have known about it since 2011. I have the 

proof from the staff, your staff, and did nothing about it. 

I am going to turn it over to Senator Markey and give him the 

gavel. I will run and vote and come right back. Then you can vote 

on the second vote. Is that OK, Senator? 

Senator MARKEY. Yes. 

Senator BOXER. I will be right back. 

Senator MARKEY [presiding]. It is like I am Chairman of the 

House again, eh? Thank you. 

The NRC’s Office of Investigations was created in 1982, which 

was 2 weeks after a hearing I chaired about a case where NRC officials whitewashed a safety investigation after they showed it to a 

former NRC chairman who had been hired by the subject of the investigation. 

I recently wrote a letter to the NRC about my concerns that the 

independence of this office was being eroded, that the Office of 

General Counsel may have inappropriately attempted to interfere 

with a recent investigation and that the staff which assisted with 

the investigation was being retaliated against. 

In response, I was told that you, Madam Chairman, and others 

had referred those concerns to the NRC’s Inspector General. That 

is why I was so disturbed when I obtained a copy of a draft proposal that you authored that directed the Office of General Counsel 

to effectively take over and reorganize the Office of Investigations 

and limit the resources and types of investigations that could be 

conducted in the first place. 

You even did this before the NRC Inspector General completed 

his work. 

When Chairwoman Boxer and I sent you a letter conveying our 

strong concerns about this proposal, you did not respond to us. Instead, you directed your staff to deny the very existence of the proposal in the first place, even though I had been provided a copy of 

the document. 

Madam Chairman, is this proposal, which unquestionably was 

prepared and circulated by you, still being considered? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. At the moment, it is not being considered, but 

let me tell you that the draft memo that you are referring to was 

only circulated to the very senior management of the agency and 

to my colleagues here, of course. It was a draft to get their feedback. 

Never and nowhere in that memo will you find any contemplation of any reorganization of the Office of Investigations. As commissioners, we are trying ensure that we have an effective enforcement process because that is critical to our agency’s ability to enforce our regulations. 

Senator MARKEY. The document actually said that the Office of 

Investigations couldn’t do the same work, it said it couldn’t have 
333 

the same resources, it said that the General Counsel had to direct 

every action that was going to be taken. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I do not agree with your analysis. That is not 

what it said. The Office of General Counsel was only cited in terms 

of providing guidance. I would ask my colleagues to weigh in because they have seen this memo. 

Senator MARKEY. Do any of the other members of the commission 

wish to address that? 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I would like to respond, Senator Markey. 

I agree with the Chairman’s response. I, along with the other 

commissioners, was offered a chance to review this memo. This is 

a personal viewpoint. There were some concerns in the organization. I think it was a very responsible act by the Chairman to take 

the initiative to address a problem. 

That memo did not direct reorganization of the Office of Investigations. I think the actions the Chairman circulated as a draft 

proposal were responsible and appropriate. 

Senator MARKEY. Do any other members wish to comment? Commissioner. 

Ms. SVINICKI. Senator, in the feedback I provided to Chairman 

Macfarlane, I also indicated that I viewed the proposal as an opportunity to look at strengthening the coordination between the Office 

of Investigations, Enforcement and General Counsel. 

My feedback to her as that I supported having the NRC staff 

look at that and see if any enhancements could be made. 

Senator MARKEY. Do you support the continued complete independence of this office? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. The office should be independent to the degree 

that it does report back to our Executive Director of Operations. 

That is the structure of the Office of Investigations. It is not the 

Inspector General. That is a separate and distinct office at our 

agency. 

Senator MARKEY. Does each of you agree that it should maintain 

its independence? 

Mr. BURNS. I agree that the Office of Investigations has to have 

the capability to carry out its professional responsibilities as an investigative office. I worked closely with them when I was General 

Counsel and an attorney at NRC for 25 years. 

Sometimes there are disagreements between the lawyers and investigators about where to go but essentially, the office has the 

ability to make its recommendations and to cooperate with the Justice Department in appropriate cases. That is what is important 

and that is what I would defend. 

Senator MARKEY. Should it be able, Commissioner, to do whatever investigations it deems to be appropriate? 

Mr. BURNS. Essentially, it makes the judgment call as to its investigative workload or the investigations it pursues. You have this 

sometimes in the constraints of when an investigation is underway, 

because that is the nature of the American legal system in terms 

of objections that persons may make. 

For example, if I am someone who is the subject of an investigation, do I have to testify. There are ways of resolving those things 

through subpoena and through other types of actions. The judgment call is essentially within the office to carry out its mission. 
334 

Senator MARKEY. Should it have to report to the General Counsel 

during the course of an investigation? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. It doesn’t report to the General Counsel, but 

it works with the General Counsel’s office. 

Senator MARKEY. Should it have to? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Yes, because it is part of our overall enforcement process. Our overall enforcement process encompasses three 

of our offices, the Office of Investigations which carries out the investigations but they need to work with our General Counsel’s Office and the lawyers in forming those investigations, and because 

this is part of our enforcement of our regulations process, they have 

to work together with the Office of Enforcement. 

They all have to work together and that is what we wanted to 

look at. 

Senator MARKEY. Should it be able to be free to pursue any investigation is my question to you? Do you agree with that? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. It does have the ability to pursue any investigation. They have not been prevented from that. 

Senator MARKEY. Should it continue to have that ability is my 

question to you? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. It should continue to have the ability to develop investigations as it sees fit, but it does have to work with the 

other offices because it is part of our overall enforcement process. 

Senator MARKEY. You are a former General Counsel, can you 

help us to sort this out because we want to have vigorous oversight 

taking place? Should they have the ability to be free to pursue any 

investigation? 

Mr. BURNS. I think, as the Chairman is saying, they essentially 

are free to pursue investigations. The point I was trying to make 

is, both as a matter of administrative law and constitutional law, 

there are sometimes limits on that with respect to is it a matter 

within the scope of the agency’s competence, are they investigating 

something that is a matter within the NRC, and are they carrying 

out the appropriate protections that are required under the Administrative Procedures Act or other statutes? Those are the only caveats that I would put on that. 

Senator MARKEY. I am trying to clarify. As long as they continue 

to operate within their legal authority, should they be permitted to 

continue operating the way they have historically, in your opinion 

as a former General Counsel? 

Mr. BURNS. In my view, yes, again, within the framework of 

what their responsibilities are and what the NRC’s responsibilities 

are, they are able to do that. 

Senator MARKEY. Do you think there is a reason to limit the resources and types of investigations that could be conducted in the 

first place? That is something that there is a draft proposal out 

there to look at this as an issue. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. There is no draft proposal to limit their resources. There is a draft proposal to look at the whole enforcement 

process. 

Senator MARKEY. We have a copy of a draft proposal that would 

limit the resources. You are saying there is no draft proposal? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. That is correct. 
335 

Senator MARKEY. Then there is a disagreement between the committee and the agency. We will have to resolve that because obviously we have a document that says that is not the case. 

You are not, in fact, supporting a proposal to erode the mission 

or the independence while they are in the middle of an investigation right now? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I am supporting a proposal to improve and ensure that our enforcement process is as efficient and effective as 

possible because as a regulator, we are not going to be able to regulate properly unless we can have an effective enforcement process 

to enforce our regulations. 

Senator MARKEY. I have a document. I am not going to introduce 

it into the official record right now. We do have a disagreement between the committee and the commission on this. I am not going 

to introduce it into the record at this point in time but we are going 

to have to have a private discussion and negotiation between the 

commission and the committee over this document where we are in 

fundamental disagreement. 

With that, let me say there is a second roll call on the floor of 

the Senate. I am going to run over and make the roll call. 

The Chair is back, so let me ask one final question. 

Chairman Macfarlane, the recent litigation challenging NRC’s 

assertion that spent nuclear fuel could be stored at reactor sites indefinitely cost the agency between $250,000 and $300,000 in legal 

fees and cost the Department of Justice additional taxpayer dollars 

as well. 

