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S. HRG. 109–1027 

OVERSIGHT ON THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR, CLIMATE CHANGE, 

AND NUCLEAR SAFETY 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

MARCH 9, 2006 

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

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://access.gpo.gov/congress.senate 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

LINCOLN CHAFEE, Rhode Island 

LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

ANDREW WHEELER, Majority Staff Director 

KEN CONNOLLY, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND NUCLEAR SAFETY

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

MARCH 9, 2006 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................. 12 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma ................... 7 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia ......................... 4 

Jeffords, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ................... 5 

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

Obama, Hon. Barack, U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois ........................... 9 

Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ...................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Diaz, Nils J., Chairman, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Accompanied 

by: Edward McGaffigan, Jr., Commissioner; Jeffrey S. Merrifield, Commissioner; Gregory B. Jaczko, Commissioner; and Peter B. Lyons, Commissioner ..................................................................................................................... 13 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

Responses to additional questions were not submitted at the time of print. 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Addendum to NRC’s Testimony for March 9, 2006 Oversight Hearing .............. 54 

Report, Details from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the Safety 

Culture Work Environment Special Inspection at Salem and Hope Creek .... 59 

Charts: 

IG’s NRC Culture Survey Results Overall Strengths and Opportunities .... 56 

FY 2006 Technical Staff Hires and Losses ..................................................... 57 

Announced COL Applicants; Data Based on Received Letters as of 

March 7, 2006 ................................................................................................ 58 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT ON THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY 

COMMISSION 

THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2006 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLEAN AIR, CLIMATE CHANGE AND

NUCLEAR SAFETY, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in room 

628, Senate Dirksen Building, Hon. George V. Voinovich (chairman 

of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Voinovich, Inhofe, Isakson, Carper, Jeffords, 

Clinton, Lautenberg, and Obama. 

Senator VOINOVICH. This meeting will come to order. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

I was thinking, on the way over here this morning, that so often 

what we do here in the Senate and what you do in the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission sometimes gets lost in the weeds and we 

don’t look at what the big picture is about. I think it is important 

for us to understand that what you are doing and our oversight 

here is so important to the American people in terms of our fulfilling what I like to refer to as the second declaration of independence, and that is become less reliant on foreign sources of energy. 

I think we all know, that nuclear power produces a great deal 

of energy in this country, and that if we are going to get away from 

the use of natural gas and move toward nuclear power and clean 

coal technology and some of the other things that our ability to do 

that is going to be very, very important to the American people, 

who today are suffering with the highest natural gas costs that we 

have ever had, that are impacting on their respective budgets at 

home, that they are giving up things in order to be able to pay 

their bills. 

This Congress has increased dramatically the LIHEAP program 

because of the fact that these folks are not able to pay their gas 

bills. Businesses in this country that were very successful are being 

negatively impacted and we are losing thousands of jobs here in 

this country as businesses move overseas, because the public 

doesn’t understand that natural gas is part of the feedstock that’s 

so important to them. 

So I think that it is important that we all understand that what 

we are doing is very important and that what you do in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a great deal to do with the future 
2 

of this country, including the environment. Because as we know, 

nuclear energy doesn’t get into the problems that Senator Jeffords 

and I have been talking about for years in terms of emissions from 

NOx, SOx, mercury and the one we have debated a bit, and that 

is greenhouse gases. 

So I am pleased to have all of you here today. I know it is a busy 

week, the NRC’s 18th Annual Regulatory Information Conference 

is being held this week and a bunch of folks are in for it. This hearing continues this committee’s strong oversight of the Commission. 

This is the eighth in a series of oversight hearings that began in 

1998, when Senator Inhofe was chairman of this subcommittee. I 

thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue, as strong oversight of the NRC is critical to the welfare of the American public. 

This is also the third hearing the Committee has held this year 

on the important issue of energy. We held a hearing on natural gas 

prices, and Chairman Inhofe held a hearing last week, and I was 

unfortunately able to attend, on Yucca Mountain, which is a part 

of all of this. The energy challenges that we face today and into the 

future threaten our global competitiveness. I have already talked 

about the impact that this is having on our brothers and sisters 

throughout America. 

Nuclear power provides about 6 percent of the electricity consumed in my State and about 20 percent nationally. It is emission 

free power. By increasing its use we can help meet our energy 

needs, our economic needs and improve the quality of our air. That 

is why this committee spent a great amount of time last year on 

nuclear-related legislation. In addition to holding an oversight 

hearing and a closed hearing on nuclear security, several provisions to provide for the safe and secure growth of nuclear power 

were enacted as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. These include three bills that Chairman Inhofe and I introduced. I will not 

go into the details of it, but you asked for them and we got it done. 

We know that because of the Energy bill’s passage, we understand 

that in the next 2 to 3 years, you are going to have 11 applications 

for the construction of new nuclear power plants in this country. 

In addition to that, the Commission must continue to deal with 

license renewals and increased generation capacity for existing 

plants, something that a lot of folks do not know. They upgrade 

their plants so they can become more efficient and generate more 

electricity. And as your workload increases over the next years, I 

become increasingly concerned about the availability of personnel. 

That is another committee that I chair, oversight of Government 

Management and the Federal Workforce. You have to have the 

right people, with the right skills and knowledge at the right place 

at the right time. If we do not have them, we are in trouble. 

I am particularly interested in hearing from the Commission 

about the folks you have lost and what you are going to do about 

bringing in some new people. I think that as an aside, the Commission’s needs are a prime example of why this Congress should pass 

the PACE legislation, Protecting America’s Competitive Edge, 

which will be a Sputnik-like response, to Sputnik 50 years ago, 

really doing something about math, science and engineering, getting the people we need to get the job done, not only for you, but 
3 

for a lot of other governmental agencies where we don’t have folks 

on board because they are not out there. 

So we are going to focus on overseeing your work, and I appreciate the private meetings that we have had, Chairman Diaz. I look 

forward to hearing what you have to say here this morning, and 

I’d like to then call upon Senator Inhofe for his statement. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Voinovich follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE

STATE OF OHIO

The hearing will come to order. Good morning and thank you all for coming. 

I am pleased to have all five members of the Commission here today. Chairman 

Diaz and Commissioners McGaffigan, Merrifield, Jaczko, and Lyons—welcome. We 

appreciate all of you taking time out of your busy schedules to be here this morning 

especially since NRC’s 18th Annual Regulatory Information Conference is being held 

this week. 

Today’s hearing continues this committee’s strong oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This is the eighth in a series of oversight hearings that began 

in 1998 when Senator Inhofe was chairman of this subcommittee. I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue, as strong oversight of the NRC is critical to 

the welfare of the American public. 

This is also the third hearing that the committee has held this year on the important issue of energy. I held a hearing on natural gas prices, and Chairman Inhofe 

held a hearing last week that I was unfortunately unable to attend on Yucca Mountain. The energy challenges that we face today and into the future threaten our 

global competitiveness. High natural gas prices are having a devastating impact on 

our constituents across the country, and we need to do everything we can to bring 

these costs down. I am calling for a ‘‘Second Declaration of Independence’’ to make 

us less dependent on foreign sources of energy, and nuclear power plays an integral 

role in fulfilling our declaration. 

Nuclear power provides about 6 percent of the electricity consumed in my State 

and about 20 percent nationally. It is emission free power, and by increasing its use, 

we can help meet our energy needs, be less reliant on natural gas, and improve the 

quality of our air. 

That is why this committee spent a considerable amount of time last year on nuclear related legislation, in addition to holding an oversight hearing and a closed 

hearing on nuclear security. Several provisions to provide for the safe and secure 

growth of nuclear power were enacted as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. 

These include three bills that Chairman Inhofe and I introduced: Nuclear Safety 

and Security Act (S.864), Price-Anderson Amendments Act (S.865), and Nuclear 

Fees Reauthorization Act (S.858). We were also able to secure $41 million above the 

President’s request for the NRC through FY 2006 appropriations for security and 

human capital activities. 

The bottom line is that we have provided every legislative and funding provision 

that NRC requested and more. All of these provisions have led the Commission to 

project that they will receive applications for 11 or more new plants in the next 2 

to 3 years. This is a huge challenge for an Agency that has not seen this type of 

major licensing actions in the last 25 years or so. 

In addition to new reactors, the Commission must continue to deal with license 

renewals and increased generation capacity for existing plants, security assessments 

and regulations, licensing Yucca Mountain, and the day-to-day regulatory activities 

for the Nation’s 103 operating plants. As the Commission’s workload increases over 

the next few years, I have become increasingly concerned about the availability of 

qualified personnel especially when a significant number of experienced employees 

will be lost due to retirement. 

I am particularly interested in hearing from the Commission about the number 

of employees they have lost over the past few years and their retirement situation 

today. I understand that the NRC has a goal of hiring 350 people annually for the 

next several years, and I would like to know how the new Human Capital Provisions that we recently passed are being utilized in this effort. 

As an aside, the Commission’s needs are a prime example of why Congress must 

pass the Protecting America’s Competitive Edge through Energy Act of 2006 

(S.2197). This legislation is aimed at implementing the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences report, ‘‘Rising Above the Gathering Storm’’— which focuses on improving our Nation’s competitiveness by increasing our Nation’s research 
4 

capacity, emphasizing math and science education, and producing more scientists 

and engineers. 

Our subcommittee will focus even more this year on overseeing the NRC due to 

the important role they play in our nation’s energy future and their increased workload and resource constraints. I look forward to hearing from the Commissioners 

and spending some quality time this morning fully exploring these important issues. 

We invited only the Commissioners for today’s hearing to accommodate the subcommittee’s examination of the Commission’s progress on a full spectrum of areas. 

I anticipate that there will be at least one more NRC oversight hearing this year 

that will include other witnesses. At the next hearing, I am specifically interested 

in getting a status report on all of the issues that we discuss today. 

Notwithstanding some of their high profile activities, NRC and the industry must 

keep safety at the center of all that they do. Ensuring safety and security of our 

nuclear power plants is absolutely essential if we are to continue and hopefully increase our nation’s use of nuclear energy, which I believe is essential to meeting our 

environmental, energy, and economic needs. 

Thank you. 

Senator INHOFE. I would defer to Senator Isakson. He has a timing problem and I do not. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

Chairman of the Subcommittee, Senator Voinovich, I want to thank 

you for the attention both of you have placed on affordable energy 

and our needs in the 21st century. Chairman Diaz, I welcome you 

and the members of the Commission here today. 

As you gentlemen are probably aware, my State is served by 

Plant Vogel, operated by the Southern Company. That facility was 

built during a time that I was in the Georgia legislature, and on 

the industry committee that oversaw public utilities and electric 

utility legislation. For the better part of two decades, it has provided Georgia with safe, affordable, reliable energy. Because of my 

experience with it, I am a big supporter of nuclear energy, and I 

am delighted that we are on the cusp of expanding nuclear energy 

and availability in the United States. 

My State is also served by the TVA’s Plant Bellefonte, which is 

in the State of Alabama, but TVA serves 10 of the northern counties in the State of Georgia. Both TVA and Southern Company 

have estimated by 2015 that their baseline requirements will increase tremendously, and both are pursuing licensing for additional 

reactors at those two facilities. 

Which brings me to my point: I cannot stress enough the importance for the NRC to effectively staff itself to handle the upcoming 

permitting process. We have been in a rather dormant situation for 

a while in this country, but that is not going to be the case now. 

As I understand it, the NRC has gotten a significant increase in 

its budget, and we wait to make sure that you are doing everything 

you can to upgrade the staffing to deal with these additional demands. If you are slow out of the gate, it could suppress what is 

one of the most important needs we have in this country, to have 

safe, reliable nuclear energy. If you need help, call us, but do not 

be slow out of the gate. 

There is another issue which has come to my attention. I am 

going to have to leave, because I am going to be required to cast 

a vote here in a few minutes in another committee. But I hope 

someone on the Commission during the course of your testimony 
5 

will address the issue of potassium iodine. It is my understanding 

that HHS has made a recommendation to expand the stockpiling 

of potassium iodine beyond what is currently now the limit, which 

is a 5 mile radius around a nuclear facility. They are recommending something in the order of a doubling of that. 

I am not aware of the reasons for that nor the scientific information or data that they have that backs that up. But I would certainly like someone on the board to address that subject during the 

course of this hearing for the record. 

I want to repeat again my deep appreciation to Chairman Inhofe 

and Subcommittee Chairman Voinovich for all the work that they 

are doing on nuclear energy. I particularly look forward to working 

with you gentlemen in the years ahead, as we have a second dawning of the nuclear energy era in the United States of America, and 

produce reliable, effective and efficient and affordable energy for 

the people of our country. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Isakson follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for calling this oversight hearing. 

In the interest of time I will be brief as I have another hearing to attend as well, 

except to say the following. 

As you know in Georgia we have the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, located 

near Waynesboro in eastern Georgia near the South Carolina border. I’m also sure 

you know that both Southern Company and the TVA, who both estimate they will 

need additional baseload power supplies by 2015, are looking at adding reactors at 

Vogtle, which is operated by Southern, and at Bellefonte which also serves my constituents and is jointly operated by TVA and Southern. 

Which brings me to my point. I can not stress enough the need for the NRC to 

efficiently staff itself to handle the upcoming permitting processes. As I understand, 

the NRC has gotten a significant increase in its budget, and we want to make sure 

you are doing everything you can to ensure that you have enough staff and resources to handle the workload. If the NRC is slow out of the gate on these permits, 

it could have a negative effect on this growth. Let us know if you have everything 

that you need. We can help if you don’t, but you need to reassure us one way or 

the other. 

One other issue I would like someone to address during the course of this hearing, 

and I am sorry I won’t be around to ask the question, is the issue surrounding an 

HHS rule regarding the stockpiling of potassium iodine in communities within a certain radius of a nuclear power plant. As I understand it HHS is proposing that radius be increased, I believe from 5 miles to 10 miles. I would like to hear from the 

witnesses here whether the NRC believes that is a necessary change. I’ll be looking 

forward to reading that in the record from this hearing. 

Thank you again Mr. Chairman. I’m sorry I won’t be able to stay longer through 

the hearing, but will look forward to reading the transcript. 

I yield back. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Jeffords. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. JEFFORDS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Senator JEFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Today’s hearing continues our ongoing oversight of the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission. Chairman Voinovich, you and Ranking 

Member Carper deserve credit for continuing the commitment to 

hold these hearings regularly in order to review the NRC’s activities. I appreciate that all the Commissioners have made an effort 

to be here with us today. Thank you for doing that. 
6 

While we intend to hold several other nuclear hearings this Congress, this may be my last opportunity as Ranking Member to address all the Commissioners as a group. During my time as both 

chairman and ranking member, I have followed your careers. I 

have supported your confirmations. Some of you, your first term, 

some second and one of you, an unprecedented third term. Four of 

you, you know the Senate well, having served as former staffers. 

In fact, three of you served as staffers for this very committee. 

I know you all to be dedicated public servants and I want to take 

this opportunity to thank you for your service to our country. Your 

job is not easy. It takes you away from family and friends and involves an area of great responsibility: regulating the Nation’s civilian use of nuclear materials. 

I believe the mission you carry out is one of the most vital roles 

of Federal Government, ensuring adequate protection of public 

health and safety while nuclear materials are used to produce 

power and are disposed of is a critically important job. 

In light of the NRC’s mission, I want to share my views on a few 

issues with you. The NRC has no greater responsibility than safety. 

I want the people of Vermont and across the country to be safe, 

and it is NRC’s job to ensure that that happens. 

As much as it seems that the Commission and the nuclear industry may be planning for an anticipated ‘‘nuclear renaissance’’ with 

new plants, we must maintain continued oversight over existing 

plants. I make this point because I am concerned that we may lose 

track of how dependent we are on existing and aging nuclear 

plants. 

The real ‘‘nuclear renaissance’’ has been in our efforts to extend 

the lives of existing plants by boosting their power output and extending the terms of their licenses. We have not built any new 

plants. Revitalizing old plants is where we have truly grown our 

reliance upon nuclear power in the last few years. The dependence 

will only grow in the near future. 

I urge you to maintain the NRC’s focus in ensuring these plants 

continue to operate safely, even as we are asking them to fulfill 

more of our Nation’s energy demand. 

I also feel that the NRC needs to redouble its efforts to work 

with the public, to shore up the public confidence in your regulatory efforts. I continue to hear from ordinary constituents that 

the NRC regulatory processes are too complex, too closed, too tentacled, that they stifle rather than promote public participation. For 

people to embrace future use of nuclear technology, they must feel 

that they are being heard by the Agency. 

Again, I thank Chairman Diaz and the rest of the Commissioners 

for being here to discuss these issues. I look forward to their testimony and to working with my colleagues. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Jeffords follows:] 

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

STATE OF VERMONT

Thank you Mr. Chairman. Today’s hearing continues our ongoing oversight of the 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Chairman Voinovich, you and Ranking 

Member Carper deserve credit for continuing the commitment to hold these hearings regularly in order to review the NRC’s activities. 
7 

I appreciate that all the Commissioners have made the effort to be with us today. 

While we intend to hold several other nuclear hearings this Congress, this may be 

my last opportunity as Ranking Member to address all of the Commissioners as a 

group. 

During my time as both chairman and ranking member, I have followed your careers. I have supported your confirmations, some of you to your first term, some to 

a second, and one of you to an unprecedented third term. Four of you know the Senate well, having served as former Senate staffers. In fact, three of you served as 

staffers for this very committee. I know you all to be dedicated public servants, and 

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your service to our country. Your 

job is not easy, it takes you away from family and friends, and it involves an area 

of great responsibility-regulating the Nation’s civilian use of nuclear materials. 

I believe the mission you carry out is one of the most vital roles of the Federal 

Government. Ensuring adequate protection of public health and safety when nuclear 

materials are used to produce power and are disposed of is a critically important 

job. 

In light of the NRC’s mission, I want to share my views on a few issues with you. 

The NRC has no greater responsibility than safety. I want the people of Vermont 

and across the country to be safe and it is the NRC’s job to ensure that happens. 

And much as it seems that the Commission and the nuclear industry may be planning for and anticipating a ‘‘nuclear renaissance’’ with new plants, we must maintain continued oversight over existing plants. 

