[Senate Hearing 118-86]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-86
HEARING ON THE NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION'S PROPOSED
FISCAL YEAR 2024 BUDGET
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 19, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-247 WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware, Chairman
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia, Ranking Member
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon PETE RICKETTS, Nebraska
EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan ROGER WICKER, Mississippi
MARK KELLY, Arizona DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
ALEX PADILLA, California LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
Courtney Taylor, Democratic Staff Director
Adam Tomlinson, Republican Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
APRIL 19, 2023
OPENING STATEMENTS
Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware.. 1
Capito, Hon. Shelley Moore, U.S. Senator from the State of West
Virginia....................................................... 3
WITNESSES
Hanson, Hon. Christopher T., Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 18
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 25
Senator Markey........................................... 27
Senator Kelly............................................ 28
Senator Capito........................................... 31
Senator Ricketts......................................... 55
Baran, Hon. Jeff, Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.... 67
Prepared statement........................................... 68
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 69
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 70
Senator Kelly............................................ 71
Wright, Hon. David A., Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 73
Prepared statement........................................... 74
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 75
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 77
Senator Kelly............................................ 79
Senator Capito........................................... 82
Caputo, Hon. Annie, Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.. 86
Prepared statement........................................... 87
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 88
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 92
Senator Kelly............................................ 94
Senator Capito........................................... 96
Crowell, Hon. Bradley R., Commissioner, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission..................................................... 100
Prepared statement........................................... 102
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Carper........................................... 104
Senator Whitehouse....................................... 106
Senator Kelly............................................ 107
Senator Capito........................................... 109
HEARING ON THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION'S PROPOSED FISCAL YEAR
2024 BUDGET
----------
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2023
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Thomas R. Carper
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Carper, Capito, Cardin, Whitehouse,
Markey, Stabenow, Kelly, Padilla, Lummis, Sullivan, Ricketts.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE
Senator Carper. Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to
call this hearing to order. It is good to see each and every
one of you.
Today we are pleased to welcome back five members who
currently serve on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or the
NRC, to discuss President Biden's Fiscal Year 2024 budget
proposal for the commission. Chair Hanson, Commissioner Baran,
Commissioner Wright, Commissioner Caputo, and Commissioner
Crowell, welcome. We are delighted to see you. Thank you all
for being here with us. Thank you for your willingness to serve
in these important roles.
It is great to see you again. We are happy to spend this
time with all of you. In particular, it is great to see
Commissioner Caputo and Commissioner Crowell join us I think
for the first time since their confirmation last year to fill
two vacancies on the commission. We know that a full complement
of five commissioners allows the NRC to carry out its
responsibilities, considerable responsibilities, to the
American people effectively. We hope that you are settling in
nicely.
We also appreciate that all five of you are able to join us
today, because it is important to hear directly from each one
of you. Many of us on this committee want to ensure that the
NRC has the resources that it needs to maintain the safety of
existing nuclear facilities and those that we might build in
the future. This includes the work required to develop and
deploy the next generation of reactors, as well as new,
advanced nuclear technology and materials.
As maybe most of you know, I believe that safe nuclear
power plays an essential role in our efforts to address the
greatest challenge of our time, that is the climate crisis. I
felt this way a long time ago, since I was an ensign in the
Navy, and I still feel that way.
America's nuclear reactors provide about one-fifth of our
Nation's electricity and roughly half of all emissions-free
energy in our Country. It is no secret that I believe nuclear
energy is key to reaching net-zero emissions economy-wide. And
the NRC is critical to ensuring that our nuclear energy is safe
and reliable.
From my conversations with members of the commission, it is
clear that the NRC is hard at work developing a new regulatory
structure for the next generation of nuclear power. This new
structure is moving us closer to making advanced nuclear power
a reality in this Country and doing so without jeopardizing
safety.
The NRC is not only on time to deliver a new framework for
licensing advanced reactors but ahead of schedule, I am told,
when it comes to meeting your statutory requirements.
In addition, I applaud the NRC's recent decision on fusion
regulation, which provides a path forward for the deployment of
this technology. Going forward, this will help give fusion
developers the regulatory certainty that they need to innovate,
while also protecting safety, security and public health.
Still, it has been difficult for the NRC to operate under
the constraints that the Nuclear Energy Innovation and
Modernization Act requires. Last Congress, NRC Chair Hanson
testified before our committee. During that time, he expressed
concerns about the impact of budgetary caps on the agency's
ability to hire the work force of the future and take on the
challenges of licensing advanced reactor technologies.
That is why I joined Senator Capito and Senator Whitehouse
to introduce the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced
Nuclear for Clean Energy, or ADVANCE Act. Our bipartisan
legislation includes provisions that would help ease these
restrictive budget caps that Chair Hanson mentioned previously.
The ADVANCE Act would also help ensure that the NRC has the
best tools and highly trained staff that it needs to keep up
with the speed of innovation and the growing interest in
nuclear energy. Further, if we want the U.S. nuclear industry
to be successful, we need to invest in its future. That means
investing in the nuclear industry's work force. Almost every
organization needs a strong and dedicated work force if they
are going to be successful, and the NRC is no exception to
that.
As we advance the next generation of nuclear technologies,
we must also ensure that the NRC has adequate funding to
attract and retain the best and brightest talent needed to
license and regulate new technologies. The NRC remains the
global model for nuclear safety agencies. I am proud of that,
and I am sure you are, too. The commission's work to maintain
safe and secure nuclear power is an essential tool in our
efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Today, we look forward to discussing how President Biden's
proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024 will impact the decisions
that the NRC makes now, and, ultimately, the future of the
agency for years to come.
Before we hear from our witnesses, let me first turn to our
Ranking Member, Senator Capito, for her opening remarks.
Senator Capito?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA
Senator Capito. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you
for being here. It is nice to see a full complement. And it is
good to see you, Ms. Caputo, Commissioner Caputo, because my
first visit to a nuclear plant was with you. So we have been
around the bend on this. Great to see you.
Since our last Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversight
hearing 16 months ago, major events, both here and abroad, make
clear the urgent need for the United States to lead in civil
nuclear energy. The first new nuclear unit at Southern
Company's Vogtle site in Georgia went critical recently, and it
is now connected to the electric grid and is on the brink of
commencing commercial operation.
This is the first new commercial nuclear reactor in a
generation and I think it is a major achievement for America's
nuclear industry. It is also the first new reactor design to be
fully developed, licensed, and constructed since Congress
established the Nuclear Regulatory Commission nearly 50 years
ago.
Advanced reactor development is progressing as numerous
States pursue the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies,
including my home State of West Virginia. West Virginia is
assessing options to deploy nuclear energy, building on our
State's proud legacy of serving as a leading energy provider.
While we reinvigorate our domestic nuclear sector, global
events necessitate that America really reasserts our
international leadership here. Russia's war in Ukraine
reinforces the fact that energy security is synonymous with
national security.
Russia sought to use Europe's reliance on Russian natural
gas to destabilize our allies' resolve to support Ukraine.
Instead, we expedited export shipments of American LNG to our
European friends and increased energy cooperation.
It is also reported that Rosatom, Russia's state-backed
nuclear company, is actively supporting the war. Every dollar
that goes to Rosatom is helping Putin and Russia, and Russia
has been aggressive in trying to gain political leverage and
commercial footholds through the export of its nuclear
technologies, services, and fuels abroad.