There are more than 300 contentions pending on the Yucca 

Mountain license proceeding and contentions cost more than litigation to resolve because the process for resolving them is much more 

complicated. 

Is it safe to say that the legal costs of resolving the Yucca Mountain contentions is likely to exceed 300 times the cost the agency 

absorbed on the other spent fuel litigation, that it would be much, 

much higher than the $75 million to $95 million? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I don’t know about the math that you elaborated but I can tell you that it would cost in excess of probably 

$300 million. 

Senator MARKEY. It would cost in excess of $300 million. I think 

that is very important for us to have on the record because clearly 

this is becoming a more and more costly enterprise for the Federal 

Government. 

I thank you, Madam Chairman. I yield back. 

Senator BOXER [presiding]. Thank you. 

I understand that you asked about a document. I am going to follow through on that, but you should go to make vote. 

The NRC is still withholding two categories of documents that 

Senator Markey talked about. Senator Markey did you read into 

the record what renowned constitutional scholar Mort Rosenberg 

said? 

Senator MARKEY. No, I did not. 

Senator BOXER. This is why this is critical. When you get confirmed, you answer in the affirmative to turn over documents. Now 

you say there is no such document when there is such a document. 

That is a problem. That is a real problem before this committee. 
336 

We don’t swear in people here, we don’t do that, but you are 

under oath. That is the rule. You are considered under oath. I don’t 

care what the General Counsel is whispering at this point. 

Anyone here is considered under oath, and they cannot say anything to the contrary but the truth under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001. 

You can read it. You have to be truthful to Congress. 

There has been denial of a document. We have the document. 

Thank God there are people in the NRC. 

It is interesting, Chairman, because of your discussion about how 

great morale is. Listen, I am sure it is true for most people, but 

for some of the senior people, I say this to the four commissioners, 

they are calling us all the time, telling us that safety is not being 

followed. 

Renowned constitutional scholar Morton Rosenberg said that 

NRC’s reasons for withholding these documents demonstrates, I am 

glad senior counsel is here, ‘‘a profound misunderstanding of Congress’ investigatory power that they misstate court decisions, they 

ignore overwhelmingly contrary case law that supports the committee’s right to receive the materials, and they show a lack of awareness of over 90 years of congressional investigations in which agencies have had to give Congress what it asked for. What is more, 

last year, Congress enacted statutory legislation language requiring NRC to respond to congressional requests.’’ 

The Chairman has already not dealt with me in a fair way, in 

my opinion. We have had to go through hell and back to get anything, and we still don’t have documents. We will get them because 

there are whistleblowers in the agency helping us, so the truth will 

come out. 

I want to ask the other four, will each of you follow the law and 

give the committee what it has asked for? 

Mr. BARAN. Madam Chairman, I agree with you that you have 

an important oversight role. My view is that NRC should work 

with the committee to provide documents when you request them. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Mr. BARAN. Our focus should be on providing information that is 

requested, not withholding it. There will sometimes be sensitive 

issues that we have to work through but we should be working 

through those issues. 

Senator BOXER. We should work through them together. 

Mr. BARAN. Yes. 

Senator BOXER. Because the bottom line is we all care about the 

safety of the people. I do and you do, so why are we in this tug 

of war, you can’t see my papers? 

Let me ask Commissioner Svinicki, will you vote to give the committee what it asks for as you promised to do when you took your 

oath? 

Ms. SVINICKI. Chairman Boxer, I have supported our continued 

engagement with you and your staff. 

Senator BOXER. That is not the question. What does engagement 

mean, discussion? I am asking if you would vote to give us the documents we request. 

Ms. SVINICKI. I have been part of the deliberation on providing 

the documents over the last couple of years and I have supported 

the outcomes as articulated by Chairman Macfarlane where we 
337 

would continue to respect the oversight role and work with you and 

your staff. 

Senator BOXER. The Chairman denied us. 

Go ahead, Mr. Ostendorff. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I agree with Commissioner Svinicki. I have 

been involved in these decisions as well. I believe we have followed 

the law as we understand it. I know we have sent several letters 

to this committee requesting to meet in person and we have not 

been able to arrange those meetings. 

Senator BOXER. We are meeting in person. What is this? How 

many oversight hearings have we had? This is the tenth. You can 

tell it to me out here in the real world. You don’t have to whisper 

in my ear about it. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. We sent very clear letters in November and 

December of last year addressing this topic. I have read the Rosenberg memo and I believe the position we have taken is still consistent. 

Senator BOXER. This is going to be a big problem because we 

asked for documents, not a meeting privately or secretly, and we 

didn’t get them. This is serious stuff. Your counsel is telling you 

things that are in absolute conflict with renowned constitutional 

scholars, so you may wind up in a courtroom pretty soon. 

Mr. Burns. 

Mr. BURNS. I will echo what Commissioner Baran said. I think 

it is in the extraordinary power of the Congress to get documents, 

to get information it needs. I have read the Rosenberg memo and 

some other things. 

I want to say I think there is a very limited, limited set where 

there may be some questions and there may be some issues, but 

my commitment is to work with the committee and assure its 

needs but at the same time, assuring whatever issues need to be 

protected are protected. 

Senator BOXER. Let me say there is no legal restriction on our 

getting papers, period. That is the truth. If you go back in history, 

one thing we know about America, our people want transparency. 

They don’t like secrecy. 

Of course if there is a paper that shows a certain technology and 

there is a right to make sure people don’t know how to make a certain part, we understand that and we have agreed to that. 

Here is the deal. I am not encouraged by the two to two split 

here on papers. I am saying this is an area of deep concern and 

it is not going away. 

I want to ask the remaining four of you a straightforward question because we may be without a fifth person for a while. We don’t 

know how long it will take. As you know, two to two equals nothing 

getting done and it puts a burden on each of you to try and reach 

out and listen to the other side. 

I can give you an example in this committee. As you know, there 

are lots of disagreements here. We have gotten together on many 

pieces of legislation, highways, water, protecting animals, Superfund clean ups, all kinds of issues. We have set aside our differences. 

I am asking you, particularly on this series of 12 recommendations which could mean life and death, that is not hyperbole, to my 
338 

people and to people all over the country. I only have one plant left 

but there are 500,000 people living within 50 miles of that plant. 

We can look at the other chart. I don’t know what the other chart 

says, but I can tell you we have reviewed this and we know. Not 

one of these has been implemented fully. 

Will each of your work with each other to try and get the maximum number of these post-Fukushima recommendations by your 

own staff put in place within the next 6 months? Will you work in 

that effort? Soon to be Chairman Baran. 

Mr. BARAN. That would be news to me. 

Senator BOXER. Commissioner Baran. I guess that is what I 

would like to see. 

Mr. BARAN. I absolutely commit to work with my colleagues to 

implement the recommendations expeditiously. 

Senator BOXER. Will you reach out to those that you would normally not see eye to eye with because that is the critical part here? 

Mr. BARAN. All five of us talk all the time. 

Senator BOXER. There are only going to be four. That means in 

order to move from A to B, there needs to be someone giving. One 

of you is going to have to really work with the other side to say, 

you know what, that makes sense. Will you be willing to do that 

kind of extraordinary effort to get this done? 

Ms. SVINICKI. Yes, Chairman Boxer. I have had many colleagues 

come and go from the commission. The two new members constitute very significant new blood for us. I agree with you that two 

to two is not a great outcome for the United States. We need to 

re-engage and work together. I pledge to do that. 

Senator BOXER. I appreciate that. 

Mr. Ostendorff. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I am committed to working with my colleagues. 

Senator BOXER. Excellent. 

Mr. BURNS. As am I. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Ms. MACFARLANE. May I interrupt for 1 second? I just want to 

correct the record. 

Senator BOXER. No, no, I will give you your time in a moment, 

just a minute. 

That was kind of a general response from you two. I am saying 

on those 12 issues, to get them in place within the next 6 months, 

many of them, will you work together to do that? Will you try to 

get that done? 

Can you answer that, please? Mr. Ostendorff. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I am not going to sit here and tell you that all 

those can be approved in the next 6 months. 