I make this point because I am concerned that we may lose track of how dependent we are upon existing and aging nuclear plants. The real ‘‘nuclear renaissance’’ 

has been in our efforts to extend the lives of our existing plants by boosting their 

power output and extending the terms of their licenses. We haven’t built any new 

plants. Revitalizing old plants is where we’ve truly grown our reliance upon nuclear 

power in the last few years. That dependence will only grow in the near future. I 

urge you to maintain the NRC’s focus on ensuring these plants continue to operate 

safely even as we are asking them to fill more of our Nation’s energy demand. 

I also feel the NRC needs to redouble its efforts to work with the public, and to 

shore up public confidence in your regulatory efforts. I continue to hear from ordinary constituents that the NRC regulatory processes are too complex, too closed, too 

technical, and that they stifle, rather than promote, public participation. For people 

to embrace future use of nuclear technology, they must feel they are being heard 

by the Agency. 

Again, I thank Chairman Diaz and the rest of the Commissioners for coming here 

to discuss these issues. I look forward to their testimony and to working with my 

colleagues. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Inhofe. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, you have 

already commented on so many things I was going to mention, the 

three pieces of legislation that you folks were good enough to get 

through, and some of the accomplishments. 

You also mentioned the necessity for Yucca Mountain. It concerns me a little bit. We had a hearing last week and there are a 

lot of people who are trying to look at this reprocessing as something in lieu of this permanent site. Let there be no doubt in your 

minds that this committee is very strongly saying, we are going to 

get that thing up and running. We have to have Yucca Mountain, 

we have gone through the process, we are there. There shouldn’t 

be any doubt in the minds of any of the Commissioners. 

I am pleased with the progress we have made. There are some 

things I think we have not quite lived up to. If you will remember, 

back in 1998 when I held the chairmanship of this subcommittee, 

the same as Senator Voinovich is holding now, we actually had 

goals and deadlines and we got things done and got things up and 
8 

moving. There had not been an oversight hearing in 12 years at 

that time. 

So we have a lot of things that need to be—now I understand 

that only one major regulatory change incorporating risk has been 

completed, which was the Part 50.69 special treatment rule, which 

the NRC began in 1999 and did not complete until 2004. I am 

going to ask some questions, when it comes time for questions, 

about why this is taking so long and what we can do to improve 

this type of thing. 

Another area of concern has been the recent attention to the concept of potentially regulating safety culture. I do agree on a prominence of safety and that the end result must be safer facilities. I 

am greatly concerned that the methods to achieve this buzz word 

might distract the NRC from implementing risk informed decisions. 

A simply dictionary definition of the word culture means a set of 

shared attitudes, values, goals and practices that characterize a 

company or corporation. My concern is that you cannot regulate attitudes and values. If the NRC attempts this, you will end up ignoring real risk and safety issues. 

I understand that the definition the NRC is using includes the 

word attitude in determining whether the facility is safe for a culture. I am very wary of this effort. 

In the 1980’s and the 1990’s, we saw the NRC inspectors regulating in kind of a bean counting mentality where the violations 

centered more on measurable items, such as having the operating 

manuals in certain colored binders, instead of focusing on real risk 

issues. I am concerned that if the NRC charges its employees with 

examining attitudes and values, we may actually move backwards 

on the progress we have already made. 

So while I am sure that the current slate of Commissioners is not 

going to let this happen, let’s keep in mind, we do not know what 

is going to happen down the road 5 years from now, 10 years from 

now. Very likely some of you or maybe none of you will be here as 

Commissioners, and very likely many of us at this end of the table 

will not be here. So we want to set this up for the future, so that 

we know that the progress we have made is going to continue on 

into the future. 

So we will be here to pay a lot of attention to this. I agree with 

Senator Voinovich, the second most serious problem facing America 

today is the energy crisis. I think we are going to have to address 

it. You cannot address it without becoming aggressive in nuclear 

energy. I think each one of you agrees with that. 

So we need to move, we need to stop all the traditional barriers 

that are out there and get this thing done in a timely manner. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

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

I first want to thank Chairman Voinovich for holding this oversight hearing and 

for his continued commitment to strong oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

We have made a lot of progress since our first Oversight hearing in 1998, when 

I was the subcommittee chairman. The NRC’s relicensing reviews are being completed within 2 years, the NRC has moved to a risk-informed reactor oversight process, and we have safely added additional electric generating capacity through power 

uprates. The total energy added through these uprates are equivalent to four nu-
9 

clear plants. The NRC has also done a tremendous job in responding to security 

issues following the attacks of September 11. We all worked hard to craft a good 

nuclear security law and I want to ensure that law is implemented in the spirit in 

which it was crafted. These changes were necessary, yet reasonable—so I expect the 

NRC to implement security requirements in a manner that takes into account that 

‘‘necessary and reasonable’’ standard. 

I want to thank the Commission, and the Commission staff, for the work they 

have done, and equally important, the work you are about to do. 

I commend the efforts of this committee for passing three pieces of legislation that 

I authored with Chairman Voinovich in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to provide 

for the safe and secure growth of nuclear power. These provisions—NRC reforms, 

security, liability insurance, and human capital—combined with the Energy bill’s 

sections on risk insurance, production tax credits, and loan guarantees provide the 

foundation for the construction of new nuclear plants. 

You are faced with the continuing relicensing of the existing reactors, you are still 

implementing new security requirements, you have a new reactor license process to 

deal with, and of course there is still Yucca Mountain which we have to get up and 

running as soon as possible. In addition, we can not lose sight of the accomplishments that have been made over the last few years, and we can’t afford to move 

backwards on the progress made. 

Make no mistake, I am very pleased with the progress that we have made under 

the leadership of this commission—you are to be congratulated. But part of that success is due to us identifying issues of concern as they come up, and to that end I 

do have a few issues that I would like discuss. 

While I appreciate the efforts the NRC has made on moving to a risk-informed 

oversight process, particularly in regards to inspections, I am troubled by the length 

of time it is taking to get new regulations through the process, and I am concerned 

about how those regulations are not incorporating risk. 

I understand that only one major regulatory change incorporating risk has been 

completed, which was the Part 50.69 Special Treatment rule which the NRC began 

in 1999 and didn’t complete until 2004. Other risk related rule making efforts begun 

in 1999 such as Part 52 for design certifications and Part 50.46a have yet to be completed. In addition, we have heard concerns that some of these proposals have 

moved further away from risk-based concerns than where they started. 

Another area of concern is the recent attention to the concept of potentially regulating ‘‘safety culture.’’ While I agree on the prominence of safety, and that the end 

result must be safer facilities, I am greatly concerned that the methods to achieve 

this buzzword might distract the NRC from implementing risk-informed decisions. 

A simple dictionary definition of the word culture means ‘‘a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize a company or corporation.’’ My 

concern is that you can not regulate ‘‘attitudes and values,’’ and if the NRC attempts this you will end up ignoring real risk and safety issues. I understand that 

the definition the NRC is using includes the word attitude in determining whether 

a facility has a safety culture. I am very wary of this effort. 

In the 80’s and 90’s we saw the NRC inspectors regulating in a bean-counting 

mentality where the violations centered more on measurable items such as having 

the operating manuals in certain colored binders instead of focusing on real risk 

issues. I am concerned that if the NRC charges its employees with examining attitudes and values, we may actually move backwards on the progress made. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator Obama. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARACK OBAMA, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Senator OBAMA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding this hearing today and your leadership on this 

issue. I appreciate the witnesses appearing before the subcommittee and look forward to hearing their testimony. 

As my colleagues know, nuclear power provides more than 50 

percent of the electricity needs in Illinois. We have 6 plants, 11 reactors, more than any other State in the country. I have said previously before this committee, to the chairman of EPW as well as 

the chairman of this subcommittee, that as our energy consumption 

continues to increase in the coming years, we are going to need to 
10 

meet this challenge. We are going to have to determine how best 

to meet it without jeopardizing the environment. 

As Congress considers policies to address air quality and the 

harmful effects of carbon emissions on the global ecosystem, I believe that nuclear power should not be omitted from the discussion. 

I think in our overall energy mix, nuclear power is going to be a 

critical component. I would like to see us develop a safe, clean, expanded nuclear capacity that allows us to deal with some of the 

other environmental challenges that we have. 

However, as the NRC knows, the viability of nuclear power, particularly expanding nuclear power to meet additional energy needs, 

is going to rest in large part on the public having full confidence 

in the health and safety precautions taken at these facilities. When 

events occur that surprise the public, even if the potential risks are 

within Federal health and safety standards, it is understandable 

that people are skeptical and concerned about nuclear power. 

In Illinois, we have recently had an example of this difficulty. 

Two months ago, it was announced by Exelon Nuclear that over 

the past 6 to 8 years, there have been several accidental leaks of 

tritiated water at the Braidwood, IL plant. It is estimated that 

each leak resulted in the discharge of approximately 3 million gallons of tritium into the surrounding groundwater. 

I was troubled to learn that community residents, particularly 

State and local officials responsible for the safety and health of 

their constituents, did not receive full or immediate notification of 

this contamination, either from Exelon or the NRC. I think that’s 

wrong. Our constituents deserve to be notified immediately and 

comprehensively when substances of concern are released into the 

groundwater. That is why I introduced a bill to require nuclear 

companies to inform not just the NRC but also State and local officials if there is an accidental or unintentional leak of a radioactive 

substance. 

Mr. Chairman, I think this is a simple, common sense bill. It is 

good for public safety, it is good for the public’s right to know. Ultimately, I think it is going to be good for the nuclear power industry. I think the more we know about nuclear power, the better the 

public is informed, the better you are going to be able to do your 

jobs, and the better we are going to be able to expand, potentially, 

the use of nuclear power to meet our energy needs. 

So I am looking forward to getting the views of the witnesses on 

this bill, as well as other issues facing the industry. Thank you 

very much, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Obama follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BARACK OBAMA, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing today. I appreciate the witnesses appearing before the subcommittee, and I look forward to hearing their testimony. 

As my colleagues know, nuclear power provides more than 50 percent of the electricity needs of Illinois. We have 6 plants and 11 reactors—more than any other 

State in the country. 

I have said previously before this committee, as our energy consumption continues 

to increase in the coming years, we will be challenged in how best to meet this demand without jeopardizing the environment. As Congress considers policies to address air quality and the harmful effects of carbon emissions on the global ecosystem, nuclear power should not be omitted from the discussion. 
11 

However, as the NRC knows, the viability of nuclear power rests in large part on 

the public having full confidence in the health and safety precautions taken at these 

facilities. When events occur that surprise the public, even if the potential risks are 

within Federal health and safety standards, it’s understandable that people are 

skeptical and concerned about nuclear power. 

In Illinois, we’ve had a very real example of this recently. Two months ago, it was 

announced by Exelon Nuclear that over the past 6 to 8 years, there have been several accidental leaks of tritiated water at the Braidwood, IL plant. It’s estimated 

that each leak resulted in the discharge of approximately 3 million gallons of 

tritiated water into the surrounding groundwater. 

I was troubled to learn that community residents, particularly the State and local 

officials responsible for the safety and health of their constituents, did not receive 

full or immediate notification of this contamination—either from Exelon, or the 

NRC. 

I think that’s wrong. Our constituents deserve to be notified immediately and 

comprehensively when substances of concern are released into the groundwater. 

That’s why I introduced a bill to require nuclear companies to inform not just the 

NRC, but also State and local officials if there is an accidental or unintentional leak 

of a radioactive substance. 

This is a simple common-sense bill. It’s good for public safety, it’s good for the 

public’s right to know, and it’s ultimately good for the nuclear power industry. I look 

forward to getting the witnesses’ views on this bill, as well as other issues facing 

the industry. 

I thank the Chair. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Obama. 

Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I give my commendation to the chairman of the committee and 

yourself, for getting us onto this subject. We have been introduced 

to thoughts about nuclear energy by gas prices, by the politics of 

oil, by prospective shortages. So we know that we have to find alternative sources for energy creation. That includes research, hybrids, you name it. It certainly includes nuclear energy, as a distinct possibility. The work of the NRC could not be more important. 

The stakes could not be higher. 

Nuclear energy has enormous opportunities for our society. Electricity can be generated, it is believed, without contributing to global warming or the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. 

Now, my State, New Jersey, has four nuclear reactors. They provide more than half of the electricity that we use. But as we weigh 

the benefits of nuclear power, we must also be realistic about the 

potential problems. When we look at nuclear power, safety is always the first thing that pops into people’s minds. The Oyster 

Creek in New Jersey is the oldest operating nuclear facility in the 

entire Nation. It came online in 1969. It was planned to last 40 

years. The current license expires in 2009 and the NRC is now in 

the process of determining whether it should be relicensed for another 20 years, which would take it until 2029. 

As the oldest nuclear facility, Oyster Creek must have special attention. The people who live near Oyster Creek are justifiably worried. They also know that the NRC has never denied a license extension for a commercial reactor. But they want to make sure, and 

so do I, that this review process is not a rubber stamp. 

Now, I wrote in a February 21st letter to Chairman Diaz that my 

top priority in the process is ensuring the safety of the surrounding 
12 

communities and the workers at Oyster Creek. After I sent that 

letter, I was pleased that the judges of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board granted a hearing to determine whether the steel radiation barrier at Oyster Creek has been compromised by rust. 

Other issues also have to be addressed in our four other public 

hearings, including now the vulnerability of the site to a terrorist 

attack and backup power to cool the reactor. This is not only my 

opinion, it’s the opinion of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. 

So I hope the NRC is going to exercise its prerogative to ensure 

that all of these issues get a full and open hearing. If the NRC expects the citizens near Oyster Creek to accept a final ruling as a 

result of a fair and open process, it can’t rush to judgment. You 

must allow everyone an opportunity to air their concerns. 

Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I would like to find out is 

whether or not the NRC will engage in a field hearing to make 

sure that there is an exchange of information between the NRC 

and the nearby residents and public. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. 

I will now call on our ranking member, Senator Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Commissioners, welcome. I am delighted to see all of you. I have 

been looking forward to this hearing. I hope you have as well. 

I think it is fair to say that a renaissance in nuclear energy, nuclear power, is underway in this country. I welcome that. Today I 

understand that there are nine companies or groups of companies 

that are developing applications for new nuclear power plants with 

the intention of filing those applications with you in the next year 

or two. 

In addition, as Senator Lautenberg and others have suggested, 

many of the current nuclear plants throughout our country renewed their license to continue to operate, and we expect the rest 

of the current fleet to apply for renewal very soon. 

Although the Department of Energy continues to push back its 

time line, we can assume that in the near future they will apply 

for a license to operate a nuclear waste repository as well. The future of the nuclear industry literally begins, though, and ends with 

you, with the Commission. Your responsibility is a big one, and I 

believe it is one that the Commission manages quite well. 

I am a believer, as you have heard me say before, in nuclear 

power. I am heartened by its resurgence. I am ever mindful of the 

need to ensure that the operations, that we be vigilant and that we 

make sure that the operations are conducted as safely as is humanly possible and then some. 

Energy prices continue to drag down our economy. Our dependence on foreign oil for energy continues to be a major concern, I 

think for all of us. I think nuclear energy is an answer, not the 

only answer, but an answer to both of those concerns. It is important that the Commission perform your duties and have the re-
13 

sources that you need to perform them promptly and with a high 

degree of excellence. 

I would also say, I have not heard all the opening statements 

here this morning, but as Tip O’Neill used to say, all politics is 

local. Just as Senator Lautenberg mentioned Oyster Creek, we 

have three nuclear plants right across the river from Delaware. 

When I was Governor of Delaware, I used to say that they are closer to me than they were to the Governor of New Jersey. 

So we are always concerned about how well those facilities are 

operated, and I am going to be talking with you and asking you 

some questions about how we are doing over there, how they are 

doing over there, now that Exelon is involved in the operation of 

those facilities, not only in terms of operating performance, but 

what is the, if you will, the commitment to safety, the mind set, 

how is that changing and what are your views of that. 

The other thing I want to talk about is just to get an update, and 

you will probably address this in your comments. I would like to 

get an update on nuclear waste. The President has proposed, I 

think in his State of the Union messages, some different approaches on nuclear waste. I would like to hear your take on that 

and an update on what’s going on out in Yucca Mountain and also 

what you make of the President’s proposals. 

With that having been said, again, we are delighted that you are 

here. We look forward to your testimony. Thank you so much for 

joining us. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Since all my colleagues have mentioned their favorite nuclear facilities—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator VOINOVICH. I guess I am remiss in not mentioning 

Davis-Besse and Perry Nuclear. I have spoken so much about that 

to the Commissioner members and the chairman that it is redundant. But publicly, the beginning of the whole issue in terms of the 

work of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in terms of looking at 

safety concerns, really was generated by the situation that we had 

at Davis-Besse. 

To Messrs. Jaczko, McGaffigan, Merrifield, Lyons, thank you for 

being here. We gave all of you a chance to speak for 2 minutes and 

you decided that you would let the chairman take the heat this 

morning. Because of that, Chairman Diaz, we would like to hear 

from you. If you can limit your comments to 10 minutes, we would 

be most grateful. 

STATEMENT OF NILS J. DIAZ, CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ACCOMPANIED BY: EDWARD 

McGAFFIGAN, JR., COMMISSIONER; JEFFREY S. 

MERRIFIELD, COMMISSIONER; GREGORY B. JACZKO, COMMISSIONER; AND PETER B. LYONS, COMMISSIONER 

Mr. DIAZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I certainly 

would limit my comments to 10 minutes. It is a pleasure to be here 

again and to appear before you with my fellow Commissioners to 

discuss the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s programs. I request 

that my written testimony on behalf of the Commission be submitted for the record. 
14 

The NRC continues to discharge our responsibilities for licensing 

and regulating civilian nuclear facilities and materials in accordance with the congressional mandate in an open, balanced, risk-informed and ever more effective manner. Safety is our mission. Safety, security and emergency preparedness and reliability are synergistically improving. 

More than one-third of the United States’ power reactor fleet has 

applied for and received, after rigorous review, 20-year extensions 

of their licenses. Risk-informed and performance-based regulation 

is now ingrained in the Agency’s and the industry’s operation of 

plants. A safety and security framework for reactors and materials 

is in place, is being tested and is being improved commensurate 

with the post 9/11 threat and potential consequences. 

