Transcripts For CSPAN2 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Oversight Hearing 20171214

An all of the above approach to american energy. For a country to continue benefit from Nuclear Energy we need the nrc to be an effective, efficient and predictable regulator. The nrc nrcs efficiency prince of good regulations states quote, the american taxpayer, the rate and consumer and licensees are all entitled to the best possible management and administration of regulatory activities. I agree. It is our committees responsively to assess the agencies performance. The nrc Safety Mission is paramount, the nrc must execute that mission in a fiscally responsible and timely fashion. My home state of wyoming plays a key role in the american Nuclear Energy supply. It produces more uranium than any other state. I want to commend the commission for agreeing to extend the duration of uranium recovery licenses from ten years to 20 20 years. This is an important recognition that the Regulatory Burden placed on these facilities is disproportionately high given how the nrc considers their operations to be quote low risk. The growth of this Regulatory Burden is clear in the month report. The nrc is taking far longer to make uranium recovery decisions that it did ten years ago. This general lack of urgency is troubling. Uranium producers struggle with depressed prices and production is at levels that we havent seen since the early 1950s. The need for timely decisionmaking from the nrc is greater than ever. The nrc is lagging in its progress toward instituting flat fees for routine recovery actions. These will be peace on uranium producers by the nrc that would not increase. For years seems to be an inordinate amount of time for the nrc to institute flat fees, given some of the nrcs agreement states, many states have assumed responsibility for regulating a uranium Recovery Facilities, already have these in place. Wyoming is seeking to become an nrc agreement state, and assume responsibility for regulating its uranium Recovery Facilities. While this would be a positive step for wyoming and its uranium producers its a strong verdict on the need for the nrc to improve its performance. Improving performance was a goal of the nrcs project and 2020. Quote, to transform the agency over the next five years to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and agility of the nrc. Unfortunately project aimed 2020 seems to be ending prematurely. The most recent project aimed status report indicates the nrc will complete the vast majority of action items early next year and the nrc staff will no longer report on it. Project aimed 2020 is becoming project aimed 2018, yet the challenges facing the nrc remain. These include premature closures of Nuclear Power plants, decrease licensing work of the nrc and declining new reactor reduce the nrc. The nrc must continuously strive to improve its performance. This requires diligent leadership from the commission which other afford having a discussion today day with commission about these important issues. While in the Opening Statement by Ranking Member carper we will continue with the practice of fiveminute Opening Statement from chairman subentity and the two met statements of each of the commissioners. With that i would like to turn to rank a a member for stateme. Senator carper. Welcome to the commissioners. A special thanks to our chair for pulling this together and i think at the time the hearing. This is one that we need to have, the industry faces real challenges these days but theres opportunity that this industry can help us to address. Nuclear industry is something at a crossroads as we know. The path the industry sites to take one of ramifications not just for the industry but for a country and for the citizens of our country i think for decades to come. Meet begin by noting its importance and the benefits as well as the drawbacks of Nuclear Energy. Its a form of Nuclear Power helps our Nation Alliance on dirty fossil fuels and reduces our air pollution that threatens our health and our climate. Second, Nuclear Energy has been, and should be a real economic driver in many places around the country, creates construction jobs, manufacturing jobs, operations jobs for communities across the nation. Despite all the benefits, i would be remiss not to mention some of the potential consequences of Nuclear Energy. Weve seen from serious incidents in of places like fukushima the damage Nuclear Power can cause if the proper safety precautions are not in place. And uptodate or not strictly followed. Nuclear energy come safety must remain a top priority in the operation of the correctors. Let me repeat that. With Nuclear Energy, safety is bent and must remain a top priority in the operation of Nuclear Reactors and that is a primary responsible of this commission and especially the nuclear regular subcommittee which which had been a member or menus. The cost of safety precautions along with the cost of construction operations and maintenance for current Nuclear Reactors can be expensive as we know. Especially compared to the cost of other sources of energy such as natural gas. Some u. S. Reactors will be retiring sooner than expected to market for super at this the s, countries Nuclear Reactors are getting older and will need to be replaced. Building new reactors as were seeing in georgia and South Carolina has proven more difficult than predicted a decade ago. As most of my colleagues know i often try to see the Glass Half Full and i believe the challenges the Nuclear Industry faces and make it stronger and more efficient to mark and, frankly, make our nation stronger. If our country is in smart we will replace our aging reactors with new technology, developed in this country that essay, the produces less spent fuel and is cheaper to build and operate. Economically of benefits that flow from that leadership in order to do so we must make sure the nrc has resources it needs to review these technologies to make certain our current reactors continue to be operated safely. Since joining this committee i worked close with a number of records to strengthen the culture of safety within use Nuclear Energy industry. Part due to our collective efforts and to the nrc leadership and the commissions dedicated staff, the nrc continues to be the world Gold Standard for Nuclear Regulatory agencies. Success at any agency in rotation starts out leadership of the top. Im a safe ive been quite impressed with the current commissioner, commissioners at the nrc and its members ability to work together. I especially want to applaud our chair, Kristine Svinicki for the leadership, long membership and Services Provided at the nrc especially as archer. Each commissioner brings a unique set of skills to the commission which hester of the nrc and i think our country very well. These three commissioners have done an excellent job. However, having a full complement of commissioners would be ideal or as my colleagues note commission, the committee, our committee has reported out several quality nrc nominees including Jeffery Baran renomination that awaits senate confirmation. I hope we can give certainty at a time when theres much uncertainty in other areas pick an Organization Also needs a strong dedicated workforce, and within the server resources in order to be