Senator BOXER. I didn’t say all 12, I said some of them. 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I think we are making strong progress. We will 

continue to work toward implementing those as quickly as we can. 

Senator BOXER. You will work with all colleagues even though it 

might be a two to two situation to get some of these into place? 

Mr. OSTENDORFF. I don’t see a two to two situation on the Commission as being a bar to moving forward. 

Senator BOXER. Excellent. 

Mr. Burns. 
339 

Mr. BURNS. Nor do I. When I was with the agency as a general 

counsel under Chairman Jaczko, including Commissioners Svinicki 

and Ostendorff, proved going forward. One of the emphases the 

Commission did was get these done, and I think it was a 5-year 

timeframe. It doesn’t mean all of them done in 5 years, but the 

things done in a timely manner. That is what I commit to do. 

Senator BOXER. Let the record show 2011 was the date and nothing is happening yet. 

Chairman, you wanted to say something? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. I just want to correct the record in my discussion with Senator Markey about the Office of Investigations. I want 

to be clear that I said there is a preliminary draft memo that he 

was referring to. That is all. 

Senator BOXER. Now you are saying this document does exist? 

Ms. MACFARLANE. Yes, I always acknowledged it. I acknowledged 

it the entire time. I just want to be clear. 

Senator BOXER. We will read back the record. We will leave it 

in and then we will correct what you said so that it is clear. 

I want to say to all of you that you have really important jobs. 

So will you, Chairman, when you go back to your atmosphere at 

the university because those are the minds of the future. Thank 

you for doing that. It is important. 

I just want to say for those of you who remain on the Commission and the new people, whenever I lose my way sometimes, even 

around here, I go back and read the Constitution, and I read what 

some of my predecessors said. 

I look at the different issues, whether it is environmental issues, 

civil rights issues or human rights issues. I read what legal experts 

have said. I think the most important thing for you to do is to go 

back to why this commission was founded. It is so instructive to 

read what it says. It really is so clear that it is safety. 

If that is not foremost in your mind, then that is not what you 

should be doing. You should reset because it isn’t about playing 

footsie with any operator, it isn’t about the future of nuclear power 

which many of us hope will find its way, be say and be an answer 

to climate. I think you heard that from colleagues. 

We are looking for safety. We are looking to make sure that we 

don’t build plants on earthquake faults and if they are there, they 

have to be retrofitted. They can’t stay the way they are. They are 

too dangerous. 

Go back and I think you will get infused with even more energy, 

no pun intended, in the work you are about to pursue. 

Good luck to you, Chairman. I think one of the greatest things 

for you is you will not have to face me across this divide anymore. 

That will be a reason for celebration. 

For the rest of you, good luck. We have an open door. The biggest 

open door is right here in this chamber because there is nothing 

we have to keep secret. We are transparent here. 

Thank you, very, very much. 

I am going to recess and tell my second panel we will be back 

in about 25 minutes. We are recessed until the call of the Chair. 

[Recess.] 

Senator BOXER. We are back and I apologize deeply for the delay. 

There is a lot happening, including voting, and then, after that, 
340 

just putting together the final stages of an omnibus bill that requires my attention because there is like, oh, at least 14 environmental riders that are being attempted to go on there, and I am 

trying to deal with those. 

So I am just thrilled with this panel. Well, Dan Hirsch is someone I have worked with, is the word forever apt here? Honestly, I 

don’t know how far back it goes, but I think it was before I was 

in the U.S. Senate, so we are talking decades. And I just think he 

is tremendous. He is a lecturer at University of California, Santa 

Cruz, and that doesn’t begin to describe his contribution to safety 

from toxics and the rest. 

And then we will go with Hon. Sam Blakeslee, a former State 

and I have to say Republican senator, because that is important to 

know, that this is bipartisan testimony; former California Seismic 

Safety Commissioner. These are the two majority witnesses. 

And our minority witness is Mr. Anthony Pietrangelo, Senior 

Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at the NEI. And that is 

our minority witness. 

So I am very happy you are here. I am very grateful to you for 

sticking around, because I know this has been a long wait. But as 

you could tell from the first panel, these issues are matters of life 

and death, and that is why we took the time we took, and I didn’t 

want to rush your panel. I have a lot of time here, so we will go 

back and forth. 

So, Mr. Hirsch, do you want to please begin? And we will give 

you 6 minutes. Go ahead. And make sure you turn on your microphone and speak into it. 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL HIRSCH, LECTURER, UNIVERSITY OF 

CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 

Mr. HIRSCH. I have a written statement which I—— 

Senator BOXER. We will put it in the record. 

Mr. HIRSCH. Thank you. 

Chairman Boxer, thank you so much for the invitation to appear 

here today. 

The Japanese parliamentary investigation into the Fukushima 

tragedy concluded that it was caused by a too cozy relationship between the reactor operator and its regulator that allowed the nuclear plant to be built to withstand only an earthquake and tsunami far smaller than actually occurred. These problems plague 

the American nuclear regulatory system as well. 

My testimony will focus on an examination of one case study, 

Diablo Canyon, that suggests the Fukushima lessons have not been 

learned here. This is particularly important in light of extraordinary new seismic discoveries near the site and the inadequate response to them by the NRC. Unless the underlying dysfunctional 

nature of nuclear regulation in this country rapidly undergoes 

sweeping reform, a Fukushima-type disaster or worse can occur 

here, perhaps on the California coast. 

Diablo was designed and permitted based on the claim that there 

were no active earthquake faults within 30 kilometers of the site. 

We now know, however, that there are at least four large active 

faults nearby, all capable of more ground motion than the plant 

was originally designed for. Each time there was a new belated 
341 

seismic discovery at Diablo, however, the Commission gave PG&E 

a pass. Rules were relaxed, safety margins reduced, public hearings 

denied. The most recent discoveries of increased seismic risk have 

met the same fate. 

At the construction permit hearings in 1970, the intervener 

asked for a few hours to present evidence of nearby faults. PG&E 

and the Commission staff objected and the NRC refused to permit 

the matter to be heard. 

Senator BOXER. Say that one more time, that last point. 

Mr. HIRSCH. In 1970, interveners wanted a few hours to be able 

to present evidence of undiscovered faults. Both PG&E and the 

Commission staff objected; the licensing board refused to permit 

the testimony. Tom Pickford, a member of the board, dissented, 

saying, shouldn’t we find out, before we pour concrete, if there are 

earthquake faults? 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Mr. HIRSCH. He lost and they went ahead and poured the concrete, and almost immediately it was revealed that there was an 

offshore fault, the Hosgri fault, much larger than the plant was designed for. But instead of withdrawing the permit or requiring a 

full upgrade to deal with the new fault, NRC waived the normal 

requirements of the license and granted an exception for the 

Hosgri. Only minimal retrofits were required. 

But it didn’t end then. Within days of granting the operating license, NRC, egg on its face, had to rescind it because it turned out 

that PG&E had used the wrong blueprints for putting in the retrofits, mirror image blueprints, placing the retrofits in the wrong 

places. They had to do it all over again, leading to a cost moving 

from $320 million to over $5 billion, the cost over-end largely 

passed on to the ratepayer. But we were assured there can’t be any 

more faults out there. 

And then, a few years later, the second and the third nearby 

faults were discovered, the Los Osos and San Luis Bay faults. 

Again we were told, don’t worry, there can’t be any more surprises. 

And then, in 2008, the U.S. Geologic Survey found the fourth 

fault that wasn’t supposed to exist, the Shoreline fault, coming 

within 600 meters of the plant. PG&E and NRC said, don’t worry, 

the three recently identified faults were well within the licensed 

limits. 

But then something absolutely remarkable happened. Dr. Michael Peck, the senior resident inspector for NRC at Diablo, actually went and checked the license, and what he discovered was that 

all three of those faults, according to PG&E itself, had ground motions greater than the plant license allowed. He said that it should 

be shut down until the problem was fixed. So PG&E proposed, instead of fixing the plant, to amend the license to remove the provisions they were violating. But even that didn’t work because they 

couldn’t meet the criteria for license amendments, so they withdrew it. 