The Agency’s research programs have been focused on the Agency’s defined needs, integrated with operational safety and licensing 

priorities, leveraging resources and expertise with international 

partners. Research is providing sound technical leadership and results with a foothold in the future. Our many international obligations are executed well. Our leadership is now apparent and our 

comparative efforts continue to span and serve our Nation and our 

international partnerships. 

Our fiscal affairs are in order. Our financial needs have been 

supported by the Congress, and we continue to manage and 

prioritize resources including our human resource needs, investing 

in the present and the near future while exercising appropriate fiscal restraint. 

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, the Commission and the staff 

have a lot of work to do. We need to do that work well and we need 

to do it timely. 

The NRC continues its vigilant and strong safety focus on operating nuclear power plants. We will not lose that focus. We have 

continued to make improvements in the licensing and regulatory 

processes with significant resources. For example, over the past 

year, as the chairman mentioned, we have renewed nine licenses 

at five sites and issued six power upgrades. On the regulatory oversight front, we continue to exercise strong oversight of nuclear 

power plants as we refine our risk-informed process for inspecting 

and for assessing licensee performance. 

The reactor oversight process has matured and improved. But it 

is still a work in progress. 

The committee, and particular Senator Voinovich, has been 

strong proponents of improving safety culture in the right manner. 

The Commission is fully addressing this issue, and we are addressing it with a focus on how we can support the licensees, how we 

can improve and how we can exercise oversight over the licensees’ 

safety culture but not measure attitudes. We are not going to 

measure attitudes. 

The NRC realizes the need for nuclear power plants to maintain 

a strong safety culture and the requisite safety-conscious work environment. We have been working on this issue both to ensure appropriate oversight of safety culture and to ensure we have a 

healthy safety culture at the NRC itself. The NRC has been working with stakeholders to further improve the tools we have to assess safety cultures at nuclear power plants, and is working to 
15 

complete additional changes to the reactor oversight process to address this issue, including the use of independent assessments, if 

necessary. 

We have also been working on improving the safety culture and 

climate of the Agency’s work force. In 2005, the Inspector General 

conducted a survey of NRC employees to assess the current safety 

culture and climate of the Agency work force. The NRC safety culture and work climate, Mr. Chairman, has improved significantly 

in virtually every area since 2002, as reflected in the charts that 

we have displayed and that is included in the testimony. Having 

said that, the survey also revealed areas of opportunity for continued improvement. 

[The referenced chart can be found on page 56.] 

Today, Mr. Chairman, we are being asked to be ready to license 

new reactors to meet the energy needs of the Nation. In fact, the 

number of projected new plant license applications has more than 

tripled since this time last year, and it continues to increase. We 

presently have received intentions for 11 combined construction 

and operating license applications encompassing 17 units. Those 

poses a serious challenge to our licensing and new construction inspection capabilities. 

We anticipate the need to conduct simultaneous reviews of multiple new plant license applications, design certifications and early 

site permit applications, all of them bunched in a small period of 

time. Having said that, we will not be distracted. We will maintain 

strong oversight activities to ensure the safety and security of the 

operating plants. We are preparing for this with a new work structure. 

In order to allow for efficient parallel review of applications, the 

staff is considering a number of steps and is planning to implement 

a design center approach which would use a single technical evaluation to support review of multiple combined license applications 

for each vendor design, meaning that for AP1000, you will have one 

type of design that will be focused only on the AP1000, how it is 

used from one applicant to the other. The same thing for the 

ESBWR and the EPR. In the same technical areas where possible, 

we will actually use the same review. 

In this regard, we are continuing to assess our personnel and 

work space needs in light of the very substantial increase in the 

number of anticipated new plant license applications. We might 

need the support of the committee in some of these areas. 

Mr. Chairman, we know we are accountable to the Congress and 

to the people of this country. Throughout the Agency, we perform 

our work under that premise. We have structured the Agency to be 

true to our strategic objective. We accept and discharge our responsibilities to contribute to the well-being of our people by protecting 

the public, the environment and our Nation’s security. We understand the challenges we face in the new reactor licensing and 

human capital areas, and will continue to work with the committee 

as we move forward. With your continued support, we will be ready 

to carry out our responsibilities. 

We will be pleased, sir, to answer your questions. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Chairman Diaz. 
16 

In that chart there, in the red, how many senior executive folks 

have you lost? 

Mr. DIAZ. We have lost, sir, a significant number, especially during the last few months, of senior executives. I don’t know the 

exact number, but we keep a significant number of good people. We 

try to get some of them back. We normally have a cycle that by the 

end of the year, the beginning of the year, we lose more people 

than we can get. Then our hiring picks up, as is shown on the 

chart. It is a continuous cycle. 

I have been told by my staff we have lost five SESers in the last 

few months. We intend to continue to renew our SES and managers by a program that is a tremendous success. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I know that you submitted an overall plan 

and we have had a chance to review. However I am really concerned about it. These are top managers and you do have the authority, if you find yourself in a jam, that you can bring back an 

annuitant without them losing their annuity, is that correct? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir, and we are grateful for your support on that. 

We have that authority and we are exercising it. 

Senator VOINOVICH. You have already determined what you are 

going to need in 2000 and 2008. One of the concerns that I have 

is that the Department of Energy has a very good program that 

has made money available to engineering schools, nuclear engineering schools, and provided money for reactors in Massachusetts 

and one other place, I think. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. All over the country. 

Mr. DIAZ. Twenty-eight places, yes. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Twenty-eight places. And it is my understanding that they have eliminated that funding. I would like to 

know, what are you doing about it? Because unless that money is 

restored, this effort to train up more of these engineers is going to 

fall short. What are you doing about it? 

Mr. DIAZ. Well, sir, we of course cannot speak for the Department of Energy. But I can tell you that the Commission unanimously supported our request for additional funding for universities and grant programs, as the Energy Policy Act stated. The 

President’s budget is supporting that request. 

So the NRC will have, in 2007, additional funds to be able to 

support the universities with grants, fellowships, assistantships, 

summer programs. We did what we thought was needed. I will assure you that personally, and I am sure my fellow Commissioners 

will do likewise, we will try to bring the fact that this is important, 

that although it might not have an impact tomorrow, it will have 

an impact the day after tomorrow. This is a critical infrastructure 

of the Nation and it needs to be supported. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add, it is out of 

our hands. I would personally urge you to fix that in the appropriations process this year. That was a mistake, I believe, on the part 

of the Department of Energy. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Have you drafted a letter to the Secretary? 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. I think I would get in trouble. I probably do 

just as much as I can possibly do without getting into too much 

trouble. 
17 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, then why don’t you draft it for the 

members of this committee, and we will get every member of the 

committee to sign it? How’s that? 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. For you to Senator Domenici, sure. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I think we need to get it to Mr. Bodman and 

we need to get it to the White House and we need to get it to the 

appropriators. But they are all talking about bringing on new people and the new competitiveness agenda. By God, you can’t do it 

unless you have the people. You have to support it. It costs money. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Senator, I agree with Commissioner 

McGaffigan. I think this is vitally important. I am glad you did 

bring this out. 

Just to point out, I think it is not, it doesn’t fall quite evenly. It 

hurts, particularly the graduate members of those programs, folks 

who are getting their masters degrees and Ph.Ds, which is an area 

we have already been falling behind. So this is a critically important program as you pointed out. It is something I think we all 

should be concerned with. 

Senator VOINOVICH. We ought to characterize it as implementing 

the recommendations of the report of the National Academy of 

Sciences, gathering above the rising storm, something like that. 

I have talked with you, Commissioner Diaz, a little bit about 

total quality management. I hear complaints from a lot of folks out 

there about the way the organization operates in terms of customer 

service. I would like you to agree that you will sit down with me 

and maybe some people that really know, and talk about bringing 

total quality management to your operation. 

I did this when I was Governor of Ohio. We were a leader in the 

country. I finished up as Governor with 17 percent less employees. 

I had a much happier work force. We had continuing improvement 

teams, we had facilitators. People were excited. We found that too 

often, the people that worked in many of these agencies were not 

even aware of the fact that people were unhappy with the way that 

the operation was working. It really made a big difference. 

I don’t know what your plans are. One of the challenges, I think 

this committee should know, is that Chairman Diaz’s term is up, 

and I don’t know yet whether he is going to tip his hat and leave 

or not. We have two temporary appointees, Mr. Lyons and Mr. 

Jaczko. So we may have some leadership changes here, and it is 

real important that we get this thing taken care of as soon as possible, so that if Chairman Diaz leaves, that we’re not just out there 

without some leadership at a time when the NRC needs leadership 

more than they have ever needed it before. 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, I would be pleased to sit with you and discuss and 

learn and improve the way that we manage our people. I think we 

have really achieved great strides in the last 3 years. We have really paid attention to our people. We have taken our senior managers 

and the senior managers, their managers, into retreats and we 

have hammered at the fact that our work force is our best asset, 

that we need to make sure that we communicate well with them, 

that the managers’ accountability and the staff accountability are 

one and only one, that they need to integrate it. 
18 

We see great results. Having said that, I think we know we have 

a way to go. I would be pleased to sit with you and work the issue 

through. 

Regarding the leadership of the Commission, no, sir, I am not 

going to tip my hat. I can tell you that what I have done and what 

my fellow commissioners are doing is, we are making the institution strong. We are putting the changes in the right places in the 

institution with the right management, so that the institution will 

not only endure, but actually keep growing and doing the job that 

it needs to do for the American people. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would just like to say this, that you are 

going to have to be as efficient as you ever have been before. Because you have a human capital challenge of getting the people on 

board to get the job done. 

One of the things that, you know, we are talking about the applications, we need the energy now, and what I understand is that it 

won’t be until 2014 that we will see energy finally produced as a 

result of these applications that have come in. When I talk with 

folks that have filed applications, they’re just worried to beat the 

band that they may run into what they ran into many, many years 

ago. In fact, one of the reluctances of people going forward with 

new facilities is this whole era of one impediment after another impediment after another impediment. I think it’s really important 

that you start talking about how you are going to make sure this 

thing is going to move along, at the same time, of course, doing the 

job that you are supposed to do. 

Mr. McGaffigan. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, I would only say that I think a lot of what 

we have been able to accomplish the last few years really reflects 

the TQM approach. We don’t use that word at NRC, but we do expect constant improvement. We have in our strategic goals, we 

have continued to increase them. So a lot of TQM, I remember I 

was working for Senator Bingaman and Motorola was one of the 

first to embrace that. I think an awful lot of what we’ve done and 

the success we have reflected in one of those view graphs, the IG 

survey, comes from a TQM approach, although we don’t use that 

word. 

Senator VOINOVICH. What I would like to do, Chairman Diaz, is 

bring in Mr. McGaffigan and whoever else you want to bring in. 

I have some experts in the country that I will have them come in, 

talk about what you are doing, we will see what their opinion is 

and maybe we will go from there. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to build off Senator Voinovich’s question in just a moment. But first, this morning I want to come back to the issue of 

excellence, commitment to excellence, commitment to safe operations. I remember when I was on active duty in the Vietnam War, 

some guys in my squadron would talk about Government work, 

they would say, they would do a job, they didn’t do it very well, 

and they would say, that’s good enough for Government work. I 

never liked that very much. 
19 

I remember when a guy named Bert Lance was OMB director in 

Jimmy Carter’s administration. He used to say, if it ain’t broke, 

don’t fix it. That’s what he used to say. 

In my time, I was privileged to serve as Governor of Delaware, 

we used to say, if it isn’t perfect, make it better. If it isn’t perfect, 

make it better. I would just add to what Senator Voinovich has 

said, that was the creed that we attempted to live by every day. 

My hope is that you do, as well, at the NRC. 

We need safe, reliable nuclear energy in this country going forward. The biggest threat against that is a lack of confidence on behalf of Americans in terms of the safety of nuclear operations, not 

just in their safe operations on a daily basis of the plants across 

the country, but also to be sure that as we dispose of the waste 

that we are safe in that regard, too. 

I want to come back to something I think Senator Voinovich was 

getting to. I think you said 9, 10, applications, 15 or plants, is that 

right? 

Mr. DIAZ. Eleven applications, 17 plants. 

Senator CARPER. Seventeen plants, OK. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, those are the ones that are announced. 

There are still others working. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Just again quickly, the time to ramp until 

we get the first of those online would be at the earliest when? 

Mr. DIAZ. In 2015, sir. 

Senator CARPER. OK. How many nuclear power plants do we 

have in the country, about 100, 103? 

Mr. DIAZ. One hundred and three and 104 probably next year. 

Senator CARPER. As I understand it, even though the number of 

nuclear power plants has not increased in some time, we do have 

a greater output of electricity from the plants that we have, just 

take a moment or two and just explain how that has happened and 

whether or not we can look for any further increase in output for 

the next several years as we are waiting for the new capacity to 

come online. 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir. The most significant improvement has been 

in the capacity factor, due to the reliability and safe operations of 

the plants. What this essentially means is that we have really increased generating capacity of the country by about 18,000 

megawatts over the last 15 years or so. So about the capacity factor 

of 18 large nuclear power plants, just due to the increased reliability of the plants. They stay operating longer, they operate 

longer periods of time at full capacity. 

The other addition is what we call power upgrades. All of these 

plants have the capability to upgrade the power, some of them a 

little bit and some of them a lot. There’s almost 4,600 megawatts 

of added capacity that is being put online just because of those 

power upgrades. 

Senator CARPER. Looking forward, over the next, this is 2006, 

looking forward over the next 8 or 9 years, as we anticipate the 

bringing online of additional power plants, can we expect further 

output from the 103 or 104 plants that exist, or have we basically, 

are they basically peaked out? 

Mr. DIAZ. They have peaked out, sir. They have plateaued at 

about a 90 percent capacity factor, I think. We think they can go 
20 

to 91 or 92. But because of the issue of refueling, maintaining the 

equipment, that is about the best that they can do. There will be 

additional power upgrades. But those will be incremental and 

smaller increases. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Across the Delaware River from Delaware 

City are a couple of, several nuclear power plants that you may 

have heard of, Salem and Hope Creek are among the facilities that 

are there. The record of operations reliability has not been good 

over the years. Questions about the culture or the commitment to 

safety have not been especially good, either. 

There has been a change in ownership management, or there is 

a change. I don’t know if it has been consummated, ownership and 

management, that would pass the management of those facilities 

from PSE&G to Exelon. I would just ask you, give us an update 

of your understanding of how they are doing. I visited a couple of 

times. How is it coming? 

Mr. DIAZ. They are doing better, sir. Our region took some very 

polite measures with the licensees. They took about three 2x4’s and 

went into the area and let them know that the Agency was going 

to be very, very strong in exercising the required oversight. They 

actually took immediate measures regarding both their safety culture, the safety culture work environment. They revised their processes. They revised their corrective action. 

I still think they are a work in progress. But progress has been 

made. 

Senator CARPER. Good. Do any other commissioners want to add 

to or take away from that, please? 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Just particularly, I think the advent of Exelon, 

which I believe occurred about February of last year, has been really good for the site. They’ve made safety improvements, as the 

chairman said, they’ve made significant security improvements as 

well. I think they’re on the right path. 

Senator CARPER. OK. I understand, just to follow up briefly, I understand there were several shutdowns over the last year. I presume that that’s not uncommon in nuclear facilities. But I think 

there were at least three, I think two of those happened within 

maybe a week of each other. 

Do you have any understanding of what those occurrences were 

about, and how they were addressed? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes. You are totally right, Senator. These events do 

happen. We have now a process in which we look into each one of 

these occurrences. The licensee needs to take prompt corrective action to try to prevent recurrence. 

I believe that the issues were properly addressed and hopefully 

they have learned the lessons of how to carry out some of this 

maintenance and maneuvers and will stay without these incidents. 

Senator CARPER. I understand last year the NRC conducted, as 

you suggested, a special inspection of the safety culture of the 

Salem and Hope Creek reactors. According to the NRC’s annual assessment letter, I think it read, and I am going to try to quote this, 

‘‘The inspection team noted some issue that required additional action and focused attention.’’ You may have already addressed this 

in your comments. But if you want to add anything to it, I would 

appreciate that. 
21 

Mr. DIAZ. No, sir, I think the region is addressing the entire licensees’ capabilities to properly manage their plant. I think we always notice some issues. We are very good at that, especially when 

somebody has had some problems. We always take our magnifying 

glass and crank it up a little bit. 

I don’t see any significant safety issues in these facilities at the 

present time. 

Senator CARPER. Good. I am going to ask you to answer for the 

record, if you will, just to elaborate on the earlier assessment from 

that assessment letter, just elaborate on it. And let us know what 

if any are the further NRC plans to follow up and to ensure that 

those issues that were raised by that inspection are being addressed. 

It would be helpful if you could give us some specific time line. 

Mr. DIAZ. I would be happy to provide you with that information 

for the record. 

[The referenced information can be found on page 59.] 

Senator CARPER. Good. Thanks. 

In the minute and a half that I have left, I want to turn to a 

pitch that I telegraphed earlier, and I mentioned in my opening 

statement, the President has spoken during his State of the Union 

Address, talked about the need to increase reliance on nuclear energy as we try to reduce our reliance on foreign sources of energy. 

He talked about the disposal of nuclear waste. I would just ask you 

to take a minute or two to explain what the President was suggesting and then just really, for the commissioners, what’s good 

about it, what concerns should we keep in mind? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir. I believe that what the President and the Department of Energy is chartered to conduct is a review of how this 

Nation and really the world should actually handle the front end 

and the back end of the fuel cycle. Because it’s not only the back 

end. Eventually what the President is proposing is an integrated 

solution to the issue of fuel, fuel from the beginning, fuel to the 

end, and how to do that in a manner that allows the appropriate 

use of the fuel and the appropriate disposition of the fuel. Rather 

than having just one end option, I think the President is saying 

there are several options and they need to be studied. They need 

to be analyzed. 

We are not a direct part of this process. But we hope to be able 

to provide expertise as requested to assist in the potential licensing 

and safety issues that would arise with this proposal of GNEP. 

Senator CARPER. Good. And I would love to hear from other commissioners. Commissioner Lyons? 

Mr. LYONS. At the moment, it is somewhat unclear when the 

NRC will be involved in the processes being suggested by the DOE. 

But as or if those move ahead, as they move into commercial operation, there certainly will be a significant challenge for the NRC. 

