Today, Congressman Ed Markey sent the following letter to NRC Commissioners Svinicki and Magwood:
July 21, 2011
The Honorable Kristine L. Svinicki
The Honorable William D. Magwood, IV
Commissioners
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
11555 Rockville Pike
Rockville, MD 20852
Dear Commissioners Svinicki and Magwood:
I write to convey my disappointment in your recent votes to delay even the consideration of the adoption of the recommendations of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) Near Term Task Force reviewing NRC processes and regulations in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns. I believe your stance is unsupportable, irresponsible, and unacceptable, and I urge you to reverse it.
The Near-Term Task Force was comprised of 6 senior NRC officials, who together have more than 135 years of nuclear regulatory expertise. These distinguished NRC officials included the Director of the Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs, the Director of the Office of Nuclear Material and Safeguards, the Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, the Deputy Director of the Office of New Reactors, the Executive Technical Assistant of the Office of the Executive Director for Operations, and the Team Leader of the Office of New Reactors.
According to its report, the Task Force had “full access to the NRC staff to obtain information on existing programs, received briefings from staff experts in the Headquarters offices, and solicited inputs from all four NRC regional offices. The Task Force also obtained valuable insights from the members of the NRC site team in Japan.” The Task Force additionally obtained information from nuclear reactor licensees, accompanied NRC inspectors at two nuclear power plant sites, met with representatives of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and “appropriately screened and considered information and suggestions received from internal and external stakeholders. The Task Force monitored, directly or indirectly, related international activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), and other organizations.”
Last week, the Task Force transmitted its report to the Commission, and presented a specific set of recommendations for near-term Orders, rulemakings that should be initiated, and items that should be further studied in order to determine the best course of action in response to the Fukushima melt-downs. Chairman Jaczko then issued a proposal (see Attachment 1) for how the Commission should consider these recommendations. This proposal included meetings with external stakeholders, three full Commission meetings, and input from additional NRC staff and the NRC’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards. He also proposed that the Commission determine, one way or the other, how it planned to proceed on each of the Task Force’s recommendations by October 21 – 90 days after the publication of the report that itself took 90 days to prepare.
Regrettably and surprisingly, you did not indicate your support for the Chairman’s proposal, instead calling for additional study and delays.
You appear able to wholeheartedly trust the Task Force’s conclusion that “a sequence of events like the Fukushima accident is unlikely to occur in the United States,” and that “continued operation and continued licensing activities do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety.” Yet for some inexplicable reason, you do not trust the Task Force’s other conclusions which include numerous recommendations to revise regulatory requirements to ensure that nuclear reactors in the U.S. are better able to withstand large impact events such as earthquakes and tsunamis or mitigate against the sort of long power outages that caused the melt-downs in Japan. You have not embraced the aggressive yet thorough approach proposed for action on these recommendations by the Chairman that includes the opportunity for formal engagement and input from all the many stakeholders you say you wish to hear from. You have instead called for yet another NRC staff work group to evaluate the NRC Task Force’s own report, and require a Commission vote on the work group plan to study the Task Force report, all before this new round of studying can even begin!
Your recommended approach leaves me with the impression that you simply do not wish to lead the Commission in efforts to ensure the safety of the nuclear industry sector in this country, but instead wish to preside over dilatory efforts to ignore, perhaps indefinitely, the recommendations of the Commission’s expert and dedicated staff. I urge you in the strongest possible terms to re-consider your ill-advised votes and instead work with your colleagues to address the NRC Task Force’s recommendations in as serious a manner as their work befits.
Sincerely,
Edward J. Markey
A copy of the final letter can be found HERE .