And that should have been the end of the matter. The plant 

should have been shut down until it was retrofitted. But, instead, 

NRC allowed PG&E to, in essence, amend the license without 

amending the license, all to avoid a public hearing. And then Peck 
342 

took the gutsy step of filing a dissenting professional opinion, 

which this September, as expected, the NRC rejected. 

But here is where the story gets most troubling, with developments essentially not reported to the public until today. On the 

very same day NRC issued to the news media its denial of Dr. 

Peck’s dissent, PG&E released an 1800-page study, required by the 

State, of the seismic situation near the facility, and they discovered 

that the Shoreline fault, which they hadn’t even known about until 

a few years earlier, was twice as long as they had previously 

thought; that a number of the faults are now estimated to produce 

larger magnitude earthquakes than they had thought just a few 

years ago; and that, again, all of these are estimated to produce 

ground motions in excess that was permitted in the license for all 

faults except the Hosgri. 

It is de ́ja` vu all over again, repeat of the problem we have seen 

year after year after year. And unless we fix these problems of regulated entities pressing for weakening of safety requirements and 

of regulators viewing themselves more as allies of the industry 

rather than protectors of public safety, we will not have learned the 

lessons of Fukushima, and a Fukushima-type disaster is just waiting to happen here. All it takes, just as at Fukushima, is an earthquake larger than the plant was designed to withstand. It could 

happen tomorrow. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hirsch follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you for your testimony. It is quite riveting, and you tell it in the most straightforward way, and that is 

what I know about you and what I have always admired. You just 

give us the facts, and you let us understand the drama just by giving us the facts, and this is dramatic testimony and I am very 

grateful. 

Now we are very honored to have Sam Blakeslee here, Hon. Sam 

Blakeslee. You have great background in nuclear safety and serving people, and I talked to you, I don’t know, a year or two ago, 

when all this was hitting the fan, about this new earthquake discovery, and you were so forthcoming. So please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BLAKESLEE, Ph.D., FORMER STATE 

SENATOR, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND FORMER COMMISSIONER, CALIFORNIA SEISMIC SAFETY COMMISSION 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. Thank you, Senator Boxer and Ranking Member 

Vitter, members of the committee. May I ask that my written remarks be entered into the record? 

Senator BOXER. Yes, they will be. 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. Thank you for this invitation to testify today at 

the hearing regarding actions to ensure nuclear plant safety in the 

aftermath of lessons learned at Fukushima. 

I am Dr. Sam Blakeslee. Let me start my comments by stating 

that I am a lifelong Republican, a scientist, and am not anti-nuclear. My testimony here today reflects the culmination of my experiences as a former State senator, as the GOP leader in the California State assembly, as a member of the California Seismic Safety Commission, and a former senior research geophysicist with 

Exxon. 

When elected to California’s legislature a decade ago, I raised 

concerns that state-of-the-art seismic assessment technologies used 

by oil companies had never been applied to identifying offshore 

earthquake faults near Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. I 

therefore, in 2006, authored legislation, and Governor 

Schwarzenegger subsequently signed, that mandated a report that 

was released just a couple of months ago about the new seismic 

hazards at Diablo. But even before the release of that report, as 

Mr. Hirsch just testified, in 2008, the utility confidently declared 

to State regulators and the public that their seismic study program 

had already learned everything there was to know about the surrounding seismic landscape near the plant. 

Amazingly, only weeks after these assurances in writing of safety, the USGS announced the discovery of a powerful Shoreline fault 

within 600 meters of the plant. And now here we are with updated 

seismic data from the studies released just a few months ago confirming what many had feared and what the utility had long denied: a number of new earthquake threats do exist that are larger 

and closer to the plant than previously believed. 

The report uncovers the following revelations: 

Contrary to earlier representations, the Hosgri fault is in fact 

connected to the San Simeon fault, capable of producing a 171-kilometer rupture. 
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The Hosgri also connects to the powerful Shoreline fault, introducing the potential for a magnitude 7.3 just 600 meters from the 

plant and 300 meters from the intakes, a magnitude 7.3. 

There are now five earthquake hazards that can produce shaking 

greater than an earthquake on the Hosgri fault, the same fault 

which the utility claimed was the controlling fault and the largest 

threat to Diablo. 

Despite these astonishing findings, the utility continues to argue 

the plant is now safe and, in fact, now it is safer than ever before. 

How is that done? They have concluded this by developing a new 

less conservative methodology that reduces shaking estimates from 

all nearby earthquakes. 

The information about these new faults is so compelling that it 

led Dr. Michael Peck, NRC senior resident inspector at Diablo, to 

issue an official dissenting professional opinion stating these earthquakes could in fact, by the utility’s own estimates, produce shaking stronger than permitted under the current license. He called 

for closure of the plant until the utility could prove that the reactors could withstand potential earthquakes from these faults. Yet, 

his concerns were silenced by the NRC. 

For the NRC to de facto accept this new less conservative methodology which reduces estimated shaking from these nearby earthquakes would be a stunning delegation of authority to the utility 

and NRC staff that would result in dramatically weakened seismic 

safety standards at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. This 

passive erosion of regulatory oversight is exactly what led to the 

Fukushima disaster, the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the recent unexpected shutdown of California San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, all of which were foreseeable and avoidable. 

In fact, just this year the Office of Inspector General at the NRC 

reviewed the factors leading to the shutdown of San Onofre and 

chastised the NRC for allowing the utility to sidestep the license 

amendment process. 

So the question before us today is how will the NRC respond to 

these new revelations about new earthquake threats that surround 

Diablo. Will they repeat the mistakes of Japan’s nuclear regulation 

authority and rely upon the utility’s representations? Will they give 

the utility a pass around the license amendment process, which is 

exactly what happened at San Onofre? Or will they recognize the 

dangers of passive regulatory oversight and insist on higher seismic safety standards? 

You heard in the prior testimony the commissioners testified to 

the complex and convoluted licensing history at Diablo. But we now 

know much more about seismic issues than when Diablo was licensed. Therefore, the NRC has a responsibility to the public to define updated seismic standards through a formal license amendment process that protects the public interest. This process ensures 

a robust independent setting where the best technical arguments 

can be made in public, rather than behind closed doors between the 

utility and NRC staff. 

I would like to use this opportunity to urge a license amendment 

process for Diablo in light of these new earthquake threats. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blakeslee follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Senator, Doctor. I don’t 

know which one trumps which one, but we will call you Senator 

Doctor. 

Mr. Pietrangelo. 

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY R. PIETRANGELO, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT AND CHIEF NUCLEAR OFFICER, NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Vitter, 

thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. 

I am Tony Pietrangelo, the Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer at NEI. 

America’s 100 nuclear power plants provide approximately 20 

percent of our electricity and nearly two-thirds of our carbon-free 

electricity. They produce that electricity 24 hours a day and are not 

dependent upon wind or sun or fuel delivered by trucks, barges, 

rail lines, or pipelines to do so. Finally, nuclear power plants provide vital clean air compliance value, and any system that limits 

emissions or the so-called criteria pollutants or carbon dioxide. The 

emissions provided by nuclear energy reduce the compliance burden that would otherwise fall on emitting generation capacity. 

With that said, some electricity markets in portions of the country are creating serious challenges for base-load generation, including nuclear. Regulated States have been able to create the conditions under which companies can undertake long-term, capital-intensive projects and preserve fuel and technology diversity. In the 

south and southeast, State legislatures and regulatory commissions 

provide the assurance of prudent cost recovery necessary for capital 

intensive projects like nuclear. This is why Vogtle and Summer nuclear energy projects are under construction in Georgia and South 

Carolina. 

Absent significant market redesign or creation of new market 

mechanisms, it is not clear how merchant markets will ever stimulate investment in anything but the lowest cost short-term option. 

Given today’s conditions, this will be natural gas-fired generation 

thanks to the relatively low initial capital outlay for a gas-fired 

combined cycle plant. 

This and other factors have led to sustained economic stress on 

some existing generating capacity, particularly base-load capacity. 