As Senator Voinovich and others have spoken to the manpower 

challenges, this will present significant additional manpower challenges because the NRC would be asked to evaluate technologies 

that are well outside the range of those that we are currently working with. If recycling, if advanced burners are to be a part of this 

process, there is no question that we will have to do significant upgrading of staff capabilities to address that. 
22 

Senator CARPER. Other comments, please. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator Carper, you have to understand that 

this proposal is in its infancy. It is decades away from being 

implementable. As I understand, what Secretary Bodman has proposed is a 3-year effort to see whether something might be possible 

with a decision in 2008 on doing engineering scaled facilities. But 

real facilities that would affect the fuel cycle in a significant way 

are decades away. 

My only concern, and there are all sorts of concerns with regard 

to it, technical, economic regulatory, as my colleagues have said. I 

don’t want them to lose focus on the near term, the nuclear renaissance, the issue that Senator Voinovich raised, which may, the cut 

in education for the universities may have been part of trying to 

find money for GNEP. I hope not. 

And Yucca Mountain, they have to continue to focus on whether 

they can put together a license application that can pass muster 

with us. So I wouldn’t want them to lose focus on things they have 

to do in the next few years. And even on the nuclear renaissance, 

they have to have a new standard contract with the licenses in 

order to get listed. That is something DOE has to contribute here 

and now to the possibility of this nuclear renaissance. GNEP is 

decades away. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Yes, sir, Mr. Jaczko. 

Mr. JACZKO. If I could just add, one of the crucials for the NRC 

in this whole process is to ensure that the NRC has the appropriate regulatory and licensing authority for whatever facilities will 

be constructed as part of this. That is, from our perspective, one 

of the most immediate challenges, as Commissioner Lyons mentioned, that could involve tremendous changes to our regulations 

and other things. 

So knowing that we have that role and establishing that role 

early and clearly will be important. 

Senator CARPER. My time has expired. Mr. Merrifield, very briefly. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I agree with the comments made by both commissioners. Particularly, we have been waiting for the DOE submission for Yucca Mountain application. That is something Congress expects us to do in a period of 3 years. We put in place a 

process, the procedures and the people in order to take that. The 

delays in receiving that application are difficult for us, because 

that’s forced us to have to retrench a bit, despite having been right 

on the edge, willing to accept that. 

How GNEP affects that process is obviously an issue of concern. 

I certainly would say I would agree with Commissioner McGaffigan 

and hope this does not delay where we are going relative to Yucca 

itself. 

Senator CARPER. Good, thank you. Thanks for your responses. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

As you know, for years, since 1998, anyway, I have been advocating a stable and predictable licensing process. I stress predictable. That’s the important thing. I think sometimes we forget the 

massive amounts of investment that is necessary to, it is all predicated on what you folks come out with. So I think that predict-
23 

ability in the licensing process is an absolute, if we are to proceed 

with the construction of new nuclear power plants in this country. 

Yet here we are in 2006, as all these utilities are in the middle 

of developing their application for combined operating licenses, the 

Commission is still updating the rule on the licensing project. Now, 

we talked about this before, Mr. Chairman, and I have to ask you 

the question, when is the Commission going to finalize the rule? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we are going to finalize this rule by next year in 

time for it to be used by any of the applicants for a COR license. 

The reason for this rule is the same reason that you addressed at 

the beginning, this predictability. We really wanted to have, in our 

books and for the benefit of the licensees and stakeholders, a clear 

set of rules that can be followed—— 

Senator INHOFE. See, that’s what I’m getting at here. Now, why, 

you say next year. Next year has 12 months. When? 

Mr. DIAZ. It’s October of next year. 

Senator INHOFE. October of next year you will finalize—— 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. No, October of this year is I think the goal, sir. 

We will get the proposed final rule in October. 

Mr. DIAZ. I’m sorry, it’s January 2007, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INHOFE. No, it’s October 2006. 

Mr. DIAZ. October 2006 when it comes to the Commission, January 2007 when the final rule should be—— 

Senator INHOFE. OK, it will come to the Commission, you all will 

be working prior to that in the process of this, I am sure. Why can’t 

you just go ahead as soon as it comes to the Commission and act 

on it? 

Mr. DIAZ. Well, sir, the Commission is a deliberative body. 

Senator INHOFE. So are we, and that is one of the problems. 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes. I fully understand that. 

Once we get a document that is going to become an official rule 

of the Agency, the Commission makes sure that everything that 

should be there is in there. But I hear you, we should be as expeditious as possible. I am sure my fellow Commissioners will try to be 

as expeditious as possible on that issue. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I would agree with the chairman. We need to try to get that through the Commission as quickly 

as we can. Some of the delay in that will be subject to the Administrative Procedures Act, over which we have no control. 

Senator INHOFE. Well, OK, do you see any way it could be done 

before that? 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Any way it could be done before October of this 

year? 

Senator INHOFE. That it would come to you before October 2006? 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I think we have already pushed the staff as 

reasonably hard as we can push them. What the Commission can 

do is follow very closely the staff proceedings as they go along and 

the interactions between our staff, the regulated utility and other 

interested stakeholders. From my own view, when I voted in favor 

of moving forward with this proposal, it was with the full knowledge that if we don’t come up with something that is workable by 

that October deadline, I will vote against it. So I think the Commission is going to keep—— 

Senator INHOFE. Well, that is not going to help. 
24 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I’m sorry? 

Senator INHOFE. That is not going to help things if you vote 

against it. I just want to, it just seems to me, and let’s do this for 

the record. I would like to have you tell me what steps you have 

to go through, and understanding the administrative procedures 

problems that might be in there, as to why we can’t do it. Then 

if you couldn’t have some guidance. See, every day that’s going by, 

these guys are spending, making massive investments, at least I 

hope they are, because I am in a bigger hurry than they are or you 

are, to get to that point where we can have, expand our nuclear 

capabilities. 

So I would like to know what that is. If you are all in agreement 

right now that it can’t happen prior to that time and that it is 

going to take the deliberative process from October all the way 

through, what, the middle of January? 

Mr. DIAZ. That is what is in the schedule, sir. Like Commissioner 

Merrifield said, we have already pushed the staff as much as we 

could. We actually pushed them almost—— 

Senator INHOFE. Commissioner McGaffigan? 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Chairman Inhofe, we had significant negative 

comment on this 550-page rule before we issued it. Because we put 

it out while we were contemplating whether to put it out. I am the 

one commissioner who voted against it and wanted it to be pared 

down. 

I have some hope that, as I put it before the staff, through the 

help of public stakeholders, we will find the jewels that really need 

to be done in this dump truck of a rule. But one problem we have 

is this is a 550-page monstrosity that we put out for public comments. I personally think a vast quantity of it doesn’t need to be 

enacted and we would have better regulatory stability if it were not 

enacted in final form. 

So we are just going to have to see how the staff interacts with 

the stakeholders during this administrative procedure. 

Senator INHOFE. But do you agree that it is realistic that January we will have your rule? 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. If the staff pares it down—— 

Senator INHOFE. Well, if you say that, then they won’t. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Well, sir, I’m delivering a message right 

now—— 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, the staff is ready to deliver. The draft rule is out. 

They know what the requirements of the Commission—— 

Senator INHOFE. Well, OK, let me make a request of the chairman here that if that isn’t out, I request a meeting on Wednesday, 

January 24, 2007. Does that sound reasonable to you, so we can 

find out at that point if it’s not, why it’s not? 

Mr. JACZKO. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add briefly. I think the 

Commission is very much committed, if we do get a rule from staff 

in October that we can act on that in a very expeditious manner. 

I think it’s something the Commission is committed to acting on 

certainly before the January 2007 date. 

Senator INHOFE. In my opening statement, and I will re-read the 

one short paragraph, I said I understand that only one major regulatory change incorporating risk has been completed, which was 
25 

Part 50.69, special treatment rule, which the NRC began in 1999 

and wasn’t completed until 2004. 

Now, we have probably five or six others that are out there that 

were started around 1999, maybe addressing the Part 52 or another part of this. I would ask you, the two-part question here is, 

was that time that it took for that one, the 5 years, was that reasonable? Is that what you thought in 1999 it would take? And No. 

2, what about the other pending applications that were there at 

that time? 

Mr. DIAZ. Well, sir, first let me just say that personally this is 

kind of music to my ears. I do like risk and performance based regulation. I have been advocating it since my very first days in the 

Commission. 

No, it was not reasonable. It was a long period of time. However, 

it was done in a very open way with the industry and the stakeholders. It was a difficult rule, because from the—— 

Senator INHOFE. So is that reasonable, 5 years? 

Mr. DIAZ. No, it was not. 

Senator INHOFE. OK. Let’s, because we are operating on a time 

schedule here, let me mention, I understand that it is, and you 

have said this before, Mr. Chairman, that it is the responsibility 

of each applicant to submit a complete and quality application that 

meets all of the NRC’s requirements and guidance. I think the 

problem is that the guidance is a moving target. I think that they 

in their minds are investing their money, they are in a hurry, they 

want to comply with everything. They are submitting a good application. 

But then when things change here, then they have to go back, 

and this is a, I am wondering if there isn’t a way that even though 

you can’t finalize it, you can come up with a definitive, prescriptive 

guidance document so that they would not find themselves, so 

there are certain things with which they could comply during this 

period of time where they wouldn’t have to go back and start a 

good deal of it over again. Is that reasonable? 

Mr. DIAZ. That is very reasonable, sir, and we are working both 

in the guidance document and in the standard review plans to try 

to finalize them, upgrade them so that they will be usable. It is not 

that they don’t exist. It is that they don’t exist to do the work that 

they need to do now. 

Senator INHOFE. Some of the problems, let me address a couple 

of them in the 1970’s and 1980’s, one of them caused the licensing 

process to bog down. That timeframe was that there was no in to 

reopening issues during the licensing process. Now, that’s something I remember we talked about this some time ago. Have you 

taken steps to address this problem of reopening and having to go 

back, and if so, how have you done this? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, there are two aspects of this. One is the technical 

reviews of issues and the other is the issues of the hearing process. 

I really—— 

Senator INHOFE. That’s great, I was going to get to the hearing 

process next. Go ahead. 

Mr. DIAZ. OK. The issues on the technical reviews, I think we 

have now in place a process that is sound, that will allow us to in 

a timely manner conduct the reviews. Again, I will say that this 
26 

is a two-way street. Sometimes when we ask for additional information, the information sometimes doesn’t come the way it is. That 

is why I keep insisting that we will stick to schedules, but the licenses need to provide us with the right quality and they need to 

provide us with the right answers so we can keep the process on 

a timely manner. 

Senator INHOFE. So you think you have taken steps to make sure 

your licensing boards meet schedules and milestones for completing 

hearings? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir. I think that Commissioner Merrifield actually 

puts a significant amount of time in these, maybe he would be able 

to answer that. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Mr. Chairman, we went ahead and we rewrote 

part 2 of our regulations, which relates to how we manage these 

hearing type proceedings. We recognize they did not have the discipline in them and there were problems in the past. We tried to 

inject in a system which is more effective, more efficient, will resolve concerns of the parties at hand. We have improved case management practices we put in, we have expectations for our judges, 

depending on the type of legal proceeding. We have told them how 

long we think that proceeding should occur. If they fail to meet 

those time lines, they have to come back to the Commission and 

where appropriate, the Commission can intervene to tell them they 

need to move through that process in a more disciplined way. 

We have also changed it such that not all of our proceedings are 

the old formal style proceedings. We have moved to a more informal process. We think this too will allow the issues to come to the 

fore in a quicker way and will allow the parties to resolve those 

and move forward with a solid decision by our boards. 

Senator INHOFE. Well, Commissioner Merrifield, you were the 

staff director for our former chairman up here. So you understand 

where I am coming from. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I do. 

Senator INHOFE. I will just make you my point man to make sure 

that happens. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I will be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator INHOFE. All right, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry 

I took so long. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I understand from Senator Jeffords that he 

is going to allow Senator Obama to ask his questions, because apparently Senator Obama has another meeting that he has to be at. 

Senator Obama. 

Senator OBAMA. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, 

Senator Jeffords, for your gracious allowance. 

I am going to focus a little bit on the situation with the tritium 

discharges in the Exelon Braidwood Generating Station. As you 

know, this has generated quite a bit of concern in my State. I recognize that there are some broader issues that we have been discussing here today, but as I mentioned in my opening statement, 

I think that if we can’t generate public confidence about the safety 

and security of nuclear power, then it is going to be hard for us 

to move in systematic ways to utilize nuclear energy in the ways 

that I think it can be used to relieve some of the energy problems 
27 

that we have in this country. So I think this is sort of a microcosm 

of some larger issues that I would like to see raised. 

My understanding is that in both 1998 and 2000, 3 million gallons of tritiated water leaked into the groundwater from the blowdown line at the nuclear plant in Braidwood, IL. I am wondering, 

to your knowledge, did Exelon know at the time that it was 

tritiated water? Does anybody know? 

Mr. DIAZ. It could very well be that Commonwealth Edison, that 

was managing the plant, knew it was tritiated water. 

Senator CLINTON. Mr. Chairman, could we ask the witness to 

speak into the microphone, please? 

Mr. DIAZ. I’m sorry. But it was really never treated as a major 

issue. So the Commonwealth, which was operating the plant at the 

time, they surely must have known that this water contained 

traces of tritium. How the contamination was and the extent of it, 

I am not sure that the Commonwealth knew, neither did we know. 

Senator OBAMA. OK. As I understand it, the NRC has a representative onsite at every nuclear power plant, is that correct? 

Mr. DIAZ. That is correct. 

Senator OBAMA. So what are the obligations of this representative? How quickly would your site representative know of any unplanned discharge? How quickly would NRC officials at headquarter be informed of the discharge? 

Mr. DIAZ. They should know immediately of every unplanned discharge that poses any significant health risk to the public to the 

public health and safety, or any significant hazard to the public 

health and safety. So they are there, they should know, they should 

be informed. The plant should be informed, we should be informed. 

And to your point, if there is something significant, that any radiological protection measures should be considered, I think we would 

notify the local and the State officials, sir. 

Senator OBAMA. I want to get to the public reporting in a second. 

But just to stay focused on the facility itself, since this time, what 

has the NRC been doing to prevent these kinds of leaks from occurring again in the future? 

Mr. DIAZ. Some of these leaks are really unplanned leaks. In 

other words, it is not part of the procedures of the plant. We have 

of course in all power plants and all industrial complexes, two 

types of releases. Those are controlled and those are uncontrolled. 

This goes into the uncontrolled release category. Therefore, it received additional attention. 

When a release of significant amounts of water takes place in 

any power plant, that’s obviously, you can see that that certainly 

would be noticed. I think it was noticed. The fact that tritium is 

in all these power plants is, I hate to use the word, but it is a normal customer. It is always there. It is always present. We might 

have tended to remove some of the significance. 

Let me just assure you that for the last 2 months, we have been 

focusing on it. We have a new tritium task force. We have put a 

web site that deals with the tritium issues. We are interacting 

strongly with every one of our licensees, and we are moving forward to take care of the potential radiological protection issue that 

is associated with it. 
28 

Senator OBAMA. OK, I just want to make clear here, when you 

say there are unplanned leaks, unplanned discharges versus 

planned discharges, the general public thinks nothing should be 

unplanned when it comes to a nuclear facility, right? So the minute 

you say unplanned discharges, I am not an engineer, but I like everything planned. 

Mr. DIAZ. But things do happen. 

Senator OBAMA. So these are accidents that are occurring? 

Mr. DIAZ. These are, I would call them incidents, because they 

are not an accident in the sense that they cause a tremendous 

amount of problems. 

But yes, they are incidents and they are unplanned. 

Senator OBAMA. If I spill a cup of coffee, it is still an accident. 

I mean, I didn’t do it on purpose. I may be able to clean it up, 

but—OK. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, we have performance indicators where we 

look for things that are significant from a safety perspective, and 

we follow those very, very, very carefully. On safety system actuations, it shouldn’t occur, scrams of a plant that shouldn’t occur. 

These things do, as the chairman said, occur. The slight, the distinction with tritiated water is that it doesn’t rise to the level of 

a scram of safety system actuation or of a significant safety system. 

Because the public health and safety consequences are expected to 

be very, very much smaller. 

Senator OBAMA. I understand. Is there some mechanism whereby 

you systematically look for signs of a public health impact from repeated unplanned discharges or do you just sort of estimate, well, 

here is the amount of leakage that took place, we figure this is not 

going to be a big deal? Or do you actively go and look, see what’s 

happening with the groundwater, have it tested? 

Mr. DIAZ. I believe that in the case of small amounts of tritium 

that we have seen in different facilities, we take it as what it is. 

Tritium is a normal component of water everywhere. The EPA puts 

significant levels of tritium, 20 picocuries per liter of tritium can 

be in drinking water. If a person drinks 20 picocuries per liter of 

tritium for a year, that means that is all he consumes is this 

tritiated water, he will get about 4 millirems of internal body dose, 

which is about a 4 percent of the dose that will actually allow from 

a member of the public, or 1 percent of the normal dose that they 

would take from the environment. 

So tritium is a bad customer in the sense that it shows everywhere. It is not one of those isotopes that comes immediately as 

one of the most threatening to public health and safety. Therefore 

we deal with it in a safety significant manner. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, just to give you a perspective, and I always do these things to you, I am sorry, if one drinks two liters 

of water a day for a year of 20,000 picocuries per liter water, as 

the Chairman said, you get 4 millirems, which is about one-twentieth of what you get working in the Capitol. Because the Capitol 

has a lot of granite in it and a lot of thorium and uranium and radium. 

So these are very, very protective levels. This tritium is about 

the most benign radioactive substance you can imagine. 
29 

Senator OBAMA. Look, I recognize, I read Exelon’s talking points 

before coming here, and they are identical to the ones you just 

mentioned. I am not suggesting you saw them, I am just saying, 

everybody is on the same page in terms of indicating that, on the 

scale of potential hazardous substances, tritium is not at the top 

of the list. 

Mr. JACZKO. Senator, if I could just make a point, I think you 

raise a good point about the importance of this with public confidence. I think while these may not be planned incidents, they are 

unplanned release. I think the NRC needs to take a look at what 

we are doing to plan to respond to them and plan to do cleanup 

activities and do that in a prompt way. 

Senator OBAMA. Commissioner, I think that is an excellent point, 

which brings me to just a couple, two final areas of questioning. 