Meanwhile, our government, alongside American companies, is
working to counter Russia's strategic nuclear engagement by
building relationships with nations around the world to
construct U.S. reactor technology. Doing so will establish
decades-long partnerships in the nuclear supply chain, the use
of advanced nuclear fuels, and reactor operations.
U.S. companies have already entered into agreements with
Romania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, just to name a few.
These circumstances dictate that America can, and should, lead
in nuclear energy development. Central to realizing the
opportunities for new nuclear here and in foreign markets is an
effective domestic nuclear safety regulator: you all.
This is why I recently introduced the ADVANCE Act with nine
cosponsors as the chairman spoke about, including Chairman
Carper and also Senator Whitehouse. And we are picking up
sponsors we hope. The bill facilitates greater international
engagement by the NRC and other Federal agencies to help win
the geostrategic nuclear energy competition. This will position
our American businesses to better compete with Russian and
Chinese nuclear companies.
This bill helps States like mine, like West Virginia,
pursue advanced nuclear technologies by reducing regulatory
costs and providing regulatory certainty. The bill assists the
NRC in efficiently fulfilling its core nuclear safety mission
with expert staff in a predictable and timely manner.
While we look to provide the commission with additional
direction and authority, Congress needs to also carefully
consider how the agency is functioning. That is why we are here
today. So this morning, we will hear from the NRC chair and the
commissioners regarding the Fiscal Year 2024 proposed budget.
While the current amount of work the NRC is conducting for
its core licensing and regulatory oversight purpose is down,
the Commission is asking for significant new funding, in part
to prepare for potential licensing work for new reactors. The
NRC's budget must become more efficient in order to be ready
for that anticipated workload.
Last year, this mystifies me, we will have to get into
this, the Commission did not spend more than $90 million of its
allotted funding. That means 10 percent of the NRC's total
budget authority went unspent.
I do appreciate that the Commission is proposing to apply
some of that carryover funding to this year's budget request.
However, when much of the Commission's budget is funded by
regulated utilities and ultimately electric ratepayers, the
Commission should not, I do not believe, be carrying over large
balances from year to year.
Just as important as finding efficiencies in the NRC's
management of its money is also how the NRC is addressing and
can perform its licensing and regulatory oversight work more
efficiently as well.
In January, I requested information regarding the
Commission's telework policy and the number of staff that are
regularly in the office. Thank you for coming to my office and
presenting that report. Nearly 60 percent of the work force is
in the office fewer than 3 days per week.
I am concerned that the expansion of, and reliance upon,
remote work will have unforeseen negative consequences on
operational efficiency.
The NRC is predicting annual attrition rates of 7 percent
for the next three to 5 years. In my view, it is imperative
that work force development programs enable the new staff to
work side-by-side with experienced staff to see firsthand how
the Commission's work is performed and to pass along known best
practices. Significant reliance on telework and video calls, I
believe, will hamper the ability of the staff to efficiently
review and approve license applications.
NRC's workload and associated challenges with licensing
multiple first-of-its-kind advanced reactors during the next
decade is so significant. Congress has appropriated billions of
dollars to facilitate the development of advanced nuclear
reactors and therefore timely and effective regulatory review
is essential.
All five of the commissioners recently spoke to the NRC's
ability to meet the moment and successfully realize the
bipartisan congressional support for advanced nuclear policy.
Congress must ensure that the moment is not missed, along with
you all.
Since the NRC's establishment, a series of reports have
consistently identified deficiencies in the NRC's work. For
example, about 30 years ago, two reports, the Towers-Perrin and
Center for Strategic and International Studies reports,
identified major shortcomings in the NRC's effectiveness and
posture. The NRC responded to those reports at the time by
successfully repositioning the Commission to respond to the
dynamic changes that are facing the nuclear industry.
To enable the NRC to effectively carry out its foundational
Atomic Energy Act charge, and in light of the forthcoming
licensing work, it may be time to undertake another
comprehensive analysis to ensure that the Commission, and our
Nation, is well positioned to deploy a new generation of
nuclear designs.
I look forward to further conversation and appreciate you
all coming in today. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Senator Capito.
We are now going to turn to our panel of witnesses, and
welcome you all back before us. We are grateful that you are
joining us today, grateful that you are willing to serve in
this important capacity. We look forward to what you have to
say.
I am going to lead off with our chair, Chris Hanson. If I
could ask to use about 5 minutes for your remarks, then we will
turn to your colleagues on the commission and ask each of you
to speak for roughly 2 minutes. Mr. Chairman, you are
recognized. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER T. HANSON, CHAIRMAN, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Hanson. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Capito, Senator Stabenow. It is good to be with
you all this morning.
My colleagues and I very much appreciate the opportunity to
discuss the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Fiscal Year
2024 budget request and update you on some of the agency's
licensing and oversight activities.
The NRC is an independent Federal agency established to
regulate commercial nuclear power plants; research and test
reactors; nuclear fuel cycle facilities; and radioactive
materials used in medicine, academia, and industry. The agency
also regulates the transportation, storage, and disposal of
radioactive materials and waste; the export and import of
radioactive materials, nuclear reactors and fuel cycle
facilities, and the export of nuclear facility components.
The NRC's Fiscal Year 2024 budget request is $1 billion to
support activities focusing on the safety and security of the
facilities and materials that we regulate. The budget request
represents about a 6.7 percent increase, or $63.2 million over
the NRC's enacted budget for Fiscal Year 2023. This is
primarily to support increased salaries and benefits, in
accordance with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget
guidance, and workload changes. The budget request proposes to
use $27.1 million in carryover to offset the Nuclear Reactor
Safety budget, resulting in an adjusted gross budget authority
of $979 million.
The NRC expects to recover $832.2 million of the Fiscal
Year 2024 budget from fees assessed to NRC licensees. This will
result in a net appropriation of $156 million, which is an
increase of $19 million when compared to the Fiscal Year 2023
enacted budget.
The Fiscal Year 2024 budget request is anticipated to
encompass the regulation of 94 operating power reactors, 31
nonpower production or utilization facilities, 23 power reactor
sites undergoing decommissioning, and thousands of other
facilities and materials that we regulate.
The NRC realized a number of important accomplishments over
the last year and made progress in key areas. To highlight a
few, Senator Capito, as you noted, the NRC authorized the
operation of Vogtle Unit 3 in Georgia, marking the first time
the agency has authorized fuel loading and startup operations
for a nuclear power plant with a combined construction permit
and operating license.
In another major achievement, the NRC completed NuScale's
design certification for its small modular reactor. The agency
also renewed the license for Westinghouse's fuel fabrication
facility in Columbia, South Carolina.
Senator Carper and Senator Capito, you both noted that the
commission recently took a major step in clarifying the
regulation of fusion energy in the United States by directing
the staff to license near-term fusion energy systems under a
byproduct material framework.
I would like to now highlight some specific elements of the
NRC's Fiscal Year 2024 budget request. The NRC's nuclear
reactor safety program encompasses licensing and oversight of
civilian nuclear power reactors and non-power facilities. The
Fiscal Year 2024 budget request for the Nuclear Reactor Safety
Program is $530.8 million. A portion of this budget request,
about $34 million, is from off-fee based funds, would support
the development of advanced reactor regulatory infrastructure
and staff capabilities for licensing of advanced nuclear
reactor and fuel cycle technologies.
The Operating Reactors portion of this request will support
licensing and inspection. With the inclusion of the carryover
used to offset the Fiscal Year 2024 budget request, the NRC is
requesting a total of $425.8 million within this. The portion
of the budget request designated for new reactors is $105
million.