At a time when the surplus of generating capacity in the eastern 

United States is decreasing, as existing generation capacity retires, 

effective and efficient market design and operating practices in the 

capacity and energy markets are more critical than ever. 

At the same time the electricity industry is dealing with challenging market conditions, it is also dealing with the cumulative 

impact of regulations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

The NRC currently has more than 50 rulemakings underway in 

various stages. Almost all of them, if implemented, will require 

modifications to plant systems and operations. Yet, the NRC does 

not appear to be prioritizing or even coordinating many of these 

rulemakings. 

Last year, Senator Vitter and House Energy and Commerce 

Chairman Upton requested that the Government Accountability Office review the NRC’s use of cost-benefit analysis, and we look for-
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ward to the results of that analysis. For our part, we have numerous examples in which the actual cost of meeting new NRC requirements was five to ten times higher than the NRC’s estimated 

cost. 

We believe that if the NRC more accurately estimated the cost 

of its regulatory requirements, it would find that many of its requirements do not pass a simple cost-benefit test. As a result, resources are being spent complying with requirements that have little or no safety benefit. 

Let me be clear. The industry will implement requirements that 

have a direct safety benefit. However, regulatory requirements 

with little or no nexus to safety result in diversion of resources 

from both the industry and the NRC from higher safety significant 

requirements and operational safety focus. 

I want to take a moment to quickly summarize the state of postFukushima preparedness. 

After Fukushima, the industry immediately took steps to 

strengthen our strategies to protect our nuclear energy facilities 

from severe natural events like earthquakes and floods. We didn’t 

wait for NRC requirements. Each company that operates nuclear 

power plants has added yet another layer of backup safety equipment to ensure that the facilities will have access to power and 

water that are necessary to keep reactors safe in the rare event of 

a severe natural event. 

Moreover, we developed national response centers in Memphis 

and Phoenix. Each of those centers is stocked with five sets of 

emergency equipment, backup generators, pumps, standardized 

couplings and connectors for hoses and cables that are ready for delivery to any U.S. reactor in 24 hours. 

The companies using some of the Nation’s best experts also are 

reevaluating external hazards, like earthquakes and floods, for 

their sites using the latest methods and data. The next step is to 

review the protective and mitigating measures put in place against 

the latest site-specific hazard information to determine if any refinements are necessary. We are in the process of conducting those 

evaluations and expect to have largely completed implementation 

by the end of 2016. 

Chairman Boxer, I invite you to go to any nuclear power plant 

in the country to see what has occurred in response to Fukushima 

since 2011 to now. 

Senator BOXER. I have done so. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Finally, I would like to offer a perspective on 

seismic regulation, particularly at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear 

Power Plant. 

When Diablo was under construction, the nearby Hosgri fault 

was discovered. Because the ground motions from the Hosgri fault 

could exceed the double design earthquake postulated in the plant’s 

operating license, prior to commencing operations, the plant was 

retrofitted to withstand the ground motions from the Hosgri fault. 

The Shoreline fault discovered in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Service in 2008, is below the Hosgri ground motion levels 

for which the plant was retrofitted in the 1970s prior to commencing operation. As a result, the plant is able to withstand the 

largest ground motion that could be expected to be generated from 
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any of the nearby faults because none exceed the plant’s robust 

Hosgri earthquake design. 

I realize because some staff at the NRC filed a differing professional opinion, and to my friend Sam I just met here, that is not 

silencing someone to file a differing professional opinion, that is 

part of the NRC’s process, and that was used here. Differing professional opinions do occur among 4,000 staff at the NRC, and they 

have a process for addressing them. No one was silencing anybody. 

In this case, the conclusion was that there is now, or never has 

been, a safety concern with this issue at Diablo Canyon. In addition, the panel concluded that older analytical techniques were 

overly conservative and no longer technically justified since the license at Diablo allows for newer technologies to be used. 

Chairman Boxer, that concludes my prepared remarks, and I 

look forward to your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pietrangelo follows:] 
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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

Well, just a couple comments, sir. When Mr. Hirsch spoke, he 

talked about a cozy relationship between industry that occurred 

and the regulators in Japan, and then you had Fukushima, and I 

honest to God think, given your obvious intimate knowledge of the 

NRC and how people disagree and all this, you are proving his 

point. I don’t get how industry knows what different people feel 

within the regulating agency. I mean, that says to me you have 

proved the point. It is really a cozy relationship. That is my view. 

I am sure you don’t agree, and I respect that. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. I would hang my hat on our safety record, 

Chairman Boxer. Review our safety record. 

Senator BOXER. Well, they would have done that in Fukushima 

Daiichi Plant. As a matter of fact, I was listening to your testimony. It could have been given, that same testimony, by the industry, a day before what occurred. So we are not really talking about 

the fact that, thank the Lord God, we haven’t had a crisis. But I 

will tell you this. The plant in California that just shut down, we 

averted a crisis, because they upgraded the plant and they didn’t 

do it right because they tried to escape the steps they should have 

taken. So, at the end of the day, the regulator is very important. 

Now, you, in the beginning, complained that there are too many 

regulations, so on and so forth. Do you know what the cost is going 

to be to clean up after Fukushima? Do you have that number? 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. I know approximately what each plant here is 

spending to make sure that we don’t have a Fukushima. 

Senator BOXER. No, no, no, no. I didn’t ask you. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. I do not have a good estimate of what they are 

spending. 

Senator BOXER. Well, it is $100 billion, the latest estimate, $100 

billion. 

Now, here you have the Price-Anderson Act, so you would pay 

how much in an accident like that before the taxpayers come in? 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. It depends on what the Congress approves, 

Senator. 

Senator BOXER. Well, the law has a deductible, it is like $13 billion. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. And the Congress can also approve higher levels. 

Senator BOXER. Well, the Congress can, will, won’t. If something 

happens today, God help us, it is $13 billion that you would have 

to pay, not you, the plant; and the rest would be paid by the taxpayers, which is a whole other issue that we are not going to get 

into today. But I am making the point the risks, the financial risks 

that these companies are taking add to my concern because everything is not on the line because of Price-Anderson. It is very rare. 

We don’t have many examples of where an industry is so protected. 

And I just say, and I feel for you because you don’t have my colleagues who would take your point of view, and they are not here 

because they are working hard on other things, but I just have to 

say, from me to you, I think that when you take these safety measures which you say are happening, even though not one of the 12 

recommendations by the NRC staff has been fully implemented, it 

really helps the nuclear industry, it doesn’t hurt the industry, it 
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helps you, because, let me just say, if, God forbid, something happens, whether it is caused by an earthquake or another problem, 

that will be the end of nuclear power here. We don’t want to see 

that; we want safe nuclear power. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. We do too, Senator. 

Senator BOXER. Good. Good. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. And, again, I will meet you at any nuclear 

power plant in the country to review what they have put in place 

since 2011. 

Senator BOXER. It is not necessary. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. To suggest that nothing has been done at 

these sites in response to Fukushima is not appropriate, Senator. 

Senator BOXER. I didn’t say that, sir. Sir, calm down. Calm way 

back down. I am not talking about what industry is doing; I am 

talking about what the NRC has put in place post-Fukushima. And 

you can disagree with it, but you wouldn’t be telling the truth to 

the people because here it is. There were 12 task force recommendations that came in 2011, July. July 2011, July 2012, July 

2013, July 2014. Not one of these is in place. So they have not been 

fully implemented. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Chairman Boxer, the NRC issued orders in 

March 2012, 1 year after the Fukushima event occurred. 

Senator BOXER. Sir, I will call on you in a minute. Here is my 

point. You are not responsible for this, sir. You are not in any way 

responsible for this. I am responsible because I have oversight over 

the NRC. I am making a point here. Fukushima was a huge disaster for the nuclear industry worldwide. I am sure you know that. 

And you also know that if anything were to happen, it would be 

almost a death knell. And we don’t want that. I don’t want that. 

I want safe plants. I want plants that respond to new information 

such as deep earthquakes, longer earthquakes, larger; not by manipulating the shake factor. How ridiculous is that? 