It appears that the NRC knew about these problems several 

years before it notified Illinois EPA. I am just wondering what our 

policy is, why is that, what is the relationship between NRC and 

EPA in these kinds of situations, just because they are closer to the 

ground and may have information or interaction with the general 

public that would help assure them that this is not a major problem? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we presently are looking at each and every one of 

these issues in a holistic manner. The staff is preparing to analyze 

them and brief the Commission. The Commission will take a comprehensive look at it, and we will be, when we finish this process, 

we will do it as soon as possible to give you a complete look at both 

what the tritium situation is, as well as the way that is monitored, 

the environmental situation and also the communication situation. 

We will be pleased to submit that to you for the record. 

[The referenced information can be found on page 54.] 

Senator OBAMA. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. If I may, I think, just to put it clear from my 

standpoint, I think we take our environmental mission very seriously. I think we are going to look at it through these lessons 

learned panels and realize we made some mistakes, we could have 

done things better in terms of communicating both with the State, 

interactions between the NRC and the licensee, I think there are 

areas where we can find enhancements. 

We can talk all we want about the technical issues associated 

with how dangerous these substances are. But the point you are 

trying to make, and I understand it, is the people who live around 

these plants are very concerned. We need to recognize that. We 

need to explain what the facts are, we need to improve the way 

that we provide that information to people so they can get a greater sense of what is going on and feel more confident. 

Senator OBAMA. Mr. Commissioner, I agree with you. I know I 

am running out of time or have run out of time. But if folks would 

just bear with me for two more questions. One, currently what is 

the trigger for reportable events? How severe does an event have 

to be before you inform local and State officials? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we have what we call our Part 20, which establishes what releases are and what are the triggering points. We 

normally do not wait, in many occasions, to have, to reach what is 

called a permissible level before we interact with local officials. I 
30 

think it mostly depends on the circumstances and how, whether 

there is a significant release that has taken place that is actually 

not controlled versus sometimes we have controlled release that are 

of a significant nature, but they are way below the limits. 

So there is a whole variety of circumstances. I think the point 

that we’re getting, and getting very clear, is that there might be 

a need to increase our communications with local and State officials on the seriousness of these issues. Your point is duly noted. 

Senator OBAMA. Good. I just will close by saying this, and maybe, 

Commissioner, you can have the last word. I have introduced legislation, I would like my colleagues on the committee to know that 

I have introduced this legislation. It is very simple. All it does is 

it simply says, when these events occur, you need to inform the 

local and State officials. 

Given the example that you are using right now, I think it would 

be terrific if, let’s say, the county board chairman in Will County, 

who wrote me a letter saying, I am greatly concerned with the revelation that radioactive wastewater has been released. He had 

some sense that in fact this was something that could potentially 

be dealt with. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Obama, your time is up. 

Senator OBAMA. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman. 

So I would just ask that those on this committee, as well as the 

Commissioners, work carefully to try to see if we can get this system, these systems approved. Thank you for your forbearance, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Jeffords. 

Senator JEFFORDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman Diaz, on April 6, 2005, the National Academy of 

Sciences released a report on the safety and security of commercial 

spent fuel storage. About a third of the U.S. nuclear facilities are 

designed with a spent fuel pool above ground, including the 

Vermont Yankee facility in my State. I am repeatedly asked by my 

constituents what NRC is doing to implement the report recommendations. 

Mr. DIAZ. Thank you, Senator Jeffords. We have taken that report to heart. We have implemented a majority of the recommendations of the National Academies. However, in order to do that well, 

we undertook a specific assessment of every site, site by site. In 

other words, rather than look at it generically and say, this is what 

we do, we actually conducted, the licensees did, and we conducted 

independent assessments of the spent fuel and the spent fuel situations and even the dry cask situations, on all of our facilities. That 

study was completed in December 2005. We are now putting together the report recommendations. 

In the meantime, we have been effecting what we call mitigating 

strategies at each one of these facilities. I can assure you that 

every one of the spent fuel pools in the country has additional mitigating measures that makes them safer and in many ways goes a 

long way or beyond where the National Academies recommendation 

was. 

Senator JEFFORDS. I know that the results are classified, and I 

can’t share them with my constituents. Will NRC communicate the 
31 

results of the assessments it has done to the public in unclassified 

form? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, when we finish the final analysis and discuss it 

fully with the licensees and it is vetted in the Commission, we will 

make an effort to release to the public those parts of the report 

that will not compromise the safety and security of the people of 

the United States. So we will try to extract from it whatever components should be in the public domain and we will maintain secret and classified those that could be an issue by terrorists or 

other malevolent types of uses. 

Senator JEFFORDS. Last week, the Commission voted to deny a 

request to stay the power upgrade at Vermont Yankee until after 

planned hearings were completed. In power upgrade cases, a hearing may be requested but it’s not required. 

A hearing has been granted for Vermont Yankee, and it will be 

the first extended power upgrade to have a hearing. In cases of license extensions now under consideration at Vermont Yankee, 

hearings are required. Generally, how often is it the case, and in 

what circumstances does NRC issue a change to a license before 

completing the hearing process? 

Mr. DIAZ. Senator, I am going to turn to Commissioner Lyons, 

because he was just in Vermont Yankee. He is now our resident expert on the issue. 

Mr. LYONS. Senator Jeffords, I can address part of your question, 

I believe. I was at Vermont Yankee within the last 10 days, and 

I went there specifically to better understand and discuss not only 

the NRC’s oversight of the power upgrades, but also the licensees’ 

preparation and to better understand the license conditions. This 

isn’t quite getting to your point, but I can, I think you are aware 

that as part of those license conditions, there was a requirement 

for a hold at each 5 percent increment for, and during and after 

that hold, the NRC would analyze, along with the licensee, the results obtained from the instrumentation on that upgrade. 

At the moment, the process is working. After the first 5 percent 

operate, there was one indicator that was somewhat outside of the 

anticipated range. Because of that, we are analyzing, as is the licensee, and there will not be additional upgrades until that indicator is well understood, and we can be assured of safe operation. 

In the meantime, as you indicated, we will be awaiting the outcome of the licensing board review, and of course, we will be the 

final appeal of that licensing board. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator Jeffords, on your question, I could just 

say that the vast majority of licensing actions that appear before 

the Commission, the staff is able to make a so-called no significant 

hazards determination, consideration determination. The hearings 

are post hearings. In some cases, such as the new plants, a prior 

hearing is required. But in the vast majority of cases, normal licensing actions of the staff, no significant hazards consideration is 

determined by the staff and the hearing is a post hearing. In all 

previous power upgrades, the staff has made a no significant hazards determination. 

Mr. DIAZ. In other words, Senator, the Act requires that the staff 

makes a no significant hazards determination and when they have 

reached that point, they issue a license. Any conditions will then 
32 

be dealt after that license has been issued. In this particular case, 

that is what happened. 

Senator JEFFORDS. Let me clarify your response. Could the license be extended another 20 years at Vermont Yankee before the 

hearing process has concluded, as happened with the update? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir, it could. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. In that case, the hearing would almost surely 

be completed before the period of extended operation began, because that is still years away. But the license could be issued. 

There is always the possibility under our process that the board 

and ultimately the Commission could reach the opposite determination, and the licensee at its own risk proceeds because it might 

have to undo what was done. 

But it is less of an issue in license renewal, because the time periods are much longer. 

Mr. DIAZ. In other words, there is always several years between 

the issue of a licensee renewal and the time that the license renewal takes place. In this particular case, that is absolutely still 

correct. There will be time in between the issuance of the license 

and the time that the license renewal will be effective. 

Senator JEFFORDS. From a constituent perspective, when changes 

to a license are made before hearings are completed, it makes it appear that the hearings have no value and the outcome doesn’t matter. I know all of you believe that is not the case. The Commission 

seeks to remain neutral, as you can implement any changes to a 

license that result from the hearing process. 

Chairman Diaz, will you commit to me to have the Commission 

consider this issue, so that we can insure the constituents have 

greater confidence? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we can commit to you that we will deliberate and 

fairly reach a decision that is unbiased and in no way takes anything under consideration but the safety of the people of Vermont. 

Mr. JACZKO. Senator, if I could add on this point, the provision 

that allows us, with a license amendment, to move forward before 

the hearing is complete is a very unique provision that applies just 

to license amendments. In this case, it is something that I do not 

believe was applied appropriately. It is something that I intend to 

address with my fellow Commissioners as we work forward on this 

issue. 

Senator JEFFORDS. As a part of the upgrade process at Vermont 

Yankee, the NRC conducted an engineering assessment at the 

State of Vermont’s request. The delegation supported that action. 

My State found this information helpful. The NRC used the inspection results in its consideration of the upgrade. 

This was the first time that the NRC’s evaluation of an extended 

power upgrade included a physical inspection. Is the Commission 

considering revising its guidelines to make physical inspections a 

normal part of the extended power upgrade process? Or at least 

available for the States on request? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we have now in place what we call risk-informed 

or special engineering inspections that were used at Vermont Yankee. It was a very good process. I think that we will certainly consider in any similar type of occurrence to conduct an engineering 

inspection that will assure that the facility, especially the facility 
33 

safety systems, are operating and will continue to operate as designed. 

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

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Lautenberg, I want to say that I appreciate your patience. You are one of the most conscientious members that we have of this Committee. I am looking forward to hearing your questions to the Commission. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I hope that the Commission is as well, Mr. 

Chairman. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you very much. 

I want to just, Commissioner Diaz, just go back to something 

that we kind of passed over before, and that relates to the staffing. 

Are you presently short of staff? Is there anything that perhaps 

could have been done more rapidly if your staffing was more complete? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we couldn’t staff more rapidly, because we did not 

have the resources to do so. We have been very well supported, and 

I thank the committee for the support this last year. But the reality was that we didn’t—there is another chart in here that shows 

what happens to the new nuclear power plant licensing requests. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I saw that. But there is a lot of anxiety for 

review where there is more than resolution in some of the things. 

Particularly, Commissioner Merrifield—— 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator Lautenberg, I would like to supplement. Irrespective of the potential for new plant orders, which has 

really increased the demand for our staff, we recognized some years 

ago that we were going to have some aging demographic issues, 

that we were going to have a number of our staff who were going 

to retire. We needed to and we did reestablish our connections to 

colleges and universities. So we started our aggressive recruitment 

program actually 4 or 5 years ago. 

Senator Carper asked a question about what are we doing about 

SES retirements. We recognized as well we were going to have a 

problem with this. So we, 5 years ago—— 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I don’t mean to cut you off, but I am concerned about this in the contemporary situation. In the State of 

New Jersey, the ASL Board has denied hearing of the contentions 

by the New Jersey DEP and some environmental groups on the review for Oyster Creek. As you all know, we are going through a 

major change in structure and ownership. Exelon comes in and 

Public Service Electric and Gas gets merged into that company. 

We heard fairly crisp detail from Senator Obama about tritium 

and there are safety concerns generally. Here we have Oyster 

Creek, 40 years old. And questions of what would that technology, 

I believe, would not be used today. It is out of fashion. It has had 

some problems, incidents, accidents. I was interested in that definition as well. But the fact it, it worries the hell out of people, whether it’s an I or an A. We are concerned about it. 

Now, is it possible that because of this concern and because of 

these incidents, vulnerability, now the security issues have become 

major issues confronting us, would you be able to take your inherent capacity and review the ASLB’s decision on not to hear these 
34 

petitions? I think that’s an important first step, because time is 

running out. We’d like to know what’s going to be done there. 

I frankly am going to request that there be a field hearing. I 

don’t know what kind of supervision you have over the ASLB. They 

are a integral part of the NRC. But does that include management 

instruction? 

Mr. DIAZ. No, sir, it does not. We maintain a separation to allow 

the boards to make their decisions. We can take review of the 

Board’s decision—— 

Senator LAUTENBERG. At your option? 

Mr. DIAZ. Right, it is our option. And we do that. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Well, in this situation, would you consider 

exercising your inherent supervisory authority to order additional 

public hearings on Oyster Creek? 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, we will always consider, if there is an issue of public health and safety or issue of adequate protection, what the Commission would do. I don’t see presently that we have that issue. 

But I will let my fellow commissioners answer. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, we are like an appellate court. We’re hamstrung in talking to you about this just as Judge Roberts and 

Judge Alito, when they were recently before the Judiciary Committee, this is an issue that is likely to be appealed to us in the 

near term. We can’t show our cards one way or the other as to how 

we might rule on such an appeal. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. You have the responsibility of, with safety 

as the rule, of trying to move these things along. I’m not encouraging rush at the expense of safety or good management. But the 

fact of the matter is that I think there’s a legitimate reason to hear 

the contentions by our widely respected DEP. I’m appealing now to 

get some expeditious treatment to a hearing. I’m not asking for an 

outcome. I don’t want an outcome that would be contrary to good 

science or your judgment. What do we do? 

Mr. DIAZ. Well, the Board is trying to set the hearing time now. 

I believe that hearing will be held and will be held near Oyster 

Creek, to make it available. I understand that the staff has a public briefing set up for early summer to make sure that the people 

are informed. So the processes are going. We hear you, that there 

is an urgency. But these things do take a tremendous amount of 

deliberation and discipline, because you want to be fair to all parties involved. 

So we stay away significantly from getting involved, not in the 

management, but the Commission does ask the Board with certain 

frequency to make sure they deliver with expediency both the hearing process and the decisions. That we can do. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator, if the State felt it was not being 

treated fairly in its decision by the board, that is obviously something they could appeal, they, the State, could appeal to the Commission as well. So that is yet another opportunity if they don’t feel 

they are being heard in a decision of the Board, then that is obviously something we could look at. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. In response to an earlier question, it was 

confirmed that a licensed decision can be made at the staff level 

without involvement of the Commission. I heard that correctly, I 

assume. 
35 

We are very concerned for the evacuation facility available, the 

density of the population around Oyster Creek. So I would like to 

know whether I can get a commitment that the full Commission 

will engage itself in the review and sign off on any staff decision 

regarding whether or not to renew Oyster Creek’s operating license. 

Mr. DIAZ. Sir, the way that our process is now set is for the staff 

to make the final determination on the license renewal and that 

authority has been delegated to the Director of NOR. Having said 

that, the Commission can take review of any one of those issues, 

any one Commissioner can ask for it and any one Commissioner, 

after reviewing all of the documentation and the decisions that 

have been made, could actually then take additional review of the 

issue. 

I don’t think it is appropriate for, it is definitely not for me, I 

don’t know for my fellow Commissioners, to commit to do that unless there is a significant health and safety issue that pops out of 

this analysis. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. There have been enough scares, let me 

say, over the years, with the age of the plant and once again, the 

technology and the rusting of some of the structure. I would plead 

with you to satisfy the needs and the concerns of the people that 

are dependent on Oyster Creek, but those who are also worried 

about it. I would like to get an assurance that as, I don’t want to 

trivialize it and call it backstop, but I would like to know that the 

Commission or a Commissioner will look at this and review any decision made by the staff to confirm that there shouldn’t be any concerns about that. 

Mr. DIAZ. Well, sir, let me give you, I think I can do this on behalf of the Commission, a commitment to ensure that we continue 

very strong oversight over Oyster Creek, that we will review issues, 

that we will make sure that they fix whatever they have to fix, 

that they take appropriate corrective actions, that they manage the 

facility with the safety requirements that they have to. 

Once it comes down to decisions that in many ways involve a series of processes, I think the Commission will have to wait until we 

get to that point to make additional commitments. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Mr. Chairman, I would say this. The Oyster 

Creek license renewal, the current license expires in April 2009. So 

there are 3 years ahead of this before there would be the circumstance where that would lapse. The staff will be conducting its 

review. 

As the Act is set out, there are legal separations in order to provide the protections for interested parties. If the staff were to act 

in a way that New Jersey objected to, it would have the opportunity to go before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board with 

contentions arguing why a license renewal should not be conducted. 

If that board acted in a way that went against the interest of New 

Jersey, the Commission would in fact be the final level of appeal 

if the State of New Jersey wished to continue through our process. 

So in that regard, if the State felt it was not being appropriately 

treated, we would in fact be the final review of the staff decision. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want your interest, as you see. 
36 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator Clinton. 

Senator CLINTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing. Thank you to Chairman Diaz and the other Commissioners. 

As you might expect, I want to talk to you about Indian Point. 

I can’t imagine that you would be surprised by that. I want to 

thank Commissioner Jaczko for going to Indian Point and meeting 

with a number of the local officials in the area. 

But before I do, I want briefly to note that in your testimony, you 

indicated you are in the process of implementing the provisions of 

my Dirty Bomb bill. I really appreciate that, because the Dirty 

Bomb Prevention bill that we’ve worked on, in conjunction with 

Senators Voinovich, Inhofe, Jeffords, and Carper are very important to us and we look forward to seeing how you develop the implementation of that. I thank you for it. 

I have asked my staff if they would to follow up and I would really appreciate the NRC coming to brief my staff and the other interested Senators’ staff here on the committee if we could set that up. 

Because with all of the debate about the port, the Dirty Bomb Prevention bill is even more important. 

Now back to Indian Point. Chairman Diaz, and Commissioners, 

you and I have discussed Indian Point many times, both in hearings like today and in private hearings and in private meetings. I 

think we have made progress in some areas. Last year with the 

help of Senators Inhofe, Jeffords and Voinovich, I drafted legislation to require backup power for the Indian Point emergency notification system, including its sirens. That legislation was ultimately 

included in the Energy bill that passed last summer. I know that 

the NRC has been working closely with Entergy to see that the 

new system gets in place by January of next year. 

However, today in the newspaper, once again, glitch silences Indian Point sirens. We are just snakebit. I am deeply concerned that 

it is no accident or incident. It is a pattern that we just can’t seem 

to get problems resolved and be able to take a deep breath here. 

Shortly after the siren issue was addressed in the Energy bill, 

other problems cropped up at the plant. Last fall we received word 

there was a leak from the spent fuel pools at Indian Point. When 

the leak was reported, we found out that Entergy didn’t tell the 

NRC about the leak for a number of weeks. You and I met to discuss this issue last October, and as I said at the time, it seems like 

for every step we take forward at Indian Point we take at least one 

backwards. 