successful, onetime nrc year after year ranked at the top place in the federal workforce worker now number 11, a lot better than other agencies but its not number one. I want to talk about how to get the nrc headed back to the topic budget cuts and uncertainty play a big role in this change i look forward to hearing from all of you about this issue is a most important i want to hear more will begin to do better retain, recruit quality workforce at the nrc which is still revered across the globe. I shared, i will close with this thought. I have two sons. They are both boy scouts, eagle scouts, and i used to take them down to the naval station, and i would take them down to the Norfolk Naval station but every three or four years, and 25 or 30 scouts can some of the leaders and we would spend the weekend at the naval station and had the opportunity of weekend to sleep in the barracks and eat in the galley and visit ships, summaries and aircraft carriers. One morning, we visited the Teddy Roosevelt at the naval station and the captain came to me, took us on the bridge and get dressed our scouts and adult leaders and he said these words come he said boys, hes talking to the scouts, boys, when the Teddy Roosevelt goes to seats 1000 feet long. And he said boys, and the Teddy Roosevelt to see, it carries with a 5000 sailors and the scouts went ooh. When the teddy mother goose is he a carries on board 75 aircraft. And the boys went ooh. And he said boys, when the Teddy Roosevelt goes to see it doesnt refuel for 25 years. And the adults went ooh. Thats, i tell that story again today. We have challenges with respect to Nuclear Energy no doubt but theres also a great opportunity and thats just one of them. That is one of them. Spent many years in the navy tracking nuclear submarines. Had a lot of Nuclear Powered ships. In the navy i dont know of a single fatality between a person out in the because of the failure of the nuclear parts on the ships. The last thing, we have real problems and challenges, still although were making progress with big challenges with respect to clean air. The good thing about nuclear, maybe the best thing that nuclear is our biggest source of clean energy with none of those pollutants including especially co2. For all those reasons i think it support would find a way to strengthen industry and part of this maker shall have a strong nrc with great leadership at the top. Thanks mr. Chair. I want to welcome the witnesses again, remind you that your full written testimony will be made part of the official hearing today. I look for to hearing your testimony beginning with chairman Kristine Svinicki. Thank you, good morning. My colleagues and i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the the u. Nrc licensing and predatory actions since her last appearance. The commission continued efforts to improve the agencies efficiency and effectiveness have focused on providing the appropriate level of resources to both corporate and programmatic areas are continuing to carry out our vital safety and Security Mission without diminishment. In june 2014 the nrc established project aims to enhance the agencies ability to plan and execute its mission in a more efficient and effective manner. Were implementing an enhanced process process for the training and utilization of our work force. In a separate initiative theyve analyzed the fee setting process to improve transparency, equitiability and timeliness. To improve transparency theyve engaged with stake holders the past few years to understand how information is presented on invoices. Based on these engagements, the agency initiated several project to improve how billable work is tracked and reported. And pursuing the risk informed regulation through which we strive to put focus on those issues that are most important based on their safety significance. Currently, the nrc staff is evaluating and updating key risk informed Decision Making guidance, developing a graded approach for licensing reviews, implementing training requirements for agency staff, enhancing communication of risk activities and advancing other initiatives across the agency. The agency the nrc has taken many steps over the last year to ensure uniform implementtation of the backfitting regulations which govern when the agency can impose additional requirements and are an essential part of a stability of regulatory frame work. In support of this initiative the staff is undertaking oversight by managers and led to more consistent identification and treatment of potential backfitting issues. And the license for operating reactors, for example, the Nuclear Industry is researching advanced fuel designs aimed at improving safety margins under both normal and populated accident conditions. Several vendors are exploring candidate designs which they refer to as accident tolerant fuel. In response nrc is developing plans to ensure that we are prepared to effectively and efficiently review these fuels to ensure that their proposed use meets our high safety standards. The nrc has also received four letters of intent to seek subsequent license renewal which would authorize operation of Nuclear Power reactors for up to 80 years. The nrc has been preparing for reviews for several years and have published final versions of the documents that provide guidance for applicants and for the nrc technical reviewers respectively. Regarding nrcs with new reactors although the licensees for units two and three decided to discontinue construction of those units in South Carolina, the nrcs Nuclear Reactor program is in support of activities necessary to ensure the safe construction of the two units under construction at the vocal site in georgia. The nrc is finalizing and testing regulatory procedures that will be necessary for the transition of the plans from the construction phase into the operating status into their operating status. And theres a small modular reacting design. Received an application for an early site permit for small modular reactors in tennessee, both of these reviews are progressing on schedule and we also continue our preapplication engagement with advanced reactors designers and vendors. Significant activity in the area of rule making is to improve the efficiency of the decommissioning transmission process for reactors shutting down in the next few years. Weve published the regulatory basis for the development of the proposed rule and sufficient basis to pursue with modified regulation for Financial Training and requirements among other areas, weve received a request from the state of wyoming to achieve agreement state status and were working to complete the assessment of that package and it will be provided to the commission, the staff targets doing that in september of 2018. The state of vermont has indicated its intent to pursue agreement state status. During this active Hurricane Season nrc responded to the hurricanes harvey, irma and maria in accordance with our Incident Response plans. The nrc dispatched to monitor for the events response and worked closely with federal partners such as fema. We will evaluate both the agency and licensee responses to the hurricanes and implement any Lessons Learned to improve our event response going forward. In closing nrc continues to if he cuss focus on efforts in safety. And i thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and we will be pleased to answer your questions at the appropriate time, thank you. Thank you very much, commissioner it svinicki. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. Its a pleasure to be here to discuss the commission. Presenting an overview of the process the agency is making and project aim. I want to briefly highlight a few important efforts underway at nrc. Nrc remains focus on post fukushima safety enhancements and Lessons Learned and the final rule on mitigating beyond designed events. That is a number of recommendations from the task force and culmination of years of work. The staffs focus is shifting to oversight and inspection of licensee implementation of natural hazard evaluation. Decommissioning, since 2013, six reactors permanently shut down and seven more announced plans to close down in the coming years. Despite the growing numbers, they do not have regulations specifically tailored from the operations to decommissioning. As a result. Licensees with reactors transitioning to decommissioning, seek exemptions from applicable and operating reactors. It will now address this gaff and allow us to move away by regulating exemption in this area. The exemption approach is not very efficient and does not provide for public participation. The rule making provides a chance for nrc and all of our stake holders to take a fresh look at our decommissioning process and requirements. States, local governments, nonprofit groups and the communities around these plants are engaged and want to share their views. We need to thoughtfully consider their ideas with an open minds. Even with some existing plants, and decommissioning, theres advance in new reactors. Five vendors with the staff and we anticipate additional vendors may reach out in nearterm. We want to process for nonlight water reactors in the areas were happy to discuss these and other areas of interest and thank you, i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Commissioner burns. Thank you, chairman, Ranking Member barrasso and the members of the committee. Its a pleasure to be here today and i look forward to addressing our safety and Security Mission as we focus on ways to carry out that mission in an efficient and Cost Effective manner. The chairmans testimony accurately summarizes in my view, the agencys significant efforts in the last several years for improving efficiency and effectiveness and i fully supported those efforts in my tenure as chairman and in my current role of commissioner. Our Senior Leadership and our staff have demonstrated a proactive and responsible approach to Good Government through these efforts. And its important to not lose sight of the fundamental safety and Security Mission of the nrc. From its inception, this congressionally mandated admission has driven the nrc and continues to be the central focus of what we do every day. Having spent more than 37 years of my professional career with the nrc, i know there are times when weve had to learn from our experience, learn to do better and to improve our performance as a regulator, but on the whole, i can say without a doubt in my mind that i think we hit the mark, the vast majority of the time in achieving a High Standard of performance. Over the past year we have continued to hold the industry accountable through our inspection and Oversight Program and ensure the effective implementation of Lessons Learned from the fukushima accident. And work effectively to ensure the safe and secure use of nayed yo active material and performance by fuel cycle facilities. At the same time weve undertaken reviews of certification in newly proposed facilities to provide radio isotopes for medical diagnostics and better prepare for the review of better advanced designs. Credit belongs largely to the daytoday work of our dedicated staff in achieving these accomplishments. I appreciate their daytoday focus on ensuring adequate protection of the public. Thank you for the opportunity and ill be pleased to answer your questions. Thank you, commissioner burns and thank you all three for your testimony and ill start with questions. Chairman, svinicki, 2010, nearly seven years ago, i wrote to president obama about the assets of uranium one, which is a canadian company, to rosstom, a russian stateowned company. I raised concerns of exports of u. S. Exports by uranium one and i believe the obama response to my letter was at best misleading. Responding on behalf of the president , the former chairman of the nrc, stated quote, in order to export uranium from the United States, uranium one, inc. Or its armz, which was the subsidiary, would need to apply for and obtain, he said, a specific nrc license authorizing the export of uranium for use in a Nuclear Reactor. We now know this is false. Uranium one did not need a specific license to export u. S. Uranium. Instead, uranium one only needed to be and later was listed as a supplier on a transport companys nrc export license. So, subsequently, uranium one uranium has been exported overseas. On monday, i sent a letter to the nrc in an effort to find answers to why this response was so inaccurate from former Commission Chairman yasco, so, chairman svinicki, would you commit to providing me a timely and fulsome response . Yes, chairman barrasso, were in receipt of your letter received yesterday and i would note as your letter makes clear, the responses you have received have not fully depicted the complexity of this issue and as nrc, we welcome the opportunity to respond to the fulsome set of questions youve asked. I think it will allow us to depict it in context and more accurately than the responses youve perceived so we look forward to doing that. Thank you. Thank you very much. On another matter the state of wyoming is in the process of becoming nrc agreement statement. State of wyoming would assume the role as program in situ recovery. And i believe it was in november of this year and wyoming expects nrc will be able to sign a formal agreement with wyoming in 2018 end of the fiscal year. Can you commit to meeting that deadline . Chairman barrasso, im aware that the staff indicates they are on track it prepare a voting matter for the commission for our review on the time frame that youve indicated. I know that in the interim it will be necessary for both the nrc staff and state of wyoming officials to continue to work through any issues, so assuming that that goes well, and im not aware of any impediments to that, my objective is it to achieve that time frame. Last month the nrc decided to look at ten years to 20 years, and recognized the low i applaud your leadership and the commissions issues on that. This was a you shall an i an issue that i raised in 2015. I would like to know how the commission would iment implement. This would the nrc act on case by case basis, will existing licensees need to wait until their licenses are amended or up for renewal to attain a 20year term . Could you just kind of go through a little bit of that, what the plans are and will the nrc be issuing a guidance documents . If so, when can we expect to see that document . Just some clarification, please. Yes, thank you for the questions. This is a fairly recent policy change made by the commission. Some of the exact implementation youve asked about is probably still