You are sitting next to a scientist. And, by the way, a Republican 

scientist. That is amazing. I am so excited that you are here because we see in the Republicans here, they don’t listen to scientists. 

But you are a Republican scientist and you have told us what they 

have done is irresponsible. 

So I wanted to make that point. 

I am going to talk to Dr. Blakeslee and Mr. Hirsch and thank 

you so much for your testimony. Making sure that a nuclear power 

plant is protected against a severe earthquake requires an understanding of how much the ground will shake, and that is why I was 

so pleased to hear you address that as a scientist, and what will 

happen to the reactor safety systems when they are subjected to an 

earthquake. 

Can you please confirm, to your knowledge, because you may not 

know this, but I am asking you. Can you confirm that NRC has 

thus far always accepted estimates of how strong an earthquake 

might occur at Diablo Canyon that used questionable science to 

minimize the risk, Mr. Hirsch? 

Mr. HIRSCH. That has been the pattern over and over again. 

When the Hosgri was discovered belatedly, 80 percent of the plant 

was already constructed. So rather than require them to upgrade 

it to the shaking that you could get from that earthquake, they al-
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lowed them to use a bunch of fudge factors, four different fudge factors, so that they could, in the end, do almost no retrofitting. Commissioners Galinsky and Bradford on the Commission at the time 

dissented vigorously and said that this was carving out the essential safety margins that were needed. 

What is intriguing is that after the Hosgri was done and they 

created an exception for it, they are now using even less protective 

assumptions now that these new faults have been discovered. And 

that is why I was struck by the difference between the first panel 

and this first. I wasn’t even sure which planet I was on. I was getting all these assurances—— 

Senator BOXER. Well, welcome to my world, Dan. 

Mr. HIRSCH. All these assurances that we are on top of it. But 

what I see by looking at the historic record is that the NRC has 

been wrong every single time on Diablo, and never seems to get 

embarrassed. Every time they claim there is no additional fault 

there is a new one; every time there is a new fault, they say it can’t 

produce more shaking, and then it turns out that it does. 

And what I am most worried about is that you can’t make the 

earthquake go away by changing the input assumptions on a piece 

of paper. Nature isn’t going to cooperate with the fiction. That is 

what happened at Fukushima; the regulator allowed them to build 

the reactor for a fictional earthquake and tsunami much less than 

could occur, and that is what is happening at Diablo and at many 

other plants around the country. 

Senator BOXER. Right. I would say, when you say you thought 

you were on another planet, if you took this question outside of this 

room and we just went up to a person on the street in any town 

near a nuclear power plant, not near a nuclear power plant, and 

you said do you think we should be building a nuclear power plant 

near earthquake faults, they would start laughing and say, you 

mean to say you guys allow that? I mean, that is the biggest nobrainer known to mankind. 

Mr. HIRSCH. And, Senator Boxer, look at the record in California 

for PG&E alone. They built a plant at Humbolt Bay, which now 

has had to be shut down because of the discovery of an earthquake 

fault that they had claimed was inactive. They wanted to build one 

at Bodega Head, and they actually dug the foundation for it, a 

huge hole called Hole in the Head by the locals, and some seismologist crawled into it on a weekend and found a fault in the hole 

right where the reactor was going to go. So that is why there is 

no reactor at Bodega Head. 

So then they turned their attention down to Diablo. 

Senator BOXER. Right. 

I want to call on Dr. Blakeslee here. So let me ask a different 

question, since that one I think was answered. Could you also confirm that ever since the Hosgri fault was first discovered, to your 

knowledge, the NRC has never required PG&E to prove that the 

reactor’s safety systems could withstand such a severe earthquake 

using the conservative safety assumptions that NRC is supposed to 

use? 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. I would say that is accurate, and I would probably go further. The technical methodologies that were employed 

during the licensing process to calculate ground motion from a par-
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ticular earthquake were included in the deliberations of the NRC 

and were part of establishing standards. 

What has transpired over the past years and has accelerated 

during the last 5 years is that with each progressive discovery of 

a new seismic threat, the calculations of shaking from any earthquake has systematically gone down, so that now all these earthquake threats that have been identified are calculated to produce 

more shaking than that worst case to Hosgri. But all of the shaking from all of those scenarios has markedly come down to ensure 

the ability to say that the plant is safe. 

So whereas, previously, the debate was do these earthquake 

faults exist, how large are they, and how close are they to the 

plant, previously, that was the debate. And pursuant to the legislation that Governor Schwarzenegger signed, the research was performed using advanced geophysical methods, that was answered 

definitively, and suddenly the utility has changed its argument to, 

yes, that is fine, they exist. But the methodologies we historically 

used overestimated shaking, so let’s just reduce the shaking from 

all these faults and declare ourselves to be compliant with the license, which is why I feel it is so important to have a rigorous license amendment process. Because if they got it wrong, the consequences would be catastrophic and, yes, for the State of California, yes for the nuclear industry, but, more importantly and, 

frankly, for my family. We live within 10 kilometers of that plant, 

and I brought this, which my daughter gave me, who every night 

sleeps by that plant. And this is not a technical argument, this is 

an argument about safety for the public. 

Senator BOXER. Absolutely. That is what I said to the four commissioners. They have to go back and read why we set them up, 

the NRC. And I want to really compliment you for your work in 

the State legislature, because the facts, the new facts that came to 

light in this earthquake are critical, but it is unbelievable. I am 

trying to find an analogy. There is really none because this is life 

and death. But just take a situation where you had a certain grade 

to get into a university and so many people needed a lower grade 

and they said, well, we are still a great university, but now it is 

55 percent on your test to get in. You just can’t manipulate like 

that. 

This is shocking. This is, in my view, unethical. This is dangerous. And I just hope that what comes out of this today via the 

media, who I hope will hear this point, is that we have new information about these earthquake faults. An inspector came in from 

the NRC and said PG&E is not operating Diablo Canyon in compliance with its license requirements because of these faults, and he 

said the reactor should be shut down until PG&E comes back into 

compliance. 

So I want to ask the three of you a yes or a no, and hope you 

will be able to do that. Do you think that NRC’s decision to allow 

PG&E to study its seismic vulnerabilities for as many as four more 

years before any safety upgrades are required can substitute for 

NRC’s responsibility to ensure that licensees comply with the terms 

of their operating license? In other words, it is kind of a long question. They say you have 4 more years before you have to make any 
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upgrades, as opposed to ensuring that they make them sooner. 

Would you say now or 4 years? 

Mr. HIRSCH. Now. The earthquake may not wait 4 years. 

Senator BOXER. Good point. 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. We are very familiar with paralysis by analysis, 

and the threat now is unequivocally so great as a result of these 

new studies that action is required immediately. 

Senator BOXER. Sir. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. The licensee should be allowed to continue to 

operate because there are measures in place to deal with beyond 

design basis external hazards like seismic or flooding or rain or 

hurricanes. That was the response to Fukushima that the industry, 

as ordered by the NRC in 2012, implemented. 

Senator BOXER. Do you agree with that? 

Mr. HIRSCH. May I respond to that? 

Senator BOXER. Yes, please. 

Mr. HIRSCH. I sat through the licensing hears for Diablo many 

years ago, where the issue of the functioning of the emergency plan 

in an earthquake was raised. The intervener said that the freeway, 

the only way in and out is Highway 101, and the overpasses could 

easily come down in an earthquake, and you have to have a functioning emergency plan according to the law. 

The NRC ruled, and I was stunned. I have never quite seen 

something with so much logic that has been twisted into such a 

pretzel. The NRC ruled that they didn’t need to have an emergency 

plan that would function after an earthquake because it was not 

credible, their term, that there would ever be an earthquake and 

a nuclear accident at Diablo simultaneously. 

Well, no one was ever talking about them being two separate 

events. We are talking about an earthquake that causes an accident and then people can’t get out. And so to say that there are 

good systems for dealing with this if there is a ‘‘beyond design basis 

event,’’ which means something occurs that they didn’t design for, 

really begs the question. That is the whole problem. Fukushima 

wasn’t designed for the earthquake that could occur. 