In addition to the development of the new regulatory
licensing framework, this request supports numerous pre--
application activities as well as resources for technical
reviews associated with several licensing activities for
advanced reactors.
The Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety Program is
responsible for licensing, regulating, and overseeing uranium
processing and fuel facilities, research and pilot facilities,
and other nuclear materials licensees. The Fiscal Year 2024
budget request for the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety
program is $153 million.
The NRC's Corporate Support Business Line includes a wide
range of necessary functions critical to the agency's work. The
Fiscal Year 2024 budget request of $304 million would comprise
30.2 percent of the NRC's total requested budget which reflects
the agency's efforts to comply with the corporate support cap
mandated by the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act
to the maximum extent practicable.
In closing, the Fiscal Year 2024 budget request allows NRC
to focus on conducting our mission activities to ensure the
safety and security of nuclear power facilities and nuclear
materials. On behalf of the Commission, I thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the important work we anticipate in the
year ahead and for your support of the NRC's vital mission. We
would be pleased to respond to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hanson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Now, Commissioner Baran, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF BARAN, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR REGULATORY
COMMISSION
Mr. Baran. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
It is great to be back with my colleagues to discuss NRC's
budget.
It is an exciting time to be doing our important work. With
more potential applications for advanced reactors, small
modular reactors, subsequent license renewal, new fuel designs,
power uprates, and risk-informed programs expected, NRC's
overall workload is increasing. Our budget request is
structured to allow us to take on this new work.
NRC has a key role to play in tackling climate change. It
is our job to ensure the safety and security of nuclear power
in the U.S. energy mix. When utilities and vendors tell us that
we should expect numerous new designs and reactor applications,
we need to be ready with sufficient resources and the right
expertise to review them, and an efficient and effective
licensing process that can handle whatever volume comes our
way. That is an important NRC responsibility.
So NRC is busy preparing the regulatory framework for
advanced reactors and small modular reactors. At the same time,
the NRC staff is reviewing applications that have already been
submitted.
For the operation of existing nuclear power plants now and
into the future, NRC's job is to provide strong safety and
security standards and rigorous independent oversight. In this
period of change, NRC needs to be open to and ready for new
technologies that could improve safety. Whether it is digital
instrumentation and control, accident tolerant fuels, sensors,
advanced manufacturing techniques, or artificial intelligence,
we need to establish a reliable regulatory framework for
reviewing these technologies, while ensuring that they are
adopted safely without introducing any unacceptable risks.
As NRC does its work, the agency is focused on its work
force. We are facing a significant hiring challenge. We have a
large number of employees who are eligible for retirement. With
higher employee attrition, the agency's efforts on external
hiring are crucial. Significant external hiring is necessary
for the agency to do the work we have in front of us now and to
be ready for the work coming our way.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baran follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thank you, Commissioner Baran.
Commissioner Wright, please. Two minutes, please.
STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID A. WRIGHT, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Wright. Good morning, thank you so much, Chairman
Carper and Ranking Member Capito, Senator Stabenow, and the
other honorable members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today.
This is an exciting time for the Commission. The policy
decisions that we have in front of us will play a pivotal role
in shaping the energy future of this Country, as well as beyond
our borders. I am honored to be a part of that process. By
working together, the five of us can help meet the moment in
time to enable the safe use of nuclear technologies while we
continue to meet our mission of reasonable assurance of
adequate protection of public health and safety and to promote
the common defense and security and to protect the environment.
On behalf of me and my team, I want to thank my colleagues
and their staffs for their willingness to work together on
important issues before us, such as advanced reactors,
accident-tolerant fuel, fusion, cleanup of legacy uranium
mines, and spent fuel storage, just to name a few.
I am also grateful to the NRC staff, who are truly some of
the smartest and most talented people that I have ever been
around. They do an outstanding job of monitoring the day-to-day
safety of our nuclear facilities, and I want to take this
moment to thank them publicly. Going forward, I look forward to
the continued excellent support and insights that they provide
us.
And with that, I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wright follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thanks, Commissioner Wright.
Commissioner Caputo.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANNIE CAPUTO, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Ms. Caputo. Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Carper,
Ranking Member Capito, and members of the committee for the
opportunity to come before you today.
This Committee has demonstrated strong bipartisan support
for advanced reactors, and a sense of urgency driven by both
climate change and energy security concerns. NRC's role as
gatekeeper to the future of advanced reactors is a role that we
must get right.
While the primacy of our mission to protect public safety
and security and the environment is indisputable, we must find
ways to innovate how we will regulate advanced reactors to
allow safe nuclear energy deployment on a scale warranted by
our national and global clean energy needs.
Congress directed the NRC to develop a new regulatory
framework for advanced reactors. The proposed rule under
consideration by the commission is a complex, 1200-page
undertaking. This will require considerable work on the part of
my colleagues and I to meet Congress's intent with a sense of
urgency. I pledge to work collegially with my fellow
commissioners to shape a framework that is simpler, reflecting
the inherent safety found in advanced designs, and enabling
predictable, efficient reviews.
Our Principles of Good Regulation State that ``The American
taxpayer, the rate-paying consumer, and licensees are all
entitled to the best possible management and administration of
our regulatory activities.'' At the end of Fiscal Year 2022, as
Senator Capito mentioned, the agency had a carryover balance of
$92 million. This means the agency collected roughly $58
million from licensees and $34 million from taxpayers that we
did not need to fulfill our mission.
I share the Committee's concern that the agency be
adequately resourced and staffed to meet our mission. However,
my longstanding view remains that the agency needs to improve
its financial stewardship of its resources and the fairness of
the fees billed to licensees and applicants. I look forward to
working with Chairman Hanson and my fellow commissioners to
improve that issue.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Caputo follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thank you so much.
Now we are going to hear from Brad Crowell also for 2
minutes. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. BRADLEY R. CROWELL, COMMISSIONER, NUCLEAR
REGULATORY COMMISSION
Mr. Crowell. Thank you, Chair Carper, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify today.
Since taking office last year, I have had the pleasure of
building positive working relationships with my fellow
commissioners. It has been apparent that a genuine spirit of
collegiality among the Commission forms the foundation for
successfully executing the NRC's mission with maximum
effectiveness and efficiency.
Strong collegiality is further enhanced when operating with
the full complement of commissioners. With five commissioners
since last August, the Commission has made progress on pivotal
issues related to the existing reactor fleet while also forging
ahead on establishing a responsible regulatory framework to
support the next generation of nuclear technologies.
Chair Hanson highlighted these topics in his testimony and
many other notable recent accomplishments by the NRC, while
also emphasizing the robust work schedule ahead for Fiscal Year
2024 and beyond. The NRC has a central role to play in the
future viability of nuclear energy, both in the U.S. and
abroad. As the Nation's regulator for the safe and secure
operation of civilian nuclear technologies, the NRC is
committed to ensuring the public can have confidence that all
NRC licensees operate in manner that minimizes risk and
maximizes safety.
The foundational mission of the NRC must always be the
uncompromising protection of public health and safety,
security, and the environment. But that mission can no longer
be applied through the narrow lens that has been used in past
decades at the NRC. The NRC must quickly adapt to embrace the
shared responsibility of our Nation's collective effort to
address climate change and energy security.
The potential for nuclear energy to make a meaningful and
enduring contribution to reducing carbon emissions and
stabilizing our energy grid is real. But in doing so, time is
of the essence and there is much to accomplish across the full
NRC mission space.