under development. I understand that we have two applications pending right now for renewal. We have contacted those two applicants and indicated we told them about the policy change and indicated that if they were to amend their application requests, we would receive that. It would require some work to look at a different time frame for environmental and safety review, we would have to look at the extended period. Weve not received an indication from those two applicants whether or not they intend to amend their applications and resubmit and as far as other applications submitting going forward, those would come in under the new time frame. And final question, in october of this year, the nrc submitted a report on the process, and the nrc report states nrc staff recently finalized a selfassessment that identifies possible efficiency improvements within the uranium recovery program. What can you tell us about the efficiency improvements . Its a host of measures i can give you some examples and perhaps for the record, we could respond more fully. Some of the things are to continue to urge applicants to have a very vigorous preapplication engagement to be able to provide better guidance to applicants on what a complete and full application needs to contain in order to be reviewed very efficiently by the agency. And also, there will be new guidance for agency reviewers so that they will, as theyre developing information requests for applicants, they will make a connection with the safety findings that need to be made. So, i would characterize that many of them have to do with better communication with applicants during and before the application comes in, and also, improve training and guidance for nrc safety reviewing as they conduct the reviews thats the nature of improvements. Thank you. Senator carper. And a timeline and yield to her, and ask my questions in the next round, thanks. Thank you so much, chairman. Thank you so much Ranking Member, and the rest of us. As a senator focuses on the threat of Climate Change, i believe that Nuclear Power remains a vital tool in transitioning to a low carbon nature. And half of all carbonfree electricity and we must make this a priority if we are to avoid disasters like fukushima in the future. And theres a Strategic Plan entitl entitled the Nuclear Promise. And project aim, whose is to reduce speeds at nrc. And how are you looking at efficiency improvements, but not cutting corners when it comes to senator. Thank you, senator duckworth. For our project aim initiative and i noted in my opening comments and i think my fellow commissioners testified as well that our vital safety and Security Mission is priority one. As we look at an agency and as a regulator to improve our own efficiency and effectiveness, our number one guiding goal not to let that diminish our regulatory capability or in any way distract from our important mission. The industrys efforts is its own. Delivering the Nuclear Promise. However, we have been monitoring that activity along the way in order if we were or our experts were to determine that anything related to their efficiency experts or efforts were to indicate some sort of lack of focus on safety, then we would engage under our regulatory frame work with them, with our concerns about anything that they were proposing to do. To date weve not noticed that, as far as their efforts, their separate delivery Nuclear Promise efforts. Thank you. Commissioners burns, do you have any comments . I agree completely, i believe thats our focus. Maybe the biggest nationaling nrc has right now. As a result of project aim we made a lot of good changes there, captured a lot of efficiencies buff weve seen our work force decline by 12 in two years and thats a significant amount of change. Making sure that were focused on our safety and Security Mission and that we dont have any weakening of oversight there, i think is critical, as far as the effort. Thank you. I agree with what my colleague said. I subscribe to what they say. Thank you. Well, i think we can all agree that pinching penny and saving on security administrations would not only endanger the lives, but the futures of entire Nuclear Industry. Stakeholderers shared that nrc has a strong time of looking into safety issues. Im concerned of Safety Culture in the nrc. Internal data appears that the commissioners work force appears to be uncomfortable raising safety issues. Id like unanimous consent to enter this report for the record by the union of concerned scientists, the Nuclear Regulatory commission and Safety Culture, do as i say, know the as i do. Without objection. Thank you. Chairwoman svinicki, when management and they have trust, and that is broken and what steps are you taking for positive Safety Culture. The industry feels better about nrc than the people within nrc themselves. Thank you, these are important indicators as we survey our staff comfort in raising issues with management or through an open door policy. As a matter of fact, all members of our commission currently adopt an open door policy and have meetings where staff can bring issues and concerns directly to members of our commission. We have instituted agencywide training of, you know, having difficult conversations, how do you raise issues. I think that we try to monitor best practices across Corporate America of how do you have the right culture of people feeling very free to speak out and bring issues forward. So, we monitor and look for best practices and benchmarking and try to bring those lessons and training and culture back to our organization, but we monitor that closely. We would, im sure, want to be the model of having an open and free environment for people to raise concerns. Weve had spills and leaks in my state and its important that we have vigorous government oversight over our Nuclear Plants and that theyre empowered at every level to do it well. And i understand that nrc regulations prohibit Nuclear Power plants from discharging water into rivers that extreme a threshold. How is Climate Change affecting the ability to operate, with the nrc seek revision for that current regulations and are current regulations impacting power plants today . Thank you for that question. My understanding is that the upper bounds of the temperature limits you spoke of for discharging water into other plants, output into other bodies of water or set based on very rigorous safety and environmental analysis. I think that if the climate were warming, our analysis would still be the same. So, we would probably encounter more frequent circumstances of plants needing to reduce their power input based on not exceeding that level, so, i dont know that we would automatically raise those levels and i think you would see cases where plants more frequently down power in order for those levels. Im out of time. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Weve been doing this for a long time, watching the changes taking place and in fact, 23 years ago, the first subcommittee that i chaired on this committee was this committee, the clean air and nuclear. The mission is a vital one, its we want our nuclear place to be safe then they are safe. For the several years weve increased oversight of the nrcs budget and question why it continued to grow despite a shrinking industry. Seven reactors have announced plans to close, another 20 are at risk of closing prematurely. Weve raised concerns about the nrcs declining productivity and we have a chart, just a moment there. The in 2000, the nrc accomplished more work with fewer resources as you see in the chart, in response to the scrutiny, nrc initiated project aim 2020 to im quoting now to transform the agency over the next five years, to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and agility of the nrc. However, it appears that the project aim 2020 will end early this coming year and while progress has been made, i dont think the nrc has really achieved its transformation. So, chairman svinicki, you and i have discussed rightsizing of the agency and i know youve been chairman only for a few months now, but you agree that theres still room for a lot more improvement in this area . Thank you, senator inhofe. The agency has made make looks at project aim as 2020 is terminating early. I would observe that the agency is now has institutionalized many of the projects aimed at activities and the need now to develop Agency Efficiency improvement for the office of management and budget. We are now marrying the project aim efforts into the broader kind of culture at the agency where it says we can find improvements and efficiency and effectiveness. So i do not observe were winding down early. For example, under project aim we began a strategic Work Force Planning initiative and gets to your concern about right sizing this enhanced strategic Work Force Planning is intended to improve the fidelity of our resourcing and how many people and what kind of expertise do we need to do the forecasted work that we have. Were piloting it now in three of the offices within the agency. That pilot will conclude in july of 2018. And then we will be looking at agencywide implementation to, again, this is just one aspect, but its the Human Resource and right sizing aspect to it, to improve our understanding of the kind of people and capacity that we need. Thats good and i appreciate that. Let me ask you another question and this is the big, broad question that i dont have an answer for. You know, weve gone through many years ago, we were wanting to enhance the position in our portfolio of energy, of nuclear. Now, we went through a thing with eight years of the Obama Administration and he had his war and thats coal, oil and gasment and you would think that he would be wanting to go toward something that didnt have a footprint that he was trying to avoid, that would be nuclear. He didnt want nuclear either. Now we have a new administration, we have now the end of the war on fossil fuel has ended. But we still are not getting where we need to be in nuclear. Look at france, look at the other countries where the proper place for Nuclear Energy, were just not getting there. What seems to be the problem in the United States that is i thought maybe when the new administration came in, that maybe the problem was that were now depending more on coal, oil and gas and for that reason, were not advancing in nuclear. What is your thinking . You or any of the other members here, why arent we doing what i believe and what i think every, most of the members of this and certainly all the republicans believe that we should be doing to enhance the position of nuclear in the United States . My understanding is that the principal contributors are larger economic and Market Mechanisms that i know that the department of energy and the federal energy Regulatory Commission would focus on. But they fall outside the domain of the nuclear you guys, what do you think . I think the chairmans right. I think low wholesale electricity prices are a significant factor. Yeah, i would agree with the chairman as well, essentially its those market forces, low price of natural gas, other types of things like that. Well, i just want to see that red arrow going the other way. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. Senator carper. Again, welcome everyone, thanks for your attendance, your responses and your service. The chairman mentioned at the beginning of his comments he sent a letter to you and asking a number of questions. Weve had a some concern on another front with the epa not responding to questions from our side of the aisle and a number of my colleagues have been very supportive to get the information that we deserve and need and i would like to say, make sure that the majority, particularly the chairman in this case, we ask of all of you, you dont have to belabor this, but id like some response as to whether you agreed to reaffirm your willingness to be responsive to the questions from all of us as we go forward. Yes, yes, senator. Absolutely. Yes. Thanks so much. I want to i have one further question relates to the chairmans letter to you and this would be, i guess, maybe for commissioner burns. I believe, were you the general counsel of the nrc at the time that uranium one and rs bchb license reviews were taking place . Were you the if you could refresh me. This was around 2010 . Yeah. Yes, i was the general counsel from 2009 until early 2012. Its my understanding that unlike Nuclear Reactors, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Regulations do not prohibit Foreign Ownership and control of uranium milling operations, in fact, its not unusual for these to be partially or fully owned by Foreign Companies . Again were talking milling as opposed to other yes, you dont have the prohibition for production utilization facilities. However, as with all licensing, you have to reach the finding that its not innimcle. Thats an unfortunate word in the statute. To the common defense and security. Thats a finding you have to make in licensing determinations. And correct me if im wrong, i believe its the nrc career staff, not commissioners who makes the decision when it comes to transfer of milling and nrc license or amendment to export license, is that correct . I think thats generally true. There are circumstances to which you might, if you had a contested matter, which the commission in its adjudication role would have come to. And ill have to refresh myself as we prepare to answer senat senators questions that do you find your memory my memory is not what it used to be either, but if you find that you want to add something for the record. Certainly. To answer my questions, and i would ask you for the record do you believe that the nrc staff followed appropriate regulations and guidance for yurm one and rsb reviews and decisions . If you want to respond to that now or respond to the record . I think ill respond for the record. And having just seen the letter come in and i dont have a robust recollection of the circumstances at that time so i appreciate the opportunity to do that. Lets talk a little about morale. Top the charts, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Number one in terms of morale. Down to number 11, went to 12, 11 coming back in the right direction. Number 11 with a bullet i hope as they say at billboard. Commissioner barrington, could you take a minutes and talk about the recent budget cuts . Has it impacted morale . And can the nrc do the work it needs to do on a timely manner . Thank you for the question. I think youre right that the effort and the budget cuts have m an impact on morale and i think thats primarily because there are fewer opportunities for promotion, often reduced training, rotational opportunities and we need to make sure, at the agency, that we retained the tremendous talent that we have. Its a terrific work force, its a great place to work and im hopeful one thing we can do is help the staff better see, you know, if they want to get to a certain position in a few years, what are the particular skills they would need to work on, the training the rotational students to get themselves in a position to advance into that position or move into that position. Giving the staff a better sentence of what are the opportunities still at in. Rc and take advantage of those students i think will help morale. Were headed in the right direction, but it will take time. I have questions about Nuclear Reactors and maybe other things, and reactors and interested in asking questions about that and thank you for the responses and i look forward to the responses for the record, mr. Burns. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being here today. On march the 8th which was the very same day that we had a legislative hearing on the Bipartisan Nuclear modernization act which weve joined together on, gao published a report on the budget justifications and structure. In my view, one of the things i found troubling in the report it seems as though the nrc is keeping two sets of books and i quote, one to formulate its budget and another obligate funds based on its appropriations for congress. To put it another way, the nrc has budget in its budget it creates a public consumption for congress and operates under a separate budget under its internal operations making it tough for authorityizers and appropria appropriators to determine how nrc is spending dollars. Its appropriate to the monthly report. The nrc had 3241 equivalents this past september. The budget justification is 3405 ftes, if you kind of multiply that out, thats about 25 Million Dollars in quote, unquote, extra funding. In other words, ftes that were budgeted for, but were not actually filled. I believe mr. Baron mentioned that the work force is down 12 . So, i would like to know an explanation of where is where are these extra dollars that were actually appropriated that were not fulfilled by the ftes that were actually working at the nrc, and so some flushing out of where that is. Does that mean if your budget request in the future will be lower because you were able to roll that money over. How does that work . Thank you for the question, senator. It may be, if i can supplement this answer for the record because there are a lot of moving parts here. It is true that over the course of the last budget year, we were conducting a budget in force and true attrition nearer to fte. The difference in funding, i would forecast, probably or has shown up as carry overmoney from one budget year to the next. If our Staffing Levels at the end of the year ended up being lower than the requested budget. Some of that would likely materiallize as carryover funding into the fiscal 18, the current fiscal year and it is difficult as we develop the Agency Budgets two years in advance, since we are reducing in employment levels, its difficult for us, when we submit the budget to forecast the exact difference. Again, we were under the period you were discussing was a period of continued decline and Staffing Levels, so, we probably hit a little bit under the target and had fewer staff at the end of the fiscal year, so, i think in general, its a forecasting error, but the money likely would show up as carryover. When you say carry over does that mean you carry over to the next year and subtract that from your budget request the upcoming fiscal year . Well, i can check for the turnover of the fiscal year this fall, but often appropriations clerks will ask us for updated estimates of carryover as we approach the end of the fiscal year. So, sometimes appropriators make an adjustments in the enacted level based on the carryover, since we tend to have that over the fiscal year. Down how nrc treats this carryover or extra amount at the end of the year, is that a fungible line item . Does it have to go to ftes . How do you treat that . Im not certain if the treatment is consistent year to year, if i could take that for the record and provide a response. Yes, please. Thank you. I would say anecdotally youre not the only commission or Government Agency that is falling into this into this category. Ive always sort of, you know, i dont know. I according to the gao, it was not a satisfactory way to actually present the reality of where your budget is and where the actual spending is, and what happened to this extra, extra or carryover amount. I think that needs to be tracked and it needs to be accounted for. So, any Additional Information you could give me in written form would be much appreciated. I would also add in response to that gao report, i know that both house and Senate Appropriations have instituted higher or basically additional control points for the execution of our budget and the monthly report you cite to is one of the outgrowths of our monthly reporting to our consistency with those bugetary control points. I would even say in october of 17, you budgeted for 3293 when in actuality its 3137. So the pattern is still continuing and realizing that its not you cant get it down to one or two, i get that. But, you know, its significant, the numbers, i think 156. So with that, i would ask if we could maybe either, a, submit a question or our staff get with you to give you more details on this, thank you. Thank you, senator. Senator marky. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Commissioner baran. Right now the United States has started renegotiating with saudi arabia, and after becoming Trumps National security advisor general flynn was seeking to begin that process. So far the administration has refused to meet the requirement to Keep Congress fully and currently informed of any initiative in negotiations relating to a new and amended agreement as required by Atomic Energy act. Last week Trumps Energy secretary rick perry visited saudi arabia to discuss their bids to build new Nuclear Reactors. Its been reported these deals may allow for enrichment of uranium which all previous u. S. Agreements have prohibited. Nrc has oversight of responsibility over the export of Nuclear Force materials and technology. Has the nrc been consulted on the export of these potentially sensitive Nuclear Technologies . So, as part of the 123 agreement process, as you mentioned, nrc has a role and its later in the process when there are certain statutory findings the Commission Must make in order for 123 agreement recommendation to go to the president. We arent at that stage yet. So, if the agreement does allow for the enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of plutonium, do you think that could pose a proliferation and safety risk . Well, its its challenging to answer that question without having any sense to what is actually agreed to. I know that let me ask it another way. Does a country need to be able to enrich, enrich or reprocess in order to have a civilian Power Program or can they bring the uranium in from its not necessary. Not necessary, okay, thank you. The nuclear regular tris Commission Staff granted the pilgrim