During that meeting, you committed you would put enhanced 

oversight in place and I appreciated that. But unfortunately, the 

problems continue. In addition to the sirens still not adequately 

working, we recently found out that the New York Department of 

Environmental Conservation had withheld information from the 

public about detecting Strontium 90 in wells that had been drilled 

to determine the extent of groundwater contamination associated 

in the first instance with tritium. So now we’ve got tritium, we’ve 

got Strontium 90. I know that Senator Obama raised these issues 

because he has experienced a similar but at least so far as we 

know a far more serious leak in the State of Illinois. 
37 

In response to that problem, he has introduced legislation that 

would require plants to quickly disclose any such leaks to the NRC 

and to the State and to the county in which the facility is located. 

Now, to me that just makes common sense. I hope that you will 

support Senator Obama’s legislation. It seems that it is something 

that NRC could even probably require right now under current law 

which would perhaps obviate the necessity for legislation. So I 

would like you to address that issue as well. 

Then I want to raise a larger question. That is, whether there 

should be an independent safety assessment for Indian Point. Now, 

as we all know, public confidence in the plant has steadily eroded 

by a series of mishaps, misinformation and failure to communicate. 

So when the NRC completes its annual assessment, as happened 

recently, and gives the plant a clean bill of health, it doesn’t inspire 

public confidence because local officials and the public pick up the 

newspaper a day or two later and something else has happened. 

A number of local and Federal officials, both Republicans and 

Democrats, have recently called on the NRC to conduct the independent safety assessment. Several House members, again, both 

Republicans and Democrats, have introduced legislation to require 

that the NRC conduct such an assessment. This would result in extremely thorough review of the plant’s operations, as well as its 

evacuation plans, which as you know has been the subject of intense concern in the area around the plant. 

Now, I personally think this idea makes a lot of sense for several 

reasons. I know that the NRC thinks that the plant is being operated safely. I know that the operator, Entergy, thinks that the 

plant is being operated safely. So I don’t understand why such a 

review would be resisted. I know it’s unusual, but the fact is that 

Indian Point is uniquely situated among all of our country’s reactors in its proximity to such a heavily populated major urban center. 

So I think the NRC ought to conduct such an assessment. I for 

one would not prejudge the outcome. Going through the process can 

only increase public confidence that the plant is being run well, as 

the NRC says, and that it therefore holds up to this extremely high 

level of scrutiny. 

So I guess my questions come down to these. First, will you support legislation such as that introduced by Senator Obama to require disclosure of leaks and other releases, or will you commit to 

implement such a requirement on your own? Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DIAZ. Thank you, Senator Clinton. I think you and I have 

talked several times about the fact that somehow the licensee of Indian Point likes to be in the news and you and I don’t understand 

that very well. We also of course, we would both like to have them 

more quiet or lower profile. 

Having said that, let me address a couple of issues and then I 

am going to turn to Commissioner Jaczko, who was just there recently to talk about the issue of the sirens and the tritium and so 

forth. We talk about the issue of the independent safety assessment. You heard Senator Lautenberg, what the NRC conducted for 

Vermont Yankee, which was a special type of engineering assessment that is safety focused that we had a small part in creating, 

a couple of years ago, and that is working very well. 
38 

We are going to conduct that type of assessment early next year 

in Indian Point. We will have people that are not the typical 

NRCers that work in the plant and contractors that have no relationship with Indian Point or any of the Entergy operations, to actually conduct a safety assessment, an engineering safety assessment of Indian Point. We call it an independent safety assessment 

because we are an independent Agency. It will be conducted completely thoroughly and independent of any undue influences. 

On the issue of the tritium and Senator Obama’s legislation, I 

would repeat what I told Senator Obama, we are taking this very 

seriously. We think that it’s a radiological protection issue, not a 

significant public health issue, because tritium is just a minimal 

hazard as a radiological substance. However, it does have all of the 

connotations that you and have talked about for some time, public 

confidence, information. So the staff will review the issue, the Commission will deliberate on it and we will deliver a product that will 

address the issue, once we have had a chance to fully consider all 

of the aspects of it. 

Senator CLINTON. Mr. Chairman, do you also consider Strontium 

90 to be in that category, the same category as tritium? 

Mr. DIAZ. No. 

Senator CLINTON. We are now dealing with the Strontium 90 and 

that’s a deeper concern. 

Mr. DIAZ. No, Strontium 90 means a totally different category. 

We are not certain that there is a Strontium 90 and there actually 

were, as I understand it, there were three samples. One of the 

samples that the State took and went to a special set of equipment 

showed a small, very small amount of Strontium 90. We are trying 

to confirm that Strontium 90 exists all over the eastern Seaboard 

from the weapons. It is decreasing, as it should, with time. So is 

tritium. 

The way the things are detected and the cleanness of the sample 

and the labs have a lot to do with it. We are on top of the issue, 

Senator. We will make sure that whatever it is, we will find out 

and we will be very pleased to communicate with you on that fact. 

Senator CLINTON. Let me just clarify the commitment, which I 

very much appreciate, to the independent safety assessment. Is 

that in accordance with the legislation that has been introduced 

and also the request by Congresswoman Kelly? 

Mr. DIAZ. I don’t know that it is exactly the same. This is something that we believe we must have available to us as a tool. I believe that what we call an engineering safety assessment is a special program that was developed in the last 2 years to address the 

fact that there were engineering issues showing up at different facilities and that we needed to pay attention to the safety systems. 

So we developed this new type of inspection that was used in 

Vermont Yankee and is now being used in several places. We think 

it is an excellent set of inspections, and we believe it is independent. I am not sure that it matches exactly what the legislation 

was, but I can tell you it is a very good set of inspections. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator Clinton, if I could just add, the last 

time we used the word independent safety assessment in NRC parlance was when Chairman Diaz and I joined the Commission in 

1996. It was used at Maine Yankee. What we meant at that time 
39 

by an independent safety assessment was to get a group of people, 

independent of Region I, in to look at Maine Yankee. It was headed 

by a man named Ed Jordan who is now long retired. And he 

brought in contractors and NRC staff from the other three regions. 

They did a very thorough review. 

We have come a long way since 1996. We think we have a much 

better core inspection process today than we had in 1996. And as 

the Chairman said, and he is modest, this new engineering, riskinformed engineering assessment that we piloted a couple of years 

ago, and that he was the inventor of, is a very, very thorough review. So I think the spirit of Congresswoman Kelly’s legislation is 

being followed in what the Chairman is talking about. But if people 

are longing for Maine Yankee style independent safety assessment, 

I think we do better today in our baseline program than we did 

then with that ISA. 

Senator CLINTON. I would appreciate if I could get a letter to that 

effect, because certainly the idea of an independent safety assessment has a lot of credibility and support. I really appreciate your 

commitment, No. 1, to do a thorough safety assessment, whether 

we call it engineering safety or independent safety. I just want to 

be assured that it is as thorough and comprehensive and independent as we possibly can make it. 

If I could get a letter to that effect, perhaps explaining, as both 

you and Commissioner McGaffigan have just done, that we have 

come a long way, you have actually increased the thoroughness and 

the comprehensiveness of the safety assessments. Because I think 

that this is obviously very, very much a personal issue to the people I represent, and even to my neighbors. Because I live very close 

to Indian Point as well. 

But I also think it’s part of the larger series of questions that are 

around the new push for nuclear power. I think that getting it 

right at Indian Point is going to be critical to the future of nuclear 

power for people asking for licenses, very far from where we are, 

but who will be looking at the entire country and the performance 

of the plants. So restoring public confidence, helping to educate the 

public and public officials, particularly at the local level, because 

I think you heard from Senator Lautenberg and Senator Obama, 

as well as myself, that they are the ones who are really on the 

front lines. The sirens don’t work, there’s leaks of dangerous sounding chemicals. It’s very hard to know what to think. 

So I appreciate this. I will look forward to the letter and hope 

that we can work on this. 

Mr. DIAZ. Thank you. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you, Senator Clinton. 

I am going to make some comments and then ask some more 

questions. Public relations are very important. I have got to tell 

you that over the last several years, your PR has been horrible. 

You are a public body and people are very interested in what you 

are doing. Somebody ought to sit down and figure out, we should 

have had this conversation today about Senator Obama and that 

information getting out and then somebody getting hold of it, and 

of course, always we will demagogue it. Tritium is the worst thing 

that’s ever happened, and boy, off you go, and once the water is 

over the dam, guys, it’s very difficult to bring it back. 
40 

So somebody ought to sit down and think about what kind of 

public relations in terms of reporting to the public, reporting to the 

EPA, to the local county commissioners so you get the information 

out there before they jump to conclusions about something that 

may not be a problem. Maybe you don’t think it is, but by golly, 

it’s a problem for those individuals. Because we are the ones that 

hear about it, and the locals hear about it. That’s No. 1. 

No. 2, in terms of where are we with safety in the country, and 

I think you have made great progress, I can tell you did, from what 

I can understand, at Davis-Besse, you really did a job over there 

and you are staying on top of it. I saw you did, over at Perry Nuclear, you got in there and did the job and stopped some things. 

I think that the lessons learned have sunk in. 

But again, I think it’s important that you report to the public on 

a regional basis, where are we, how are we doing, progress has 

been made, still some problems. Maybe some of the companies may 

not like it that say there are still some problems. But I think the 

public should know about it and not be hiding out. 

So I think that’s an area where a lot of work has to be done. If 

you don’t, we will get legislation passed, then the next thing is we 

will legislative something else and before you know it, you will 

have no discretion left whatsoever. So that’s the one thing. 

Second of all, this whole business about the process on these new 

COL cases. There’s got to be some confidence out there that the 

process is going to be streamlined, that you’re going to be fastidious 

in terms of it, that there’s a beginning and an end. That’s important to these people making applications, it’s going to be important 

to their getting the financing they need. This is going to go on for 

10 years. Some type of commitment should be made that you’re 

going to move along in an expeditious fashion and get the job done. 

I will let you comment on the public relations. 

Mr. DIAZ. All right. Sir, I almost, I’m not delighted, but I am 

very happy you asked the question, because that’s what I have 

been doing for the last 3 years. Maybe too quietly. I realize we 

have not been very good and we probably still are far from being 

as good as we should be in the issue of public relations. But we 

have come a long way. 

We have changed not only the culture but the processes inside 

the NRC. Every manager and every staffer knows they need to 

communicate. Davis-Besse was a big lesson. But the reality is that 

we have been moving forward in every one of these issues, including, I established more than a year or so ago meetings with congressional delegations in different parts of the Nation. It got the 

process going. We have one major one going next week in Florida. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Let me ask you this question. Do you have 

a tickler system for the people that operate that facility for the 

NRC that come into the area to go see the chief editorial writer of 

a paper on a regular basis to include them in on what’s going on, 

so they are aware of it? Because they are real interested. There are 

reporters interested in it, so that if you do it on a regular basis and 

develop a relationship and communications, so if something goes 

wrong, they know there’s somebody they can talk to? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir. We have a new Office of Public Affairs which 

is charged with maintaining this relationship, with not only keep-
41 

ing the public informed directly, but having the connections with 

the different organizations. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Well, I’d like to see in writing what the word 

is out there. The companies should be smart enough to also—— 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, I would only say, I think the management 

of public relations in an Agency as open as ours, I think we are 

the most open regulatory body in the American Government. People can look at our daily event reports, they can look, Senator Clinton knew that yesterday there was a siren problem when they tested the sirens. That is because it’s public. 

I think something that goes with the degree of openness we have 

is that we can’t manage every piece of information that emits from 

us. Sometimes other people interpret it for us. So it’s, you know, 

FAA does not tell you what the maintenance records are of the various planes that people might use to go home this weekend to their 

States. If they did, they would have the same problems that we do. 

We have chosen to make the information available. We make 

some attempts to manage information when we know it’s really 

bad, we try to be ready with the public affairs officers, the talking 

points, as to why this is or isn’t significant and what NRC is going 

to do about it. But we get caught by surprise, because the amount 

of information that goes onto our web page on a daily basis is enormous. There’s a lot of people who read it, and there’s a lot of people 

who will interpret it for us. So we do the best we can. I can never 

promise you it’s going to be perfect. 

I do believe we should talk to the editorial boards. I think that’s 

something we should do. I think the bottom line of your question 

is that we can do better. Your point is we can do a better job. 

That’s what I take from your point. I agree. I think we can do better. 

Senator VOINOVICH. The companies should do a better job. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Yes, they should. 

Mr. DIAZ. We agree. 

Senator VOINOVICH. In reviewing the NRC strategic human capital plan, the Commission is focusing on hiring young recent college 

graduates. How is the Commission working to fill in the gaps of its 

succession plan in recruiting and retaining the necessary cadre of 

mid-career employees, and how is the Commission implementing 

the workforce flexibilities for the NRC in last year’s Energy bill, 

and is the Commission utilizing all available flexibilities, including 

those authorized in the Federal Workforce Flexibility Act? These 

would include flexibilities such as categorical hiring and enhanced 

annual leave. 

You hired a bunch of new folks. But one of the problems that I’ve 

observed from my other committee chairmanship is in an area of 

middle management, we don’t do a very good job of bringing people 

in. They come in, they stay, but I’m sure in middle management 

areas you need some people from the outside to come in. How are 

you doing in regard to that? 

Mr. DIAZ. We are hiring at both sides of the spectrum. We are 

hiring young people and we train them. But if I might ask the 

staff, is it 40 percent? 
42 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. Twenty-five percent of our hiring is university 

graduates. So 75 percent of folks that we are hiring are people who 

are in fact mid-career. 

Mr. DIAZ. We are having reasonable success in attracting people 

from different areas of industries or the nuclear navy and areas 

where we find the right expertise. So we are doing well in the mix. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. Getting back to the research and test 

reactors. I understand that, well, they are very concerned about the 

fact that the $27 million has been zeroed out. We have to take care 

of that problem. The student enrollment in nuclear engineering 

programs at universities has increased substantially in the last 3 

to 5 years, and you have shared that with me, due in large part 

to DOE grants and assistance. At MIT, student enrollment in nuclear engineering has more than doubled in the last 5 years. But 

school officials fear that the proposed cut, if not restored, will undo 

the progress they have achieved in the last few years. 

I just want to emphasize again how important that is in terms 

of your future recruiting. I really would like to have a letter drafted 

so that maybe all the members of this committee could share it 

with the Administration and also with the Appropriations Committee. 

Mr. JACZKO. Mr. Chairman, if I can make a point on that, too, 

one of the things that I think is important to keep in mind is, we 

don’t just hire nuclear engineers. We hire electrical engineers, we 

hire mechanical engineers. They are in fact a large portion of the 

kinds of people that we hire. 

So this issue is broader than just what’s happening with nuclear 

engineering programs. But it goes in general to the broader issues 

of engineering programs in colleges and universities throughout the 

country. 

Senator VOINOVICH. That’s why Senator Carper and a bunch of 

us, almost 50 of us now, have supported the PACE legislation. Because we know how important it is that we get this thing going. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator Voinovich, there is a very good draft 

already signed by a couple of Senators named Domenici and Bingaman that dealt with issues other than just this. But there’s a letter 

from them to Secretary Bodman on the issue of the zeroing of this 

nuclear engineering money. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Great. You are undertaking licensing of two 

uranium enrichment facilities, one located in New Mexico, the 

other located in Ohio. This is a major undertaking by the Agency. 

Both are at a critical juncture, and I want to know, does this Commission have the resources to provide oversight in order to ensure 

the goal of a timely review? Does he have the resources? Can you 

meet the time table? 

Mr. DIAZ. Yes, sir. We have the resources and they are on schedule right now. 

Senator VOINOVICH. One of the questions that’s been raised is 

you’ve got two companies that are trying to beat each other out in 

terms of who is going to open the door first. Is there a market for 

two companies doing uranium enrichment? 

Mr. DIAZ. I believe they think there is. I think that’s what they 

are going into the business of. It will eventually depend on the 

total demand. Right now the demand for enriched uranium in the 
43 

world is increasing. As you see from the numbers we have shown 

it could increase in a year. 

So I cannot judge what their marketing strategies are, but we 

will do what we need to do, and that is, they gave us a good application, we will put it through the process. If they comply with the 

requirements, then the Commission will considering issuing their 

license. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Mr. Lyons. 

Mr. LYONS. Mr. Chairman, you pointed out the concerns that industry has on whether the COL process will move forward in an 

expeditious way. In my mind, and I think for the whole Commission, we have been acutely conscious of the fact that our performance on license applications like the enrichment plants, like the upgrades, like the license renewals, are also being judged by industry 

and contribute to their degree of confidence that we can successfully carry through the COL process. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Sir, we did an LES mandatory hearing for the 

one in New Mexico earlier this week. It really went very, very well. 

There are some issues still in play that are likely to be appealed 

to the Commission in that case. I believe with only a short delay 

of a few months, USEC is following along. 

So our hearing process under the new rules in these two instances has not been the horror story that we have had in the past 

and that we—it was one of the reasons we amended Part 2 of our 

adjudicatory rules, so that we would have a better process. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I think to put a finer point on it, the hearing 

process appears to be working very well, exactly as we had 

planned. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Very well. Well, as I said in my remarks at 

the beginning of my formal statement, I really believe that the 

NRC is going to have to be the most efficient, innovative that it’s 

ever been in the history of the NRC. All these issues today that 

people have raised have an impact on the future. It’s really important that you get the job done. Because we have a real crisis in the 

United States of America that is impacting on our ordinary citizens 

and on our economy. Part of developing the infrastructure of competitiveness is that regulatory agencies like yours have got to get 

a whole lot better. 

Chairman Diaz, in front of all your colleagues here, I want to 

congratulate you on the progress that you have made. You still 

have a long way to go. You and I are going to spend a lot more 

time together. Because I am bound and determined that you’re 

going to get the job done, and I know Senator Carper and I want 

to do everything we can as members of this committee to help you. 

Mr. DIAZ. I am looking forward to it, sir. 

Senator VOINOVICH. Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. 

I’m going to ask you a couple of questions, I want to tell you 

what the questions are and then I am going to make a statement, 

so you will have a chance to think about your answers to my questions. 

One of my closing questions is just to reiterate for us, what can 

we do to help you do your jobs better. That’s No. 1. 
44 

Second, I want to ask you to comment on the ongoing developments of lack of developments with respect to Iran and their interest in developing a nuclear capability, some of us think for building 

nuclear weapons. The idea of the enrichment only in the Russia approach, the idea that the Iranians should be able to, they want to 

be able to do at least a modest amount of enrichment in Iran, it’s 

sort of off the beaten track a little bit, but if you have thoughts on 

that, I would welcome your counsel. 