To be successful, the NRC must embrace a contemporary sense
of purpose that embodies the challenges and opportunities
before us. As an essential part of this effort, the NRC must
restore, build, and maintain public trust through proactive and
meaningful interactions with the public, other government
agencies, and the full spectrum of stakeholders.
The NRC must also maintain a commitment to safely
regulating the full fuel cycle by asserting commensurate focus
on issues from mining to waste in its regulatory decisions and
research activities. Proactive engagement on used fuel
management, decommissioning, and waste disposal is critical to
enhancing public confidence.
I am excited by the challenge of what we can, and must,
accomplish by the end of this decade. But we must get to work
now and maintain this level of commitment in subsequent years
to succeed. I am confident the NRC staff is up to the
challenge.
The Fiscal Year 2024 budget request is an important next
step to ensure we have the resources necessary to meet this
pivotal moment.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Crowell follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Carper. Thank you all for those comments. I am
going to turn back to Chairman Hanson for the first couple of
questions.
The NRC's work to maintain the safety and security of our
Nation's nuclear power facilities and materials is critical to
ensuring that nuclear energy remains an important part of our
clean energy supply. Unfortunately, the Nuclear Energy
Innovation and Modernization Act, affectionately known as
NEIMA, which was signed into law January 2019, placed
limitations on the NRC's administrative costs known as
corporate support.
To fix this, I worked with Ranking Member Capito on
language, and our staffs worked together on language included
in the ADVANCE Act that would ease these restrictive caps with
the goal of providing greater flexibility for the NRC to ensure
that it has the best tools and the work force that is required.
Would you take a moment or two to describe for us how
easing these corporate support restraints will support the
NRC's efforts to modernize and hire the highly skilled workers
needed to carry out the NRC's important work both now and well
into the future?
Mr. Hanson. Chairman Carper, thank you very much for that
question. I appreciate the committee's focus on corporate
support in the ADVANCE Act. Continued focus on our overhead
costs and keeping those down to the maximum extent practicable
is certainly something we are continuing to do and we will do
into the future.
What we have proposed in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget is a
couple of modest adjustments really in the area of HR. We have
undertaken an effort to hire staff, hire the right staff, up to
our authorized levels. We need some additional corporate
support resources in order to be able to do that.
I would note that the corporate support request in this
budget is right around $300 million. So as I said, about 30
percent. That is actually $30 million less than the Fiscal Year
2016 level, and actually adjusted for inflation, it is about
$120 million less than Fiscal Year 2016. So we have brought
these costs down and we are going to continue to focus on that
as part of our efforts.
Additionally, a 1 percent reduction in corporate support
then on $1 billion dollars is roughly about $10 million. That
equates to as many as anywhere, depending on contracting costs
and other kinds of things, as many as 30 to 50 full-time
positions. Those are people that we really need to be able to
hire people, bring them on board, vet them for security, make
sure they have the IT resources and other kinds of things that
they need. So modest relief in the corporate support area is
really critical to our ability to hire folks.
Back in 2021, we had about 180 hiring actions, but only
about 100 of those were external. In 2022, we had about 200
external hiring actions, and that requires a lot of additional
resources to bring folks in, not a lot, a modest amount of
additional resources to bring folks into the government.
We also, through attrition, had 250 people leave the
agency. So actually at the end of 2022, we were still down
about 40 positions agency wide. So you can see we are trying to
bring people in, even as I think a number of people noted our
work force is aging, and we are trying to get our arms around
this staffing issue to accomplish the mission.
Senator Carper. You are not the only entities trying to get
their arms around this staffing issue. Senator Capito and my
colleagues and I returned on Monday from a recess, and I
suspect that they did something similar to what I did, I
covered my State from one end to the other. It is easy in
Delaware, because we are only 100 miles from north to south and
50 miles wide.
We visited businesses large and small, and our
congressional delegation would ask really three questions of
the businesses that we visited, like how are you doing in
business, and we would say, how are we doing, congressional
delegation, Federal Government, State government, and what can
we do to help. On the third question, almost without exception,
the response to what can we do to help is, we just need people
to come to work. We need people to come to work who are trained
or trainable and will do a day's work for a day's pay. We heard
that again and again and again.
I say that as background, but as the NRC looks to recruit
the best and the brightest, what has been critical in
attracting and training a work force that is able to understand
today's technology and the technology of the future? What more
could we do to help on the congressional side, help you and the
NRC attract and retain the kind of talent that is required?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, thank you. The additional authorities
provided in the ADVANCE Act will certainly help with that.
Workplace flexibilities I think will also continue to help. We
face stiff competition from other government agencies and from
industry. So being able to offer some level of telework is
important.
Commissioner Caputo mentioned the strong bipartisan support
of this committee for nuclear. I think that is also important,
because that shows that this industry is getting a lot of
attention. That is good for us.
When I go out and talk to people, I emphasize the mission
of the NRC, the safety mission, and the importance of public
service, and that maybe it is not something that folks will
want to go do for their entire career, but to go and serve
their Country for a period of time and help us ensure the
safety and security of these advanced technologies and of the
current fleet is a good and noble calling.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Just as an aside, I mention my
experience with the Navy. I was in airplanes, chasing nuclear
submarines. We have Dover Air Force Base, which is just outside
Dover, Delaware, in the middle part of our State. About every
week, they hold a forum they call transition assistance for
people that are timing out, that are going to retire, that are
going to move from active duty to reserve duty. But we didn't
have anything like that when I timed out of the Navy, at the
end of the Vietnam War.
But there is a considerable work force coming off the Dover
Air Force Base. We have 5,000, 6,000 people who work there,
civilian and otherwise. So that provides a fertile field, if
you will, a supply of employees.
There are a lot of people who were in the nuclear Navy, and
some of them stay for a career, some stay for 10, 20, 30 years,
as you know. Some don't. Some of them become reservists. Do you
ever take a look at how working with the Navy, people in
uniform who have timed out from the nuclear Navy, and to see if
they might be appropriate in working with the NRC?
Mr. Hanson. We are doing that. We have about 25 percent of
our work force that are military veterans, most of those from
the Navy and the nuclear Navy. We have been great beneficiaries
of that program over time in the agency.
Senator Carper. I find when I visit nuclear power plants, a
lot of the folks who work at nuclear power plants are folks
with Navy nuclear experience.
This is a question for the entire panel. We will start with
you, Commissioner Baran. The Nuclear Energy Innovation and
Modernization Act requires NRC to develop a regulatory
framework for the next generation of nuclear technologies. We
want to see a regulatory framework that is risk-informed,
performance-based, and technology neutral. Importantly, this
framework needs to be both workable and usable to help us
deploy more safe and reliable nuclear energy.
Here is my question for the entire panel, starting with
you, Mr. Baran. Could each of you please take a brief moment
and tell us how the new regulatory framework development
process is going, what is going well, and are there any issues
of concern you would like to bring to us? Commissioner Baran?
Mr. Baran. Thanks for the question. It is something we
obviously are all very focused on. I think we are all reviewing
and beginning to digest the draft proposed rule. I agree with
you completely: the result needs to be an efficient and
effective licensing framework going forward.
I think we have heard throughout this process, as the staff
has developed the draft proposed rule, there are several issues
we hear about a lot from a lot of stakeholders, concerns or
areas where it is clear that the commission is going to need to
make a decision about how to proceed. Everything from, we are
going to have a performance-based regulation, what is the
overall performance standard, what should it be. There is a
debate about that.