station from a seismic Risk Assessment be performed, this is a great concern since pin grim saw a bigger increase in seismic risk during its post fukushima has ard revaluation than any other power plant. And reevaluation found that pilgrim has a seismic hazard significantly higher than the plant is to withstand. Seize mick seismic is important from earthquakes and what improvements need to protect the sites and surrounding communities from disaster. While the staff decided pilgrim was not required to do this assessment, do you think this station should voluntarily perform this. You said its a staff decision. I think the staff gave the wrong decision, i think that nrc should have required the Detailed Seismic Risk Assessment continued by the end of the year. I agree with you, i think the position the nrc should be taking. Since 2015, pilgrim has been assessed of having repetitive multiple safety violations. Mr. Baran, working to govern the decommissioning as plants. As pilgrim moves towards decommissioner in 2019, can you provide any insight how theyll take operational and physical safety into account . Well, with regard to pilgrim. It may be that the rule making is complete prior to or after pilgrim has shut down. It may not be applicable to pilgrim depending on the timing. I think the staff is aiming to complete a rule making completion by Commission Review by the end of 2019. But i think its as i mentioned in my opening remarks, i think theres a its going to be a very good move to move away from this exemption, regulation by exemption approach currently going on. I think it makes sense to have, like as we do for operating plants, a Detailed Police of the regulatory requirements, safety and security requirements that apply to permanently defueled commissioner plants. We dont have that now and this rule making would accomplish that. And i think it would emphasize physical safety long after the plants stopped generating electricity and i might just say about the state of this industry, obviously, westinghouse went bankrupt while trying to complete the local plants. And thats not because of any attempts by gra nola, treehugging having anything to do with it. Its the fact that its hard and expensive to build Nuclear Power plants that are safe. Theyre under tremendous power by the wind and solar industry, and theres fans of the other generating sources to take away the benefits for those competing sources of energy, and i might just say in response to the gentleman from oklahoma, when he talked about the war, the Obama Administration on coal, fast and oil, that there was a dramatic, historic rise in oil and natural Gas Production during the Obama Administration, rise, dramatic rise, and amongst other things, the drop in the price of natural gas has led to, along with wind and solar. The very difficult Economic Conditions within which the Nuclear Power industry is trying to survive. Thank you. Thank you. Senator fisher. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Madam chair, as i understand it, wyoming will likely become an nrc agreement state in 2018. As a result the state of wyoming will then begin regulating its uranium Recovery Facilities in place of the nrc to do that. Seven of the nine uranium Recovery Facilities who paid fees to the nrc in 2017 are located in improve transparenwy others determine its uranium recovery fees by dividing by the number of facilities. How will the nrc retain the office to assure the two remaining licensees are not having increase in regulatory cost. Thank you for this question. Although our commission has not grappled with this, i have been monitoring the potential impact that agreement states status for wyoming would have in the financial structure of how we recover costs and so, i will speak for myself and not for my colleagues that this is a management challenge and i appreciate that youve raised it. Already, are the director of the relevant office and our chief Financial Officer are looking at this question and so i think that there will be, with wyoming taking a significant number of the entities now paying fees for uranium recovery, this will be a step change for us. And this is a small change, and this will be something that we are going to have to look at the structure of how were recovering these costs. I would like to maybe provide a fuller answer to you on the record exactly where the chief Financial Officer examination of the question resides. But, again, its a definite issue, so, were but im confident that were forseeing it and looking at it now. I would appreciate you responding for the record. That would be helpful and i would also appreciate if you could keep our office informed on the progress that youre making on that before you announce any decisions publicly so we would have some input and also review it with you. Yes. Also, madam chair, this committee has tasked gao with reviewing the nrcs cost estimating practices in the wake of concerns that the nrc significantly underestimated the cost of implementing its filtered vents proposal. In december of 2014, the gao released a report that was fairly critical of the nrcs development of cost estimates, stating the nrcs procedures, quote, do not adequately support the creation of reliable cost estimates, and that the cost estimate did not p meet any of the reliable estimates of costs. And the alliance cost estimating procedures with relevant cost estimating, best practices, identified in the report. However, nrc staff rejected that advice stating, quote, the nrc does not believe, however, that the standards used by gao to assess our program are appropriate, end quote. More recently, for all ten monthly reports to this committee, the nrc has stated, quote, the staff has not yet taken any action to develop specific metrics for assessing the quality of its cost benefit analysis, end quote. So, to summarize, three years have passed, the nrc staff rejected gaos advice and there are no metrics in place to assess the quality of the nrcs cost benefit analysis. So, my question would be what basis does the nrc have for assessing whether the cost benefit analysis used by the commission for Decision Making, are in fact reliable . Thank you for that question. On commission recently, requested that the staff provide an update to us on the response to the gao recommendations and i dont dispute your description of the intervening time period, but we have now been informed by the agency staff that they are that the staff is updating the cost benefit guidance documents and among the changes that are being incorporated, they include recommendations from the gaas 2014 report findings, including that the agency adopt relevant cost estimating best practices identified in the gaos 2009 guide or authoritative, best practices that the gao referred to. So, this is the staffs communication to the commission of their current activities underway. So, we will look forward to updating you on i dont have a date here for when that would be published. I think its 2018, but we can provide that answer for the record. And i have a couple of other questions that i would like to submit for the record, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Youre certainly welcome. When senator marky was referring to treehugging and granola crunching, i know he wasnt referring to anyone here. Mr. Chairman, i