Senator BOXER. Do you think, doctor, that 4 more years before 

any safety upgrades are required should be permissible at this 

point, knowing what we know? 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. I believe that now that the seismic issues are resolved, the engineering questions should go to the front of the list, 

and this question of the degree to which the facility in fact could 

survive these events, which are now clearly much more robust 

earthquakes than previously envisioned, is critically important to 

address, and I don’t think those questions should be delayed, they 

should be pursued immediately. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Mr. Hirsch, your written testimony describes numerous instances 

in which the NRC used irregular licensing and other processes to 

find a way to allow Diablo to be built and operated. Could you once 

again just summarize that? In other words, there has been a parade of these things over the years, and I know you have done it, 

but if you could summarize all the, if you will, errors in judgment 

the NRC has made leading up to this point. 
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Mr. HIRSCH. One of the best ways of telling whether the five 

commissioners who testified here earlier today really have it under 

control is to empirically look at the track record of how well the 

NRC has done. So let’s look at that record for Diablo. 

They built it claiming there were no earthquake faults that were 

active within 30 kilometers. They said you only have to design the 

facility for a ground motion of .4 G. Then the Hosgri was discovered and they said you don’t have to use the normal assumptions 

for the Hosgri, we will let you use four different fudge factors that 

take the estimated ground motion from 1.15 G, which is what 

USGS said would be the normal figure, and reduced it down to 

something less than .6. They used pencils and erasers to try to 

lower the estimated ground motion, rather than deal with the 

ground motion that was there. 

But then they made an actual finding, the licensing board: that 

it is highly unlikely that there are any more faults that we haven’t 

discovered, and we are absolutely certain that the Hosgri fault is 

not connected to the San Simeon fault, and that there is high quality assurance of how the plant is being built. 

And then the day that the utility people were flying back from 

Washington with their operating license, it was discovered that 

they had put the retrofits in all the wrong places. 

Senator BOXER. Explain what you mean by that, they put them 

in all the wrong places. You mean physically in the plant? 

Mr. HIRSCH. There are two units at Diablo, Unit 1 and Unit 2, 

and they were built to mirror image blueprints of each other. So 

when they got into one unit to put the retrofits in, they used the 

wrong set of blueprints, the ones that were the mirror image of the 

unit they were putting it in. So the pipe snubbers and the whip restraints were put in the wrong places, and they had to go back and 

do it all over again. Complete breakdown in quality assurance, but 

they said, don’t worry, we are fine now, there can’t be any more 

faults. 

Then they found the San Luis Bay and Los Osos were active and 

they said, don’t worry, those can’t cause more ground motion than 

in the license; they can’t cause more than the .4 G. But then Dr. 

Peck went and actually looked at PG&E’s estimates, and they were 

estimating those three new faults, Shoreline, Los Osos, and San 

Luis, were producing from .6 to .7 G. Anyone knows that is a lot 

higher than .4. They were way over the level. 

So now they are doing, as Dr. Blakeslee indicates, the same 

thing; they are sharpening the pencils again and they are saying 

let’s change the assumptions and let’s reduce the safety margins 

further and drive our estimate of the ground motion down further, 

rather than upgrade the plant. 

Look, in real terms, you either fix the problem or you try to use 

your pencil to make it pretend to go away. But nature doesn’t let 

things disappear. It was a 9.0 quake at Fukushima. The plant 

wasn’t built for it. There was a massive tsunami. It wasn’t built for 

it. 

And let me make one last point here. The chart that you showed 

so effectively of the 12 recommendations that haven’t been carried 

out, those are tiny, tiny steps they were supposed to take to deal 

with Fukushima. They are baby steps and they haven’t done them. 
404 

Senator BOXER. Right. 

Mr. HIRSCH. What they haven’t done is even thought about the 

big steps. Reactor containments in this country are not required to 

be designed to withstand a meltdown accident. The evacuation 

plant isn’t required to work in the case of an event that requires 

it. You don’t have to have offsite power that will stay in place long 

enough to keep the fuel cooled over the long periods, as we saw at 

Fukushima. The big problems they aren’t even thinking about and 

the small problems they are not fixing. They are just hoping that 

we get lucky, and that is the problem with earthquakes, it is just 

tossing dice. When will one of those faults move? It is not up to 

the NRC, it is not up to the Nuclear Energy Institute or PG&E. 

Nature is going to decide when that fault moves. And the question 

is is the plant going to be ready for it, and right now it is not. 

One more point. There is 1,000 times the long-lived radioactivity 

of the Hiroshima bomb in each of those reactors. 

Senator BOXER. Say that again. 

Mr. HIRSCH. One thousand times the long-lived radioactivity of 

the Hiroshima bomb is in each of the Diablo reactors, and 10 times 

that in the spent fuel pools. And the only way it stays in place is 

if the cooling isn’t lost. And an earthquake, as we have seen at 

Fukushima, can destroy the cooling. 

And it is not just the 500,000 people within the immediate area. 

You could wipe out, for practical purposes, a substantial portion of 

our State. That radioactivity has to stay inside those domes, and 

the only way that happens is if the reactors are built to withstand 

the worst thing that could happen. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Could I correct Mr. Hirsch for a moment? 

Senator BOXER. Let him finish, then, yes, you can, sir. You can 

have your time to give your perspective on it. 

But please finish. And while you are at it, Mr. Hirsch, do you 

happen to know how many of the rods were permitted for those 

pools and where they were over those rods? 

Mr. HIRSCH. This is again the problem. They built the pools to 

handle only a few fuel rods, and then they kept re-racking and reracking, making them more and more compact. 

So the National Academy of Sciences has indicated that under 

some loss of coolant events you could not only have the fuel in the 

pools lose their cooling, but they could catch fire because the zirconium cladding tends to burn when it gets hot in the presence of 

air. It doesn’t happen for every accident sequence, but it can happen for some. And, as I say, there is 10 times more long-lived radioactivity in the pools than there are in the reactors. 

So you have to prevent there being an event that the systems 

can’t withstand, and I have seen for decades of watching the NRC 

that they basically, at industry urging, create regulatory fictions. 

An example, Governor Brown, when he was Governor the first 

time in California, was an intervener in the Diablo proceeding, and 

his expert said that you needed to have a security plan that could 

protect against 12 attackers. PG&E and NRC said absolutely impossible; there will never be an attack involving more than 3 people 

in the United States; 9/11 was 19. 

So over and over again they have been wrong, and the reason is 

because it is cheaper to pretend that a smaller threat can exist. 
405 

Senator BOXER. Well, it is all follow the money. 

Now, we are talking about cooling down the plant, and I know 

Mr. Pietrangelo is losing his cool, so please. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Nice segue. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Talk to us. Yes. I try to get a little humor into 

this otherwise serious panel. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

When the magnitude 9 earthquake occurred at Fukushima, the 

plant was in the process of safely shutting down on their emergency diesel generators onsite, OK, per design. That earthquake 

was historic and for the first 45 minutes of that event those three 

reactors that were operating at Fukushima Daiichi—— 

Senator BOXER. And what is your point? 

Mr. PIETRANGELO [continuing]. Were shutting down safely. It 

was the tsunami that caused the accident at Fukushima. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. And until we get into the plant—— 

Senator BOXER. It is the earthquake that caused the tsunami. 

That is the reason why you have to build safely, because the earthquake caused the tsunami. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. There is tsunami risk and there is earthquake 

risk, Chairman Boxer. 

Senator BOXER. Yes. But you would agree—— 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. They are not the same. 

Senator BOXER. You would agree that earthquake—— 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. They are not the same. 

Senator BOXER. Excuse me. You would agree that the earthquake 

caused the tsunami in the Fukushima disaster. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Yes, I would. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Doctor, do you have a final thought? 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. Well, I would make one quick observation, that 

although Fukushima is often used as the test case around which 

we hold this conversation, it is not the only earthquake which has 

caused a shutdown of a nuclear power plant. In 2007, Japan had 

an earthquake, a much smaller earthquake, even a relatively modest size earthquake compared to what we are discussing, that hit 

the west coast of Japan and knocked out the largest nuclear power 

plant in the world, the KKPN plant. 