There is a question about the role of, as low as reasonably
achievable doses, how does that play in. Do we have two
frameworks, a framework A and a framework B? If so, how does
framework B look? Security, there are multiple, big issues. But
probably half a dozen or so that get the most attention from
stakeholders, and I think that the staff has spent the most
time on.
So I know we will all be focused on those issues and trying
to figure out, how do we strike the right balance, how do we
have a good rule in the end that is going to work and be
efficient and effective.
Senator Carper. Thanks. My time is expired. I am going to
come back and pick this up after each of my colleagues have had
a chance to ask their questions.
Senator Capito, please.
Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all.
Chair Hanson, I wanted to ask specifically about the State
of West Virginia, because West Virginia recently notified the
commission of its interest in becoming an agreement State.
Agreement States assume responsibility to exercise certain
regulatory authorities over nuclear materials. It has a
process, and you all review that.
In your letter to our Governor, Governor Justice, you
welcomed the State's interest. I appreciate that. I would just
ask for your assurance that you will provide all the necessary
attention and resources to help review that application that
West Virginia has made, as well as frequent communications with
the State as we are going through this process.
Mr. Hanson. Yes, Senator, you have my commitment with that.
The process really kicks off on June 1st, and that is going to
be followed by a series of monthly status meetings between the
State and NRC staff. Not only will we be reviewing their
application, but we are going to provide training to State
staff for them to get up to speed on reviewing materials
licenses and becoming inspectors.
Senator Capito. Right. For our State, this is new territory
for us. That is very helpful.
How many States have State agreements already?
Mr. Hanson. We have 39 fully in place. We have two more in
process. West Virginia is going to be joining Indiana and
Connecticut who are in the middle of that process right now.
Senator Capito. All right. Thank you.
There has already been a lot of conversation about what is
known as Part 53 of the new regulation, the 1,800 pages that
have come forth for a regulatory framework for advanced nuclear
reactor technologies. I think this is absolutely essential.
It has come to our attention, Commissioner Baran, I think
you just mentioned this, that stakeholders have been
consistently identifying some key issues where they have some
issues that need to be resolved before the final rule would
move forward. You want a rule that is workable, we are really
putting a lot of eggs in this basket to be able to move
forward, not just here but as I mentioned in my opening
statement, globally.
I want a simple yes or no response from all of you that you
agree, obviously, I think, that a successful regulatory
framework must be a rule that can be used. But will you commit
to addressing the widely acknowledged issues with the proposed
rule and provide specific direction to fix those rules? If I
can just go down the dais, say yes or no on that.
Mr. Hanson. Yes, Senator, we will be tackling those issues.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
Mr. Baran. Yes, of course.
Senator Capito. Yes.
Mr. Wright. Yes.
Ms. Caputo. Yes, I will.
Mr. Crowell. Yes.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Before I ask about telework, I
want to ask about this $92 million carryover. You mentioned,
Chairman, that $21 million of that is carried over. Well, I can
do the simple math here. That leaves another $71 million. Where
does that go? Where is that? If you're only using $21 million
to carry over into this year's budget.
Mr. Hanson. I see. The $27 million we proposed in the 2024
to kind of offset that. But that does still leave some
additional carryover.
Senator Capito. It is significant. That is significant. If
I am not seeing this right, it is a $70 million unused still.
Is that correct? Close to that?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, at about halfway through the year, we
have now obligated about half of that $90 million already to
new work here in Fiscal Year 2023.
Senator Capito. So you are using that now?
Mr. Hanson. We are using that, yes. It does not
consistently accumulate. We will take unobligated funds and
dedicate those to existing work.
Senator Capito. Commissioner Caputo, I would like you to
weigh in here because you mentioned it in your statement, how
you feel about that method of paying for things.
Ms. Caputo. I think what the chairman is referring to is
spending the older money first. But I also think what that does
is push forward the dates when we start using the
appropriations that we are given for the fiscal year. So it
sort of pushes carryover through to the end of this fiscal
year.
So considering that we ended the year with $92 million in
carryover and received a budget increase in Fiscal Year 2023, I
would expect us again to have carryover at least on that order,
if not higher.
Senator Capito. Yes, and you mentioned that that carryover
dollars represents not just the corporate, if I am saying this
correctly, the corporate contribution, which you mentioned
ratepayers and----
Ms. Caputo. Yes.
Senator Capito. Will you explain what that means? That is
the taxpayer, right, the person who is receiving the service?
Ms. Caputo. Yes. There is a portion of our budget that is
paid for by taxpayers which is in the neighborhood of 15
percent, and the remainder of it is collected from licensees
and applicants. What I mentioned in my statement was the
breakdown between the activities where we had excess funds that
were taxpayer funded versus those that we, as mandated under
law, have to recover in fees.
So when our budget is issued, we have to recover the fees
regardless of whether or not we use the money.
Senator Capito. OK. Can I ask one more question? Chairman
Hanson, the statistics that you generated and that I mentioned
in my opening statement, I think as you look further into some
of that, there is a great, vast majority of NRC employees that
are not in the office 6 days out of 2 weeks' pay period. I
mentioned concerns of mentoring.
We see this popping up a lot in corporate America. A lot of
people are bringing everybody back. I understand, when we had
this conversation earlier, your response to me was, it needs to
be an all-of-government response. In other words, I can not
respond at the NRC one way and then have the Department of
Energy doing something else, because they are going to pick off
my talent, is the bottom line here.
Mr. Hanson. Yes.
Senator Capito. Do you not agree that to have, I know to
have a blended work, yes, but to have more people actually in
the office mentoring new employees, talking about new
technologies that are coming online, is a much more effective
way to actually get a better result?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, I definitely agree that there are a
lot of advantages of in-person interactions. We want those
interactions to be purposeful. We brought the staff back to the
office about 2 days a week just about a year ago now. What we
found was there was a lot of uneven distribution about who was
in the office when and folks were sitting in their cubes by
themselves on Teams meetings with other people who weren't
around.
So what we have tried to do is develop a model of
interaction where people are coming together for a particular
reason. Like you said, I think mentoring is a great example of
that, celebrating achievements, completing work together on big
efforts. We are trying to develop a flexible work model that
directs, encourages, and guides those kinds of meaningful
interactions.
Senator Capito. Do you make those decisions yourself? Or
are those made within the agency by the different siloed areas
of the NRC?
Mr. Hanson. Our Executive Director of Operations and the
leadership team of career civil servants is making those
decisions. But they are keeping the commission informed.
Senator Capito. So it is a consistent policy across the
commission?
Mr. Hanson. That is the idea, yes, that it is a consistent
policy across the agency.
Senator Capito. Well, the President made a statement on it
the other day, and then he said, well, when you come into work,
it has to be for a meaningful purpose. I was like, isn't every
day supposed to be a meaningful purpose at work?
[Laughter.]
Senator Capito. I sort of thought, who goes to work for
unmeaningful purposes? It sounds sort of wasteful to me.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Hanson. Thank you.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Senator Capito.
Senator Stabenow, you are next. Welcome. It is nice to see
you.
Senator Stabenow. Thank you. Good morning and thanks to all
of you. I hope every day is meaningful, as we are coming in to
work together.
Thank you for all of your work and leadership. I am a
supporter of the use of nuclear power. I think we have great
new opportunities now, and certainly attacking the climate
crisis using the new technologies that you have been talking
about I think give us some real opportunities.
I want to ask my first question about something close to
home in Michigan. I know, Chairman Hanson, as a Michigan native
yourself, we are glad to say, I know you are well aware of how
we feel about our Great Lakes in terms of the economy. We like
to say the Great Lakes are really in our DNA, and that we do
everything we can to protect this unparalleled natural resource
for the next generations.