recent that mark represent that remark. [laughter] thank you all and welcome for your work. I would like to focus with you on the question of advanced reactor licensing. As you know, ive been persistent about trying to open the possibility of next generation advanced Nuclear Technologies with the ultimate holy grail, if possible of finding Nuclear Technology that can allow us to go through our Nuclear Waste stock pile and try to turn that into valuable Energy Rather than leave it lying out there as a Massive Public health and financial liability. The bill that i have authored and cosponsored is still in process and i think we have considerable support for it, its very bipartisan. In the meantime, you all received additional 5 million appropriation for advanced reactor licensing. And i wanted to get your sense on how far that 5 million takes you, does that take you 1 where you need to be, 2 , 10 or can you like wrap your hands and say job well done, were all done with that money. What do you think you let me put it another way. Youre not supposed to ask for more money so let me say if you continue to get that additional 5 million year after year, what time frame does that put you on for achieving your goal with respects to advanced reactor licensing . And i know that youre responding to all of our concerns about this by doing things administratively. So, if you can fill me in on whats happening administratively and what the 5 Million Dollars does for you in the context of what youre trying to achieve . Well, thank you for that question and ill start and my colleagues will probably remember some good points that im not going to remember, but i think the most important use weve put that 5 million to is making sure that nrc is engaged and part of the dialog thats going on between the department of energy, the designers of these new designs, the National Laboratory, and if having the regulator in the room i think is important. So what weve done is what were bringing to that enga engageme engagement. Weve created a strategy document and a series of implementation plans and those are focused towards nrc developing the regulatory capacity and some of that is knowing different fuel cycles, knowing different material types. What kind of capacity and expertise do we need to bring in an informed way to the engagement as the community of designers of these advanced reactors wants to push forward. Its also important that nrc experts be present with the department of energy and National Laboratory experts, because what ive learned is that the researchers at doa National Labs is drawing on the history of nuclear in the United States because some of the reactors designs are really not entirely new. They are designs that this country did Experimental Work on or proeto typing in the 1960s and 70s. This is how the 5 million is generally used on outreach and connection with other facilities and and seeing that these the implementtation plans allow us to look at what doe is doing and theyre identifying as the begans and needs for information that they have and were able to, our implementation plans are iterative. We dont want gaps in our leg tri capacity where we have to throw up our hands and say we dont know anything about that type of material so well never be able to approve its use in a Nuclear Reactor. So, i think that going forward, it gets we get to taking that frame work and applying it to specific technical issues from a bugetary standpoint, i think that thats where it gets more expensive because the labs need to do things, and we need to be weighing in on testing and data plans. If you collect this data will it be stuff enough . And the frame work is essential and weve spend 5 million on that in response to my question my time is running out. Let me ask the other two commissioners would bhak, if theres anything you if you can make a joint statement that you all agree on, in terms of a response to this being a question for the record, or if youd like to add additional thoughts of your own, i would invite you to respond in writing as a question for the record. In my last moments, i just want to say, again, that to me its very disappointing and discouraging to see safe and safely operating Nuclear Plants that produce carbonfree power have to close down in order to build and run new Carbon Pollution generating plants simply because of the market failure of having any value to the carbonfree nature of Nuclear Power and i know thats being resolved a bit at the state level and i hope that i can continue to work with colleagues to try to get something done akin to our Carbon Capture utilization and storage bill to encourage the continued safely operating Nuclear Fleet not to have to be artificially shut down at the time when we currently use electricity and the jobs in those locations and the carbonfree nature of that power. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator carper. Well, still here in the room munching on a granola bar, i approve that message. And something that he was raising an in a different way, five, six years ago, a member with our staff to go to france to look at what theyre doing efforts to recycle. Processing respent fuel and see what lessons there were for us. And i know additional work has been done in france and in this. And looking forward, with a real respect to what we need to be doing here on this side of the dias. Ill ask the other members to join in. On the issue of recycling or reprocessing. Early in my service on the commission, i think in 2009, the agency received some expressions of interest from potential developers of reprocessing capability in the United States. I would say though in the last number of years since then we had the regulator weve not heard any expressions of anyone interested in developing. In 2009 we were asked by the potential industry developer, could we update our old regulations on reprocessing and recycling, and before we even undertook that effort, i think that the business interest in doing it diminished, but other than that, its been fairly dormant area for us as a regulator. Other members, please i would echo the chairmans remarks. I havent heard anyone propose to mo of from that direction, but it may be due to low uranium processes. Commissioner burns. I agree with my colleagues who say going on in other countries, france or other countries, they have a fair amount of nuclear that youre aware of. I think for the countries that do engage in reprocessing, its a fairly stable process theyve developed and im not aware of them proposing any dramatic changes to it. Its pretty stable and known, i think the basic process was developed in the 1970s and i think it stayed essentially the same. All right. Thank you. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies. That is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. And next on cspan2 we take you live to the u. S. Senate floor. On todays agenda, the nomination of a former texas solicitor general to serve on the u. S. Court of appeals, based in new orleans. Now live floor coverage here on cspan2. The president pro tempore the senate will come to order. The chaplain, dr. Barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. The chaplain let us pray. O lord our god, we are grateful for your marvelous works and power. Keep us from becoming