The other thing, you may have gotten into this while I was away, 

I have a couple other hearings going on right now. But just looking 

over the next couple of years with respect to disposal of nuclear 

waste, we continue to retain them onsite, a lot of work, a lot of 

money has been spent on Yucca Mountain. How do you see the 

next couple of years playing out there? 

So those are the three I want to close with. 

I want to go back, Senator Voinovich was talking about the increase in nuclear engineering students. My oldest boy Christopher 

is a senior in high school, he graduates this June. He’s gone to a 

math-science charter school in Wilmington, DE, very good school. 

Only charter school in Wilmington, and they produce a lot of not 

only good math and science students, but a lot of engineers and scientists and researchers. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I understand he’s been accepted at Harvard. 

Senator CARPER. I tell people, they say, where is he going to go 

when he graduates? I tell people he’s going to go to Delaware Technical and Community College, and they say, he is? Because it’s a 

really good high school. But then I tell them it’s because he is going 

to take a summer course in auto mechanics, so that he can fix his 

mom’s old Ford Explorer and take that to wherever he’s going. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. We’ll see where he ends up going. He’s so much 

smarter than his father, it’s just amazing, and so much more humble, too, I might add. 

But there are, as we visited colleges of engineering around the 

country, we have heard the very same thing, anecdotally, that more 

people want to be nuclear engineers. So that is good. 

I had my staff dig up some numbers for me last week on the 

number of engineers that were training in this country compared 

to some other countries. They came back and said that the last 

numbers we had were for 2004. In 2004, the Chinese trained and 

produced over 350,000 new engineers, we produced fewer than 

150,000. While there may be a few more nuclear engineers coming 

along, which is good, we still need, as some of our other Commissioners have mentioned, we need those electrical engineers (EEs) 

and those mechanical engineers and a variety of others, as well. 

I would just remind the Commission, if you will, several of us 

have mentioned time lines, timeliness, I did and I know Senator 

Inhofe did. I would just ask you to keep that in mind. It is an important thing for us. 

All right. Go back to my three questions. Just re-emphasize for 

us a couple of things that we can do to help. 

Mr. DIAZ. Can I start with a small personal comment, sir? I love 

nuclear engineers. I happen to be one. So I’m totally biased regarding that issue. I think they make great overall engineers because 
45 

they get both of the nuclear, the mechanical, the electrical, and I 

will put in a plug for nuclear engineering. 

Senator CARPER. Jimmy Carter used to say the same thing. 

Mr. DIAZ. All right. What can you do? I think the committee has 

been extremely helpful to us in two areas that are vital. We will 

need to have the right resources, both the financial resources. We 

had legislation last year that helped us along. We might have a few 

pieces of legislation. 

The support that we get, we really are going to need in the area 

of hiring and space. We might have to use your influence in different places to get the right time lines. Because we are out of 

space. We don’t just—we are flat out of space. We are going to have 

a little bit of space outside, but eventually we need to move. We 

don’t have space, we can’t put the computers, we cannot have the 

infrastructure. 

So Senator, I believe those areas will continue to be important. 

We will continue to work with you in making sure that you are 

aware of our financial needs, of our legislative needs and our resource needs. 

Senator CARPER. All right, good enough. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Senator, I am just going to hit on the space 

issue. We were supposed to have our training center, our headquarters training center moved to Bethesda by now, as a temporary 

measure, in order for people who are working in conference rooms 

and hallways currently could actually have a decent space to work 

in. That is now August. The General Services Administration had 

a contractor, the owner of the building we were going to move into 

switched to another building. The new owner tells us, oops, you’re 

a training facility, not an office building. We have to get another 

permit from Montgomery County. And GSA has also told us—you 

can’t fix that, that’s just the way the Federal Government works, 

unfortunately. 

But GSA has also told us that our ultimate goal of having proximate office space to us in Rockville, so that we’re not spread all 

over the Maryland suburbs, they think there may be a statutory 

problem, because they are supposed to have full and open competition. If you go to Rockville, you’ll see there’s a lot of stuff popping 

up around us, and we think we could have a pretty good competition within a half mile of headquarters. But you may have to legislate that. You may have to say, competition in this case is good 

enough, we don’t want NRC stressed with people having to wander 

all over the Maryland suburbs when they’re trying to process 11 simultaneous applications for new plants, trying to deal with Yucca 

Mountain, trying to deal with the enrichment facilities, etc. 

So that’s Governmental Affairs. I look at Senator Voinovich because he’s the dual-hatted member here. 

Senator CARPER. Actually, there are two of us. We both—— 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Oh, you’re both on Governmental Affairs. Well, 

we could use your help, I think. 

Senator CARPER. When you were responding, I was thinking, 

from time to time, our delegation from Delaware will invite folks 

from another Agency that we’re looking for cooperation from, 

maybe GSA, just literally to come and to meet with us. We’ll invite 
46 

in whoever has an issue or concern to join us in that meeting. I 

don’t know if that might make some sense. 

Senator VOINOVICH. This committee has jurisdiction of GSA. 

Senator CARPER. Yes. 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. To put a fine point on it, I completely agree 

with my two fellow members. That is the most important thing 

that this committee can do to support us. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we’ll see what we can do. I don’t know if 

this committee or Homeland Security and Government Affairs 

Committee. 

Senator VOINOVICH. It’s this committee, we’ve got GSA. 

Senator CARPER. The other thing I would ask, if you have any 

comments on Iran. I know our time has escaped. But forget Iran. 

Yucca Mountain and disposal of—we’re out of time. It’s a lot easier. 

Please. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DIAZ. Let me quickly say one thing. I just came back from 

Russia last Sunday. I was able to meet with the, essentially the 

chief negotiator of Russia for Iran. What I can tell you is that it 

appears that Russia is aligned with the interests of the United 

States in making sure that Iran does not develop the capabilities 

to enrich uranium or proliferate. I think in that area, the United 

States and Russia are well aligned. We still are looking forward to 

a conclusion of those negotiations. 

Senator CARPER. Good. I hope you’re right. That’s encouraging. 

Last one, on the disposal, we have all this nuclear waste that is 

building up around facilities, nuclear facilities. And progress out in 

Yucca Mountain goes slowly, as I understand it. Just the next couple of years, what lies ahead? 

Mr. MERRIFIELD. I would like to, in a regulatory information conference I spoke quite extensively, that was the entirety of my 

speech yesterday, talking about waste. We have in place right now 

a program where the fuel was placed in the pools of the reactors 

or through the use of the dry cask storage facilities, which will ensure the safe storage of that fuel for years to come. So obviously, 

we spoke earlier this morning about wanting to see the Yucca 

Mountain application at some point, so our Nation’s resolution to 

this issue can be resolved one way or the other. 

But in the interim, we do have the ability to safely store this 

fuel, so that individuals in Delaware, New Jersey and other parts 

of the country can be assured that we are dealing with it in a way 

that makes sense and is protective of public health, safety and the 

environment. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MCGAFFIGAN. Mr. Chairman, there is one issue that is hanging. Senator Isakson at the outset asked us to address something, 

and we haven’t had the opportunity. If you want, I can spend 1 

minute on that, or if this was the KI to 20 mile issue or we can 

answer for the record. 

Senator VOINOVICH. I would prefer that, because I have somebody waiting in my office. 

Mr. DIAZ. We will answer it for the record, sir. 

Senator CARPER. If you could respond for the record, that would 

be great, thank you. 
47 

[The referenced information can be found on page 54.] 

Senator VOINOVICH. Thank you very much. 

Senator CARPER. Yes, thanks to all of you, very much. 

Senator VOINOVICH. We appreciate your being here today and 

look forward to working with you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Additional statements submitted for the record follow:] 

STATEMENT OF NILS J. DIAZ, CHAIRMAN, U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

ACCOMPANIED BY: EDWARD MCGAFFIGAN, JR., COMMISSIONER; JEFFREY S. 

MERRIFIELD, COMMISSIONER; GREGORY B. JACZKO, COMMISSIONER; AND PETER B. 

LYONS, COMMISSIONER

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, it is a pleasure to appear before 

you today with my fellow Commissioners to discuss the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) programs. The Commission appreciates the support of the Subcommittee and the Committee as a whole, and we look forward to working with you 

in the future. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Congress for the 

additional budgetary support that was provided last year. 

I would like to highlight our key ongoing oversight and licensing activities, including activities to implement the provisions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (the Act), 

initiatives to meet the new challenges posed by the dynamic nature of today’s nuclear arena, and in particular current and anticipated new reactor licensing activities and human capital initiatives. 

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005

The Commission is pleased that key legislative provisions to augment the oversight of nuclear facilities and materials were enacted in the Energy Policy Act of 

2005. The NRC has begun rulemaking activities to implement the authorization of 

the possession and use of certain firearms by security personnel, expanded 

fingerprinting and criminal history checks, Federal criminal sanctions for the unauthorized introduction of dangerous weapons at nuclear facilities, and Federal criminal sanctions for the sabotage of additional classes of nuclear facilities or designated 

materials. 

The Commission has initiated and in some cases completed work to implement 

the other provisions in the Act. These activities include the following: 

• The NRC is currently preparing a rulemaking to include within the definition 

of byproduct material under our regulatory authority accelerator-produced material, 

discrete sources of radium-226, and certain discrete sources of naturally-occurring 

radioactive material (NORM), other than source material, if these materials are produced, extracted or converted for use in commercial, medical, or research activities. 

In accordance with the statutory schedule, the NRC plans to issue a final rule by 

February 2007. However, the need for substantial stakeholder involvement is a challenge to meeting the deadline. As authorized by the Act, the NRC issued a waiver 

of the requirements to allow States to continue to regulate this material under their 

existing programs until the Commission adopts regulations and implements a plan 

for the orderly transition of the jurisdiction of the material to NRC regulatory oversight. 

• The NRC has been taking action to implement key provisions of the Act that 

enhance our capabilities by authorizing the NRC to recover its costs from other government agencies through user fees, permanently extending the NRC’s authority to 

collect 90 percent of its budget authority through fees, eliminating NRC’s antitrust 

reviews for new utilization or production facility applications, and clarifying that the 

existence of an organizational conflict of interest does not bar the NRC from entering into a contract with a DOE laboratory under certain circumstances. 

• The NRC is taking action to implement all of the human capital initiatives in 

the Act, such as the pension offset provision, to enhance the NRC’s ability to maintain and improve its regulatory expertise. 

• On January 31, 2006, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Order to the licensee for 

the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant to implement the provision concerning 

backup power for certain emergency notification systems. 

• The NRC issued a grant to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January 

2006, to assess whether there are other processes which either can replace radiation 
48 

sources with economically and technically appropriate alternatives or can use radiation sources that pose a lower risk to the public. As provided by the Act, the NRC 

plans to submit the results of this study to Congress in August 2007. • The NRC continues to exercise strong oversight of security at nuclear power 

plants, which includes force-on-force exercises for reactor licensees at least once 

every 3 years as required by the Act, and will provide its first annual report to Congress on the security evaluations before the end of FY 2006. • On November 7, 2005, the NRC issued for public comment a proposed rule addressing the Design Basis Threat. Congress directed the NRC to consider 12 factors 

in developing the DBT rule, and the Commission has requested comments on those 

factors. A final rule is expected by February 2007. • In July 2005, the Commission published proposed regulations that would establish a nationwide mandatory tracking system (National Source Tracking System, or 

NSTS) for Category 1 and 2 radioactive sources. The final rule is expected to be 

issued in August 2006. 

Several provisions of the Act relate to the export or import of Atomic Energy Act 

material and equipment. Some of these provisions were satisfied by a final rule that 

was issued on July 1, 2005, which provided additional controls on the import and 

export of radioactive sources. The NRC anticipates issuing in Spring 2006 a final 

rule to, among other things, revise the regulations regarding the export of HEU for 

medical isotope production. Additionally, the NRC expects to publish in Spring 2006 

a proposed rule addressing those classes of individuals subject to background check 

requirements for import or export shipments. 

The new Task Force on Radiation Source Protection and Security convened in the 

fall of 2005 and included two additional entities whose participation was not mandated in the Act—the Department of Health and Human Services and the White 

House Office of Science and Technology Policy. On January 11, 2006, the NRC published a Federal Register notice requesting public comment on major issues before 

the Task Force. A Task Force report will be delivered to Congress and the President 

in August 2006. 

Those I mentioned are just a few of the activities we have undertaken since the 

passage of the Energy Policy Act. Let me say a few words about ongoing activities 

in the areas of new reactor licensing, human capital, and other core Agency activities. 

NEW REACTOR LICENSING

The Commission’s Strategic Plan includes the Agency objective to: 

Enable the use and management of radioactive materials and nuclear fuels for 

beneficial civilian purposes in a manner that protects public health and safety 

and the environment, promotes the security of our nation, and provides for regulatory actions that are open, effective, efficient, realistic, and timely. 

Consistent with this objective and its statutory responsibility, the NRC has been 

conducting reviews of new plant licensing related applications, including early site 

permit and design certification applications. Also consistent with this objective, the 

NRC is preparing for the significant workload to review combined license (COL) and 

other new plant licensing related applications that are currently being projected by 

the nuclear industry. 

To date, the NRC has received three early site permit applications for sites in Virginia, Illinois, and Mississippi that currently have operating reactors. The NRC staff 

has issued three safety evaluation reports and three draft environmental impact 

statements for public comment, although additional work is being performed in connection with one application that has recently been significantly revised by the applicant. The adjudicatory proceedings associated with the early site permit applications are currently ongoing. These ESP reviews are first-of-a-kind and have identified numerous lessons learned for both the NRC and industry, which will be used 

to improve new reactor licensing processes in the future. The NRC is expecting an 

additional ESP application to be submitted during the summer of 2006. The NRC 

is also currently reviewing the General Electric Economic Simplified Boiling Water 

Reactor design certification application, is conducting pre-application activities for 

Areva’s U.S. Evolutionary Power Reactor design, and is also conducting some activities for three additional reactor designs. 

The NRC is preparing for the increasing number of projected new plant licensing 

applications. Last year at this time, the NRC had been notified of three potential 

COL applications in the next few years. Today, the number of expected COL applications is 11, and continues to increase. Some of these applications are expected to 

reference designs already certified, while others are expected to reference designs 

that are still under NRC review for certifications. We continue to assess our re-
49 

source needs in light of the very substantial increase in the number of anticipated 

COL applications and related work. 

In order to allow for the review of multiple COL applications in parallel, the staff 

is considering a number of steps and planning to implement a design-centered approach. Using this approach, the NRC staff would use a single technical evaluation 

to support multiple combined license applications for the same technical area of review, as long as the applications standardize the licensing basis to a level that 

would make this approach viable. Standardization is key to success of this approach. 

In addition, the Commission recently approved a proposal to revise 10 CFR Part 

52, which contains the requirements for Early Site Permits, Standard Design Certifications, and Combined Licenses for nuclear power plants, to clarify it and enhance its usability. The proposed rule incorporates the lessons learned from previous regulatory reviews to enhance regulatory predictability at the COL stage. Furthermore, in the Part 52 rulemaking, the Commission is soliciting comments on an 

approach that would facilitate amendments to design certification rules after the 

initial certification. With such a provision, a detailed standard certified design 

would be able to incorporate additional features that are generic to the design and 

thereby encourage further standardization. Also, changes to the limited work authorization process will be considered. The NRC staff is working to provide a final 

rule in October 2006 for Commission consideration. 

The Commission and the NRC staff continue to prepare the Agency for the significant workload in the area of new reactor licensing. The NRC understands and accepts its share of this responsibility; however, a successful outcome depends on 

many factors, including the quality of the applications submitted. With the support 

of Congress, we will be ready to carry out our responsibilities and meet the challenges we will face. 

HUMAN CAPITAL AND SPACE PLANNING

As you know, the NRC’s ability to accomplish its mission depends on the availability of a highly skilled and experienced work force. In a recent ranking of the 

Top 10 Federal Work Places, by the Partnership for Public Service and American 

University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, the NRC was 

designated the third best place to work in the Federal government. In addition, the 

NRC was ranked first among those surveyed who are under 40 years of age. Nonetheless, the NRC continues to be challenged by the substantial growth in new work 

at a time when experienced staff are increasingly eligible to retire. To address these 

challenges, the Agency has human capital strategies to find, attract, and retain critical-skill staff, and a space acquisition plan to accommodate these additional employees. 

The NRC is aggressively recruiting a mixture of recent college graduates and experienced professionals to meet the Agency’s hiring challenges. The current projection is that over 400 additional FTEs will be devoted to new work by FY 2008. The 

Commission is striving to hire approximately 350 new employees in FY 2006 to 

cover the loss of personnel and to support growth in new work. The Agency expects 

to have a critical hiring need for the next five years. 

The NRC closely monitors its voluntary attrition rate including retirements, 

which has historically been below six percent, and will continue to do so as the attrition rate could potentially increase as industry competition for skilled individuals 

increases and as older staff retire. The Agency uses a variety of recruitment and 

retention incentives to remain competitive with the private sector. We continue to 

experience success utilizing the provisions of the Federal Workforce Flexibility Act 

of 2004 and the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The NRC has budgeted for continued 

and increasing use of these recruitment and retention tools in the coming years. 

Our steady growth and accelerated hiring program has exhausted available space 

at our Headquarters buildings. We have developed strategies to obtain adequate 

space to accommodate our new hires. We are creating additional workstations within our Headquarters buildings, including temporarily building workstations in conference rooms, and we are moving our Professional Development Center off-site to 

use the space it currently occupies for new hires. We are also seeking additional office space to support the expected growth of the Agency. 

The NRC will be continually challenged to maintain adequate infrastructure and 

the personnel needed. However, the Commission believes the Agency is poised to 

meet these challenges successfully through the ongoing human capital planning, implementation, and assessment process, the space planning program, and the various 

tools provided by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. 
50 

NRC Safety Culture and Climate Surveys 

An Agency’s organizational culture is a key to the accomplishment of its mission. 

In 2005, the Inspector General conducted a survey of NRC employees to assess the 

current safety culture and climate of the Agency’s workforce. Approximately 70 percent of the NRC staff participated in the survey. The NRC improved its scores in 

virtually every category from the results of a similar survey conducted in 2002. 