That is why I for years now have led efforts working with
our Canadian friends to stop proposals to bury high-level
nuclear waste in the Great Lakes Basin. We have had meetings, I
have had meetings in Canada, in Michigan, phone calls, good
conversations. The good news is we were successful in stopping
one proposal. Unfortunately, Canada continues now to consider a
separate proposal to store highly radioactive waste at a site
just off of Lake Huron. They are only months away from
finalizing a decision on the matter.
Now, I understand you are looking at two sites, one is not
in the Great Lakes Basin, one is near Lake Huron. Obviously, we
would prefer, Canada is a big country, and as I have said to my
Canadian friends, you have a lot of options on where you would
locate a site. It does not have to be right next to the Great
Lakes, right next to Lake Huron. Particularly when we talk
about threatening the drinking water supply of more than 40
million people in the U.S. and Canada, as you know.
So my question is, will you commit to work with me, to work
with us, work with other Federal partners, including the State
Department, to engage with our Canadian allies on this issue in
an effort, hopefully a successful effort, that this waste will
not be permanently stored in the Great Lakes Basin?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, yes, I commit to work with you and the
State Department and our interagency partners to bring the
breadth and depth of the expertise of the NRC to this issue.
Senator Stabenow. Great. Well, this is really important,
and hopefully as we move forward with new technologies and so
on, maybe the issues around waste will not be what they are
today. But certainly we are very concerned about the Great
Lakes.
I did want to go back to what the leadership of our
committee has talked to you about, and you have mentioned, but
just a little bit more on work force, which is a challenge, of
course, for all of us, every business, every entity, certainly
in Michigan and in the Federal Government and so on. But when I
learned that one-third of the NRC staff is eligible for
retirement, it was like, ouch, that is a challenge. That is a
very big challenge. A lot of expertise to replace, for sure.
I wondered if the chairman, also Commissioner Baran, you
spoke about this specifically as well, but what does this mean
for your ability to develop and implement standards? We have
talked about some strategies. I am glad you are reaching out to
the Navy, my dad was in the Navy as well, as the chairman
knows, and reached out to others.
What else can we do to support you to be able to get you
what you need in terms of the expertise that is necessary?
Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Senator, very much.
In terms of bringing folks into the agency, we have a broad
across-the-board approach where we are really actively engaging
recent college graduates. I am visiting universities, I know my
colleagues are as well, to try and get folks on the nuclear
track and interested in public service. But we are also working
hard to recruit and retain mid-career folks as well, folks with
expertise already that can come in the door and maybe hit the
ground running a little bit more.
Certainly, competitive pay and benefits, maybe not
everything that industry can do, but certainly the benefits
that the Federal Government has there. But also things like
student loan repayment and other kinds of Federal tools that we
might be able to use to retain folks.
We also have specific programs for specific skill sets. It
is not just folks in general, but we are looking for people
like reactor systems analysts that were health physicists. We
have specific initiatives aimed at getting those folks in the
door.
Senator Stabenow. Right. Commissioner Baran, do you want to
add to that?
Mr. Baran. I do not know that I can add too much. I agree
with everything Chair Hanson said.
I would just note for a little bit of context, for a number
of years, the agency has been shrinking. We had been doing very
little external hiring. So only these last couple of years have
we been starting to ramp this up. Because of attrition and a
growing number of folks retiring, we need to hire a couple
hundred people a year just to stay flat. That is much more than
we have been doing in the last several years.
So as the chair said, the folks we have, and to get our
hiring ramped up again, and do it in new, smarter ways, how we
bring in lots of folks that are going to be highly qualified
and get them where we need them is really important. As he said
also, I think the additional hiring flexibilities in the
ADVANCE Act are really great, and we certainly appreciate that
support as well.
Senator Stabenow. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Senator Carper. Senator Ricketts, good to see you.
Senator Ricketts. Thank you, Chairman Carper, Ranking
Member Capito.
I always say I love being on this committee. We are not
going to talk about ethanol today.
[Laughter.]
Senator Stabenow. I would be happy to join you in doing
that.
[Laughter.]
Senator Ricketts. Thank you, Commissioners, for serving in
this role and for being here with us today. Nebraska is very
proud of our nuclear power that we have that is clean, safe,
and reliable. Our Cooper Nuclear Station is an 835-megawatt
facility that can generate power for about 385,000 residences,
even in the hottest part of summer. So we are very proud of our
nuclear power, and look to continue to see how we can expand it
going forward into the future.
Chairman Hanson, this question is going to be for you. I am
going to start by quoting what Commissioner Caputo said, which
is the principles of good regulation State that the American
taxpayer, the rate-paying consumer and licensees are all
entitled to the best possible management and administration of
regulatory activities. The highest technical and managerial
competence is required, and must be a constant NRC goal. That
is the NRC's practice, or stated goal there.
However, in looking at the review process here, there are
some questions I have about it. I will give you a little bit of
background. As Governor of Nebraska, we were very focused on
process improvement and how we could streamline our operations
to be able to do a better job. The NRC has, looking at the time
it takes in licensing hours for the initial renewals, and it
does not appear that you are living up to what the goal here
is. Because it says, the first 44 initial license renewals were
completed in or on an average of 16,000 review hours. Most
recently, review hours for initial license renewals have been
estimated to be 23,000, an increase of 44 percent.
Then another thing I would like to you to answer, Chairman
Hanson, is in subsequent license renewal applications which I
would think, and granted, I am a layman, so I do not know, I am
not an expert on this stuff, but you would think you would be
able to realize the efficiencies based upon the initial license
renewal screening, safety, environmental review as well as the
ongoing management of the programs that they have. Those have
averaged 25,000. So for me, there is a disconnect between
initial licensing being shorter than the follow-on licensing. I
would think that would be easier to do.
Why have these subsequent license renewal reviews required
more time and resources than the initial ones? Why is it taking
longer just in general to do these initial license reviews?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, those are very good questions. I
recently have become aware of this discrepancy in the hours
myself. I am focusing on it and working with the career staff
to find out what the issues are here. Oftentimes, the way we
will approach these things is to look at the differences
between like things, an initial license renewal for a
particular reactor and then a subsequent, well, OK, what has
changed, and look and dive into those.
So I do not have an answer for you today, but I will get
back to you for the record on what exactly is going on there. I
can share my concern about that as well. I want to understand
better exactly what is going on there.
Senator Ricketts. OK, well, I appreciate you following up
on that. Again, we leverage Lean Six Sigma; there are a lot of
other process improvement methodologies out there that you can
implement agency-wide to be able to drive better productivity,
streamlining operations, reducing the number of steps it takes
to do things, and not sacrificing anything with regard to the
quality of the output or anything like that.
And of course, I think you are going to find broad support
for the nuclear industry, especially, Commissioner Baran was
talking about some of the exciting new technologies that are
coming online, Nebraska is passing laws to be able to try and
attract that to our State, when we are talking abut some of
these advanced nuclear programs. So we are really excited about
this stuff.
So, if you could, get back to me and describe some of those
things. I am running close to my time, so I am not going to go
over, because we also have some other people here. But I do
want to say, if you would get back to us on that, and just
followup on some of the steps you will do there.
Then another question, as long as you are doing that, in
the Inflation Reduction Act there are several provisions to
incentivize power uprates of the current fleet of power
reactors. Can you provide your strategy for how you are going
to address the potential increase in power uprate applications
in line with the Inflation Reduction Act?