And just by way of scale, and I was serving on the California 

Seismic Safety Commission at the time, so I had access to much 

of the data that was shown that has never seen public purview, 

that this earthquake was only a magnitude 6.6. Let’s put this in 

a context. A 6.6 offshore earthquake. We are talking about a 7.3. 

A 6.6 earthquake located 19 kilometers from this plant knocked it 

out of commission and caused very serious damage and fires. Nineteen kilometers. 

So in terms of energy release, the energy released from that 

earthquake was one-thirtieth the energy that would be released 

from the earthquake we are now discussing, and it was 30 times 

further away, and it knocked out that plant. 

So to argue that it would take a tsunami to take out a nuclear 

power plant is not supported by the facts. 

Senator BOXER. I hear you. 
406 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Yes it is, Sam. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with you on this one. There was no damage to any of the 

safety-related equipment of that plant. 

Senator BOXER. Mr. Pietrangelo, talk to me. Talk to me. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. I am sorry. 

Senator BOXER. Don’t talk to Sam. Talk to me. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Because I tremendously respect him. 

Senator BOXER. I understand you respect him, but talk to me. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. OK. 

Senator BOXER. This is a hearing and I would like you to address 

the Chair. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Please. All right. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. There was a transformer fire at the 

Kashiwazaki Kariwa site, OK? It didn’t knock out the power plant. 

There was no release to the public. There were no safety-related 

structure systems or components that were damaged by that earthquake. 

In fact, let’s go back to the Tohoku earthquake that did cause the 

tsunami at Fukushima. The Onagawa plant is much closer to 

where that plant occurred. There were walk-downs done of the 

Onagawa plant after the Tohoku earthquake and, like Kashiwazaki 

Kariwa, no damage to any safety-related structure systems or components at that plant. So we have actual operating experience for 

beyond design basis earthquakes where no safety-related structures are being damaged. 

I am not trying to say that we don’t study the new information. 

In fact, I think this is to your point, Chairman Boxer, the licensing 

basis of a plant does change over time, and there is new information that is brought to the table that has to be evaluated for its 

safety significance and then acted upon, and there is a process for 

doing that. Mr. Hirsch may not like the process very much, but it 

is a very disciplined process—— 

Senator BOXER. No, I think Mr. Hirsch likes the process; he 

doesn’t like the result. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO [continuing]. That the NRC has and that you 

have oversight over to determine whether new requirements are 

necessary. 

Senator BOXER. I just don’t think you are being fair. There is a 

process and there is the integrity of the process. Those are two different things. You have a process where an inspector said, about 

Diablo, it is in violation of its license; it either needs to be upgraded or the operation has to be suspended until it is upgraded. 

So I don’t think it is fair to say that I don’t like the process. I 

just want a fair process that is not a process that results from too 

cozy a relationship with the industry, because in my mind, and I 

have been around a long time, the industry is better served, as is 

everybody else, when safety of the mission—because look what 

happened after Fukushima; not a good thing for the nuclear industry. It is not good. And you can go through all of the, I never heard 

someone sort of try to minimize earthquakes, but, anyway. 

Dr. Blakeslee, you had some disagreement? 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. I do. I think the parsing of the answer was very 

telling about the safety—— 
407 

Senator BOXER. The parsing of his answer? 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. The parsing of the answer was very telling 

about what was and wasn’t damaged, and he identified certain 

safety elements that were not damaged. But if you actually look at 

the photographs, you can see that the foundation of the nuclear 

power plant settled in a manner that ruptured the water mains 

that were there to provide firefighting capability, and through luck 

that transformer did not extend to produce the kind of worst case 

scenario we saw at Fukushima. 

But let me say they also had a safety building which was designed for just that purpose. So when the teams of operators ran 

to get to the safety building, the earthquake had damaged the door 

so it couldn’t be opened. They could not get into the building to implement their safety procedures that were inside that building. 

And when the local fire department came racing to the site because of the alarm, the earthquake had caused sufficient separation of grade in the road; they could not get to the facility using 

the road. And the nuclear power plant was knocked out of commission for years, or many reactors were. Those are facts. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. They weren’t knocked out by the earthquake, 

Dr. Blakeslee. They were not allowed to operate. 

Mr. BLAKESLEE. I wonder why they weren’t allowed to operate. 

Mr. PIETRANGELO. Right. Again, the roads in the town of 

Kashiwazaki Kariwa are not safety-related. 

Senator BOXER. You know, you two can take this outside. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BOXER. But my interest here, you know, is not in Korea, 

it is about my State and 500,000 people, one of them sitting in 

front of me who is living in a circumstance where, if I don’t do my 

job and NRC doesn’t do its job, there could be a terrible situation. 

Now, if you are conservative, you want to do the conservative 

thing, and it seems to me a pretty straightforward thing. You either suspend operation until you have retrofitted the plant in the 

right way, and fix it and start it up, or that is it. Those are the 

two options. You can either fix up the plant or you can suspend operations. 

So it seems to me that what the NRC has apparently done, 

which is to give them 4 years, and what they are doing to change 

science, which we are kind of used to around here, given people’s 

views of scientists and climate, they pronounce what they want 

about it, but I don’t, I listen to the scientists. 

And I am very suspicious when you tell me that they have 

changed their analysis of how much the plant will shake just to, 

by happenstance, meet the levels that are allowed in the license. 

This is scary. And I don’t want to overstate what I feel because I 

don’t want to impugn people, but I do want to say there is a lot 

at stake here. I have gone through some horrific things in California, including an explosion of a pipeline where people died and 

it turned out there weren’t inspections, there weren’t upgrades. I 

have gone through a traumatic experience with San Onofre where 

they made an upgrade, but it was faulty, and there by for the grace 

of God that place is shut down. And, you know, it is clear to me 

what the options are. 
408 

I just want to say to all three of you, you have been terrific, all 

of you. I think the fact that there was a little give and take that 

way, this way, is always good, and I think that what for me is the 

critical piece here is the safety of that little daughter. That it is, 

that is why I am here. I am not here for any other reason. There 

is no other reason I am here. And I will continue to push hard on 

this. 

But I also want to say to the two of my constituents how important your work is back home. What you did to get the information 

about the new earthquake and Governor Schwarzenegger then 

signing that, congratulations. What if we didn’t know about it? I 

mean, you can only be as good as the information that you have. 

So I want to thank all three of you. This has been a really long 

day for us here to get to this, but I think, when it comes to the 

safety of 500,000 people, if we have to do this again, although I 

must admit I won’t have this anymore, and won’t Mr. Pietrangelo 

be excited when this gavel goes over to my buddy, Jim Inhofe, who 

sees things a bit differently. But you know what? I still have a role, 

a voice, and we will still continue to work together. 

Thank you very much. We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:44 p.m. the committee was adjourned.] 

[An additional statement submitted for the record follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE CRAPO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO

Thank you, Chairman Boxer and Ranking Member Vitter, for holding this hearing 

on NRC’s Implementation of the Fukushima Near-Term Task Force Recommendations and Other Actions to Enhance and Maintain Nuclear Safety. Like many of my 

colleagues on this panel, I am concerned by the majority’s decision to break committee precedent by approving Mr. Baran to serve the remainder of Chairman 

Macfarlane’s term without a proper hearing. Having visited his first nuclear plant 

this summer, Mr. Baran lacks the experience and knowledge necessary to serve as 

a Commission member. I look forward to asking Mr. Baran more about his relevant 

qualifications. 

The Idaho National Laboratory is the world leader in nuclear energy research and 

in the development of safer and more effective commercial technologies. The Lab 

has already embarked on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant program, working to 

incorporate lessons learned from existing facilities and building on recent developments in the field. Congress should ensure the Commission serves as a partner in 

the development of America’s future civilian nuclear energy portfolio. 

Æ