These significant accomplishments included the areas of Communication and NRC 

Mission and Strategic Plan. Recruiting, Development & Retention and Management 

Leadership also showed significant improvement since 2002. In addition, the survey 

results revealed areas for continuing improvement, including workload and stress, 

knowledge transfer, and the use of the Differing Professional Opinion program. 

REACTOR SAFETY PROGRAMS

The Agency’s overall reactor safety functions are executed in a variety of ways, 

including licensing, inspection and oversight, rulemaking, enforcement, and investigations. Reactor safety programs ensure that safety of operating nuclear power 

plants is maintained, and the NRC is continually evaluating and improving these 

programs. NRC safety programs include evaluating past events, identifying lessons 

learned from those events, and partnering with stakeholders to increase their participation in the regulatory process. 

Reactor Oversight Process 

The Commission believes that the revised Reactor Oversight Process (ROP), which 

was implemented in April 2000, has brought a more disciplined and objective approach to oversight of nuclear power plants. Plants continue to receive a level of 

oversight commensurate with their performance. The results of NRC oversight activities, including performance indicators, inspection findings, and the current assessment of overall performance for each reactor are publicly available on the NRC’s 

web site. The NRC staff continues to enhance the process through stakeholder participation and as a result of internal reviews, feedback, and lessons learned. For example, the NRC has begun conducting revised engineering inspections and continues to focus on improving the timeliness of the significance determination of inspection findings. In addition, the NRC is assessing the use of the ROP for new reactor designs. 

Safety Culture 

Last year, I discussed an initiative to address the management of safety and safety culture issues by licensees and to develop better methods, tools, and training for 

the NRC’s inspection staff. I would like to update you on this initiative and on the 

NRC’s recent accomplishments. 

The NRC issued generic guidance for establishing and maintaining a safety conscious work environment, including guidance on effective processes to encourage and 

address concerns and tools to assess the work environment. This guidance reiterates 

the NRC’s expectation that senior licensee management will be involved in detecting 

and preventing retaliation. 

The NRC staff is also enhancing the ROP to address safety culture more fully. 

The NRC staff continues to work with external stakeholders and has developed an 

approach to enhance inspection and assessment programs to better align the ROP 

with those aspects of plant performance that are important to safety culture. The 

approach provides a means for the NRC to evaluate licensee actions to address identified performance issues which may be indicative of safety culture weaknesses to 

use a graded approach for having a licensee perform an evaluation or obtain an 

independent assessment of safety culture at the plant if needed, and to follow up 

with an independent NRC evaluation of safety culture for plants that have experienced a significant deterioration in performance. The NRC staff plans to complete 

revisions to the inspection and assessment programs in May 2006 and will be conducting training over the next few months for NRC inspectors and managers in 

order to support implementation of the safety culture-related enhancements on July 

1, 2006. 

Radiological Protection 

As part of NRC’s requirements for operating a nuclear power plant, licensees 

must keep releases of radioactive material to unrestricted areas during normal operation as low as reasonably achievable and comply with radiation dose limits for the 

public. In addition, NRC regulations require licensees to have various effluent and 

environmental monitoring programs to ensure that the impacts from plant operations are minimized. The permitted effluent releases result in very small doses to 

members of the public living around nuclear power plants. The NRC oversees these 
51 

licensee programs to ensure adequate protection of public health and safety and the 

environment. Recently, the NRC staff has been monitoring instances of, and licensee 

actions to address, groundwater contamination involving tritium at operating and 

shutdown power reactors undergoing decommissioning. In addition, the NRC is in 

the process of establishing a tritium lessons learned task force to review these incidents and identify lessons learned from them to determine what, if any, changes are 

needed. 

Operating Reactor Licensing Programs 

The reactor licensing program, coupled with a strong oversight program, ensures 

that operating nuclear power plants maintain adequate protection of public health 

and safety. NRC licensing activities include using state-of-the-art science, engineering, and risk assessment methods and information from operating experience to establish and refine reactor safety standards, to promulgate the related rules, issue 

orders and generic communications as appropriate, and to review applications consistent with these requirements. In FY 2005, NRC staff completed 1,609 licensing 

actions associated with the 104 licensed reactors. 

In 2005, the NRC reviewed and approved license renewal applications for 9 reactors, bringing the total number of renewed reactor licenses to 39 since 2000. Twelve 

additional license renewal applications are currently under review, five of which are 

on schedule to be completed in this fiscal year. Approximately one-half of the reactors in the United States have either received or are currently under review for a 

reactor license renewal. The NRC anticipates that the remaining reactors currently 

licensed to operate will apply for renewal of their licenses and the NRC staff will 

continue to face a significant workload in this area for the next several years. 

To date, the NRC has completed reviews of and approved 108 power uprate applications, which have safely added capacity equivalent to more than four large nuclear power plants. Currently, the NRC staff is reviewing 10 power uprate applications and expects to receive approximately 7 additional applications through FY 

2007. 

An extended power uprate increases the reactor’s power by up to 20 percent. In 

some Boiling Water Reactors that have been implemented extended power uprates, 

the NRC has observed steam dryer cracking and flow-induced vibration damage in 

the steam and feedwater systems. The NRC staff has conducted extensive inspections at the affected plants and has held technical meetings with the affected licensees to discuss the causes of the adverse flow effects and to evaluate the corrective 

actions. The NRC will continue to monitor plant-specific and industry actions to resolve these issues and has factored this experience into reviews of pending power 

uprate applications. 

SECURITY

The NRC continues to evaluate and inspect security plans, procedures, and systems to ensure that acceptable security measures remain in place to protect the 

health and safety of the public. The NRC also continues to conduct the force-on-force 

exercise inspection program to evaluate licensee’s defensive capabilities and identify 

areas for improvement. In the materials arena, the NRC continues to devote considerable effort to determine what additional actions should be used to enhance the security of radioactive material of greatest concern. In addition, the NRC maintains 

close communication and coordination with the Department of Homeland Security 

and other agencies in the intelligence and law enforcement communities. As requested in your letter of January 10, 2006, attached as an addendum, is NRC’s report on research and test reactors. 

The NRC has three important security rulemakings planned or under way to codify security requirements for power reactors. The first is the rulemaking on the design basis threat for radiological sabotage. The comment period for the proposed 

rule ended recently and a final rule will be issued later this year. The second rulemaking will amend the power reactor security regulations to align them with the 

series of orders the Commission issued following September 11, 2001, and to ensure 

that safety-security interface issues are properly considered in plant operations. The 

Commission intends to issue a final rule as early in calendar year 2007 as possible. 

Finally, the Commission’s expectations on security design for new reactor licensing 

activities are scheduled to be codified in a third rulemaking by September 2007. The 

expectation of the Commission is that the lessons learned by the Agency and reactor 

licensees pre- and post-9/11 should be considered by the vendors at the design stage. 

We have learned much and I believe improvements can be realized without major 

design or construction modifications. 
52 

Reactor Security Assessments 

As Congress is aware, shortly after the September 11 attacks, the NRC required 

nuclear power plant licensees to implement mitigative strategies using existing or 

readily available resources to address the loss of large areas of any plants due to 

explosion or fire. At about the same time, the NRC initiated the performance of detailed engineering studies of representative nuclear power plants that assessed the 

damage that could be caused to the plants if large commercial aircraft were employed as weapons. Based on the differences in plant designs and capabilities found 

by these studies, the NRC is conducting evaluations at each U.S. nuclear power 

plant individually to identify specific methods that could be used to prevent or delay 

fuel damage, prevent or delay containment failure, or reduce or prevent releases of 

fission products. To expedite the studies, the NRC performed the spent fuel pool assessments completely independent of the reactor core and containment assessments. 

The NRC has completed site-specific spent fuel pool assessments that addressed 

the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences’ study on spent fuel 

pools. Plant-specific reports were issued in December 2005 to all licensees, listing 

mitigation strategies identified during the assessments. As a result of these assessments, the industry proposed steps to ensure that plants have specific independent 

capabilities to mitigate spent fuel pool events. The NRC staff is evaluating the industry proposal. The NRC will determine if further actions are necessary after evaluating plant-specific details concerning licensees’ implementation of the proposal. 

In addition, we continue to enhance mitigation strategy capabilities by conducting 

plant-specific assessments of strategies for core and containment events. The NRC’s 

assessments include an audit of each licensee’s effort to identify mitigation strategies as well as an independent evaluation performed by NRC staff and contractors. 

These assessments began in September 2005, and will be completed in the spring 

of 2006. To date, the results of these assessments have validated the actions the 

NRC has taken to enhance the security and safety of the plants and have confirmed 

the robustness of these facilities. After all the assessments are completed and all 

strategies have been identified, the Commission will consider lessons learned across 

the Nation and determine if additional actions are warranted. 

Materials Security 

NRC continues to work with the DOE, DHS, Department of Transportation, Department of State, and the IAEA to prevent the malevolent use of radioactive materials. Actions the Commission has taken in 2005 include the following: (1) issuance 

of additional security measures for shipments of radioactive materials in quantities 

of concern from power reactors, research and test reactors, and materials licensees; 

(2) issuance, along with the Agreement States, of additional security and material 

control enhancements for other industrial, medical and research licensees; (3) publishing a proposed rule to amend NRC’s regulations to implement a National Source 

Tracking System, to replace the interim database; and (4) revision of regulations regarding the import and export of radioactive materials to be consistent with the 

IAEA’s Code of Conduct. 

MATERIALS PROGRAM

The Agency’s overall materials safety functions are executed in a variety of ways, 

including licensing, inspection and oversight, rulemaking, enforcement, and investigations. The NRC, in partnership with the 34 Agreement States, conducts comprehensive programs to ensure the safe use of radiological materials in a variety of 

medical, industrial, and research settings. In 2005, the NRC had a number of significant accomplishments. 

On June 15, 2005, the NRC staff issued the safety evaluation report and final environmental impact statement on the Louisiana Energy Services license application 

for the National Enrichment Facility, a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility, 

proposed to be located in Eunice, New Mexico. 

In September 2005, the NRC published a proposed rule to amend its Yucca Mountain regulations to reflect the new proposed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

standards. The NRC staff has continued its interactions with DOE on a variety of 

technical issues related to recently announced design changes and quality assurance 

program issues. 

During FY 2005, the NRC oversaw decommissioning activities at numerous complex sites and power reactor sites. The NRC terminated six complex materials licenses, two uranium mill licenses, and two operating reactor licenses. In addition, 

the NRC approved the license termination plans for the Big Rock Point and Yankee 

Rowe power reactor sites. The NRC’s review of the license termination plans ensures that the procedures and practices proposed by the site operators will protect 
53 

the public health and safety and that the proposed decommissioning activities will 

make the sites suitable for release and license termination. 

On September 9, 2005, the Commission concluded the Agency’s adjudication over 

the Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS) application to construct and operate an independent spent fuel storage installation and authorized the Agency staff to issue a 

license upon resolution of any outstanding issues. One matter that remained to be 

resolved was completion of consultations with other Federal and state agencies concerning the identification and protection of historic sites. After coordinating with the 

Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), the NRC issued a license to PFS 

on February 21, 2006. The license contains a condition requiring PFS to first arrange adequate funding for the project. Additionally, PFS must obtain the requisite 

approvals from other agencies. 

INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM

The NRC also carries out an active international program of cooperation and assistance involving 38 countries with which it exchanges civilian nuclear safety information. This program provides public and occupational health and safety information and assistance to other countries to develop and improve regulatory organizations and overall nuclear safety and security worldwide. The NRC continues to 

strongly support multinational programs for enhancing the level of nuclear safety 

worldwide and serves in leadership roles on technical committees that develop and 

monitor best practices. In addition, the NRC supports implementation of certain 

treaties and conventions that encourage the wider adoption of safety standards and 

practices. It is worth noting that the NRC proposed an initiative, the multinational 

design approval program, that will allow several regulatory authorities to work together in reviewing new reactor designs. In addition, the NRC amended its regulations in 10 CFR Part 110 concerning the export and import of radioactive materials 

to require certain licensees previously operating under general licenses to file for 

specific export and import licenses. In accordance with the revised regulations, licensees will also have to provide advance notification to the NRC before shipment 

and will need to verify the recipient facility’s licensing status. 

AGENCYWIDE LESSONS LEARNED PROGRAM

As previously reported, we have undertaken a critical review of our programmatic 

and oversight activities to evaluate our own actions associated with the reactor vessel head degradation at Davis-Besse. A significant finding in the NRC Davis-Besse 

Lessons Learned Task Force Report was that some of the issues identified were 

similar to problems previously identified. The report recommended that the staff 

conduct an effectiveness review of actions taken in response to past lessons learned. 

NRC established an Effectiveness Review Lessons Learned Task Force (ERLLTF) 

and the task force issued its report on August 2, 2004. The ERLLTF found that 

some corrective actions from previous lessons learned had not been effective and 

that the root causes of the ineffective corrective actions were the lack of a lessons 

learned program, the lack of effectiveness reviews, the lack of a centralized tracking 

system, and weaknesses in closeout practices. 

In response to the ERLLTF report, the Executive Director for Operations chartered a team on January 24, 2005 to develop an agencywide lessons learned program that would capture and address significant Agency lessons learned reports and 

provide reasonable assurance that the problems identified will not recur. The team 

has completed development of a preliminary program and will be piloting the program this spring. 

BUDGET

In order to meet new challenges while at the same time continuing to discharge 

our statutory responsibilities, the Agency’s financial needs have increased to meet 

the expanded workload for FY 2007. Again we appreciate your support for the additional funding for FY 2006. The FY 2006 appropriation provided $41 million in 

funds above the President’s budget request. Of this amount, $20 million will be used 

in support of new reactor licensing and $21 million will be used principally in support of nuclear security initiatives. Additional funds have been allocated to the ongoing nuclear power plant security assessments and other near term security-related 

activities. Funding is being used for security initiatives such as site specific assessments of spent fuel pools and core and containment analysis. Funds also support 

the development of security rulemakings, regulatory guidance for new reactor security licensing, workshops and policy position documents to improve transportation 

regulations and support to the Department of Homeland Security’s Comprehensive 

Reviews. 
54 

The President’s FY 2007 budget provides $777 million for the NRC, which is an increase of $35 million (approximately 5 percent) above FY 2006. The budget request includes an increase of approximately $22 million for the Nuclear Reactor 

Safety program, which includes the new reactor licensing work, $21 million for the 

Agency’s infrastructure and support activities, and $10 million to fund Federal pay 

raises and other non-discretionary compensation and benefit increases. These increases are offset by a decrease of approximately $18 million for the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety program due to the delay in the Department of Energy’s application for the high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain, and other program 

changes. 

CONCLUSION

The Commission continues to be committed to ensuring adequate protection of 

public health and safety, promoting the common defense and security, and protecting the environment in the application of nuclear technology for civilian use. We 

understand the challenges we face in the new reactor licensing and human capital 

areas and will continue to work with the committee as we move forward. We continue to build on our work in the area of security to enhance the safety and security 

of the American public. The Commission will ensure that the Agency is discharging 

its responsibilities as mandated by Congress in an effective, efficient, and timely 

manner. 

ADDENDUM TO NRC’S TESTIMONY FOR MARCH 9, 2006 OVERSIGHT HEARING

RESEARCH AND TEST REACTORS

The NRC has licensed 49 research and test reactors (RTRs), of which 33 are operating. These 33 RTRs are used to train the next generation of nuclear professionals, 

and to perform research and development activities in many fields of science. The 

NRC licenses RTRs under the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which 

directs the Commission to impose only the minimum amount of regulation as the 

Commission finds will permit the Commission to fulfill its obligations under this Act 

to promote the common defense and security and to protect the public health and 

safety and will permit the conduct of widespread and diverse research and development. 

The NRC has always required RTRs to have security plans or procedures in place 

to detect, deter, assess, and respond to unauthorized activities. These plans use a 

defense in-depth philosophy, and reflect a graded approach that considers the 

attractiveness of the reactor fuel as a target, and the risk of radiological release. 

The NRC reviews and approves these plans. 

Between 2002-2004, NRC issued Confirmatory Action letters (CALs) to all but 7 

RTRs to formalize the commitments made to implement previous compensatory 

measures. Seven RTRs did not receive CALs because of the very low radiological 

risk associated with these facilities. The compensatory measures taken by the RTRs 

addressed vehicle threats, insider threats, and external land-based threats. The 

NRC has verified the implementation of these measures through on-site inspections 

and evaluations. 

The NRC conducted security assessments of most RTRs to evaluate the facilities 

for theft or diversion of special nuclear material and radiological sabotage. These 

assessments used a three-phase approach which included screening of the threat 

scenarios, assessments of RTR security measures and detailed consequence assessments. The results of these security assessments indicate that no credible reactor 

sabotage would result in a prompt fatality to a member of the public and that it 

is highly unlikely that a formula quantity of highly enriched uranium can be stolen 

or diverted for malevolent purposes. These security assessments also found that 

theft of irradiated fuel for use as a radiological dispersal device or as a radiological 

exposure device is unlikely to result in prompt fatalities to members of the public. 

The security assessments for RTRs concluded that no additional security requirements are currently needed. From these security assessments, the NRC identified 

generic best practices which were shared with all RTR licensees and many of the 

licensees voluntarily incorporated some of these best practices at their facilities. On 

October 7, 2005, the NRC issued requests for additional information (RAIs) for licensees to reevaluate implementation of post 9/11 security measures. The NRC will 

continue to verify that security requirements and commitments continue to be implemented and to work with DHS, DOE, and the National Organization of Test Research and Training Reactors (TRTR) in a Government Coordinating Council (GCC) 

sub-council on RTRs to assist RTRs with security. 
55 

The NRC assessed the potential security issues raised in the ABC ‘‘Prime Time’’ 

telecast on October 13, 2005. All but one of the issues raised by ABC were determined to be appropriately addressed by applicable site security plans, procedures, 

and post 9/11 compensatory measures. One violation of security requirements was 

identified and processed in accordance with the NRC’s Enforcement Policy and the 

Licensee has implemented appropriate corrective actions. The NRC determined that 

the conditions associated with the ABC identified issues were previously evaluated 

in the NRC’s review and approval of RTR site security plans, procedures, and/or 

post 9/11 compensatory measures. 
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