Mr. Hanson. Yes. We have not gotten formal notification yet
from licensees about power uprates, but we have had some
informal interactions. I know the Nuclear Energy Institute has
a survey out there as well that folks are going to be pursuing
those. In our operating reactors group, we are already starting
to look ahead for that and make sure that we have the right
skill sets in place. It is also part of our hiring strategy. I
mentioned reactor systems analysts earlier. Those are going to
be some of the critical skill sets that we are going to need to
be able to move those in a risk-informed, performance based and
timely way while keeping our safety mission front and center.
Senator Ricketts.
Yes, again, it would seem to me you can create a template
for anybody who applies for the uprates about what they would
have to do and where they could get to go with regard to this.
Again, this is something that I think is, as we have increasing
energy demands, I think it is something important for my State
and the Nation to be able to accomplish.
Mr. Hanson. We have done that in other areas, Senator,
where we have kind of gone through almost like a pilot process
with a single licensee, then other licensees can follow that
pattern, and it becomes more efficient over time.
Senator Ricketts. Great, fantastic. Thank you very much,
Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thanks for those questions.
Senator Cardin, you are recognized.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me thank all
the commissioners for your work. We appreciate it very much. I
am proud of your location in our State of Maryland and the work
force, many of which live in Maryland.
I want to talk about the work force issues. I know it has
been brought up. I want to mention three issues and then try to
get your response on how you are dealing with it.
The NRC has a higher-than-average attrition rate. We have a
problem with attrition generally in Federal service, but your
rates are higher than the norm.
We have a morale problem. In all the recent ratings in
regard to the best places to work, the NRC has dropped in its
rating, I think it is 21st out of 27 right now, and according
to OPM, the Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey dropped from
81.8 in 2010 to 66.5 in 2022. There is a moral issue problem at
the NRC.
Last, you have an age factor. One-third of your work force,
as I understand it, is eligible for retirement. The number of
workers that you have that are under the age of 30 is about 4
percent, if my numbers are correct.
So what steps are you taking in an effort to try to reverse
these three trends, the attrition, the age of the work force,
and the spirit of the work force to work under difficult
circumstances because it is a good place to work?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, thank you. Let me try and tackle each
one of those, if I can. You are right, attrition has gone up. I
think last year we got up to about 9 percent, which is, you are
right, higher than normal. I would say in terms of the age
factor there, the average age of new hires in the agency is
about between 36 and 39. So the folks that we are bringing in
are significantly younger than a lot of the other folks in the
agency.
We are also focused on knowledge management. This
commission has been focused on it as well, so that the
knowledge and the expertise of some of those older workers who
are eligible to retire and will retire is getting transferred
down so that we can continue to keep our safety mission front
and center.
Finally, in terms of our FEV (Forced Expiratory Volume)
scores, I acknowledge those. Ten years ago or so, we were No. 1
in FEV as the best place to work in government. We were also
growing a lot. There was a lot of promotion potential, we were
looking at the nuclear renaissance, we were 25, 30 percent
bigger than we are now. We have shrunk a lot.
As the agency shrunk and we weren't sure about the future
of nuclear, well, the nuclear for energy and climate security
reasons really picked up. But at that same time, the pandemic
hit, and folks were forced to go home. Now we are in a hybrid
work environment. The key to really making that environment
work, I think, is really about trust and about making the staff
know that we trust them to do a good job, that we trust them to
come into the office when they need to, that we trust them to
accomplish the mission.
That is really the theme throughout this. Before the
pandemic, we were accomplishing the mission. During the
pandemic, we accomplished the mission. And we are accomplishing
it now. We are going to continue to do so going forward. And
helping folks understand the importance of that mission in this
dynamic time that I think each of my colleagues talked about is
really important. I hope it can be a morale booster going
forward.
Senator Cardin. I am a strong supporter of your work force.
I will continue to be a strong supporter for what you need. The
challenges you are talking about have been confronted by many
agencies in government. We have seen the decline in many of our
agencies. Your relative score is dropping, and your absolute
score has dropped pretty dramatically.
The building blocks you just mentioned are very important
points. That has to be a key part. But it needs to be first
acknowledged that you have a problem. You then need to work
with the work force to find out the reasons for what is
happening here and then have a strategy so that people want to
work for your agency and that you can attract the young people
that are going to be necessary to give you the continuity in a
field that is very dynamic.
This is an area that is just absolutely essential in
recruitment. If you have a reputation that it is not a good
place to work, it is going to make it even more difficult for
you to get the talent you need to meet the missions in the
future.
So I would hope that you would share with us a strategy to
take this issue on head-on with the work force so it is not
dictating how they should feel, but understanding how they feel
and then deal with the challenges that you have moving forward.
Mr. Hanson. I am happy to provide more details on some of
the things we are doing in that area, Senator.
Senator Cardin. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thanks for those comments, Senator Cardin.
We have been joined by Senator Lummis, then Senator
Whitehouse has slipped in here. Senator Lummis, good morning.
How are you?
Senator Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, thank you
for being here, commissioners.
In Wyoming, we are really looking forward to the advanced
reactors like TerraPower's natrium reactor coming to Kemmerer,
Wyoming. Much to be excited about.
Chairman Hanson, for agreement States like Wyoming, would
it be possible for States to do early site permitting to grease
the wheels for future reactors in communities that want them?
Would that require agreement amendments, or is this allowed
under current NRC regulations?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, I would have to get back to you with
the specifics on that. I think the NRC retains authority for
early site permits for reactors. So I think under the Atomic
Energy Act that is not eligible for an agreement State. But as
part of the early site permit process, we would work with and
consult State and other parties throughout that.
Senator Lummis. Great. I will look forward to following up
with you on that. That will be great.
Ms. Caputo. Senator, if I may?
Senator Lummis. Yes.
Ms. Caputo. Under our regulations, any individual can
pursue an ESP. That definition of individual does include
States and State entities. So it would be possible for the
State, as an agreement State, to pursue an early site permit.
Generally, there is a requirement to have control over the
land, so there would need to be some sort of an agreement,
either possession of the property in question or some sort of
an agreement with the owner that would allow work and site
characterization necessary to achieve a permit to go forward.
There are precedents for that. I believe the reactor vendor
Oklo has some sort of an agreement like that with the DOE site
at Idaho National Lab.
But it is possible for a State to proceed and actually
pursue an early site permit.
Senator Lummis. Thank you for that answer and also thank
you for coming to Wyoming and looking at some of the in-situ
recovery sites in Wyoming.
Ms. Caputo. That is always my pleasure.
Senator Lummis. My staff really enjoyed spending time with
you. For anybody who hasn't seen it, it is always such a
surprise. It was the first time I saw in situ, because we are
used to visualizing a typical mining operation.
You go see an in-situ operation, it is like you are going
out and looking at a bunch of beehives. It is very low profile,
on the surface, and there is no surface disturbance that you
can see. It is absolutely amazing. So for anyone who hasn't
seen it, we would love to have you out and show it to you
further.
I want to talk a little bit about remediation of legacy
uranium sites. I know that the commission has had numerous
public statements supporting remediation. Members of this
committee also share that goal, especially given the
development of technology that can finally cleanup the roughly
15,000 waste rock piles in the west. One of the technologies
that is used is called high pressure slurry ablation, or HPSA.
I am sure you know that, it was a new term to me.
But one of those technologies, which is basically a car
wash for rocks, was recently declined a multi-site license by
the NRC staff. You recently directed staff to reconsider and
present options to the commission. My question is, who sets the
policy for the NRC? Is it the NRC staff, or is it the
commissioners?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, the policy matters reside with the
commission. That was one of the reasons why we directed the
staff, Commissioner Baran was actively involved in this issue,
to provide us a paper with options and policy implications on
this matter. Because there were some issues about legal
authority and definitions in the statute, et cetera. We wanted
to better fully understand that and fully understand what our
options were.
Senator Lummis. May I ask you then, Commissioner Baran,
does the commission believe it has the authority to revise its
own interpretation of byproduct materials to exclude beneficial
remediation technologies from being considered milling? It
seems like that word milling has come into question in all of
this.
Mr. Baran. We need to regulate remediation technologies in
a way that makes sense. As a matter of policy, I think we want
to incentivize the remediation, the cleanup of mine waste. We
obviously need to comply with the Atomic Energy Act. That is
kind of the issue with these definitions.
But I am not convinced that the statute requires us to
apply a regulatory framework here that wouldn't make sense or
does not fit. I know you have legislation that looks at this,
and I think that would be very good legislation.
I do not think the Congress should need to act in this
area. I think the commission has the latitude to develop a more
appropriate policy. We have directed the NRC staff to think
creatively about this and provide us with some viable options.
Senator Lummis. Thank you. Thanks very much for being here.
Ms. Caputo. Senator, this was one of the technologies that
I was able to visit last week in Wyoming. I agree with the
chairman and Commissioner Baran. It is difficult under the
initial legal review by our Office of General Counsel, it is
difficult to envision any remediation technology not falling
under that interpretation for milling, which would necessitate
functionally a milling license for cleanup of each and every
uranium remediation site that is out there, and there are
thousands.
So I do believe that there is room to look at this and
perhaps get a fresher legal interpretation that would enable
remediation.
Senator Lummis. Thank you very much. Commissioners, thank
you so much for being here. I appreciate your testimony today.
I yield back, thank you.
Senator Carper. You bet. Senator Whitehouse, then Senator
Padilla.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. Chair Hanson and
members of the commission, welcome. Particularly welcome to
Commissioner Crowell, who is returning to this committee from
his position here years ago.
The legislative status is that we got you both the Nuclear
Energy Innovation and Capabilities Act and the Nuclear
Innovation and Modernization Act, and we have pending Senator
Capito's ADVANCE Act, which I have been helpful and supportive
with. I am one of her Democratic cosponsors, if not her lead
one.
I would like to know with respect to speeding up the pace
of approval for new fourth generation technologies, are you
satisfied with the authorities that we gave you, or is there
something more that you need? I invite you, since there are
five of you, to make that a question for the record and just
let us know, are those two bills adequate? What more do you
need? Because the ADVANCE Act is filed, but it can still be
amended. If there is more that you need, we could consider
putting other things that you think would be helpful into the
ADVANCE Act. So I would like to get your official views on that
as individual chair and commissioners.
The second issue I want to raise with you is one that I
raise pretty much every time, which is my worry that by relying
so much on private sector initiative, we rely enormously on
economic signaling and we could be in a situation in which two
technologies, one which requires new fuel, and another
technology, which would allow the re-use and reprocessing of
spent fuel, of our existing nuclear waste stockpiles, that the
spent fuel technology will fail the economic test because it
will be cheaper to get new fuel. And that economic test will
not have taken into consideration the very important national
security and public safety values of finding out what we can do
to make use of our spent fuel.
I am worried that that becomes a mistake because the
economic signals are poorly aligned. In the same way that we
saw safely operating nuclear plants shut down so that natural
gas plants could light up, only because the natural gas plants
were so-called cheaper, only because they were polluting for
free and the nuclear plants got zero value for being pollution
free, you could end up with decision-making that is driven by
false economics.
So what more can we do? We established a prize in our bill
to encourage that form of re-use of spent fuel in new
technologies. Beyond having a prize, what more can we do to
make sure that the value of figuring out how to use spent fuel
gets baked into your preferences, even if it does not flow
through into the narrow cost benefit analysis of the actual
operator?
Again, time will run out, I am happy to have the chair lead
off and if anybody does not have a chance to answer, then it is
a question for the record, because you have 1 minute.
Mr. Hanson. From a regulatory perspective, I think the
opening stakes here are that we are actively engaged with folks
who are pursuing reprocessing technologies, so that we are not
an impediment, and that we make sure our regulations can ensure
safety, but that they are clear and transparent and efficient
in that regard.
So I think we can have some influence on the economics. We
talked about economic signals, you talked about economic
signals, that being kind of important there.
I will hand it off to Commissioner Caputo.
Senator Whitehouse. I think there is a real danger of
misaligned economic signals because the value of getting into
that nuclear waste stockpile and figuring out more productive
uses for it is not one that accrues to the operator. So we have
to make sure you are pushing in that direction firmly to
overcome that built-in economic disincentive.
Ms. Caputo. Senator, I would just like to say that my first
position out of school was in fact working in fuel procurement.
The difference between the market price for uranium and
reprocessed uranium was the difference between roughly $10 and
several hundred dollars a pound.
But there are advanced reactor technologies out there that
are looking at how to include some means of recycling in terms
of how they use fuel and how they use the reactor. So with
these other technologies in combination with advanced reactor
design, I think there are opportunities there that may propel a
different value chain to make that decision more economically
competitive.
And I do not think those technologies have come before us
yet in terms of requesting a review for a processing facility.
But I do think there is potential there for improved economics
and proliferation resistance with some of these recycling
technologies.
Senator Whitehouse. Good. Well, it is not exactly entirely
last call at the old ADVANCE Act saloon, because it has just
been filed. But we are going to try to move it. The sooner you
can get to us any advice on what we can do in addition to the
prize in that bill to encourage utilization of spent fuel, we
would love to hear from you to try to make our own judgment
about the wisdom of putting that into the bill.
Thank you, Chairman.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much for raising those points.
Very timely and on target.
Senator Whitehouse. Well, much appreciation to our Ranking
Member, who was so essential to it.
Senator Carper. Senator Markey, are you in need of
permission from Senator Padilla to go ahead of him in line? Are
you in a rush?
Senator Markey. If you do not mind.
Senator Carper. All right, thanks. Senator Padilla, thanks
for that. Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you.
In December 2021, Holtec, the company in charge of
decommissioning the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, announced
that it planned to discharge approximately 1 million gallons of
radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay. This news was met
with concerns and questions from nearby families, fishermen,
business leaders, and State and local elected officials who
were worried about how such a large discharge of radioactive
wastewater could affect public health, marine species, and the
region's economic engines, including tourism and fishing.
Given these understandable concerns, local residents and
businesses called for an independent expert analysis of the
proposed discharge.
Chairman Hanson, is it true that effluent testing and
analysis are generally considered legitimate decommissioning
activities that can be paid for by a nuclear decommissioning
trust fund as long as expenditures would not reduce the value
of the trust below an amount necessary to maintain the reactor
in safe storage condition, and ultimately release the site and
terminate the license?
Mr. Hanson. As long as there are sufficient funds to
conduct the decommissioning safely, then yes, those activities
could be withdrawn from the decommissioning trust fund.
Senator Markey. Thank you. For decades, ratepayers paid
into Pilgrim's decommissioning trust fund to support the
decommissioning process. Now they are demanding independent
answers about the risks of Holtec's proposed discharge.
Holtec's refusal to fund this robust independent study has
violated its commitment to our communities to ensure an open
and transparent decommissioning process.
While we are on the topic of eligible expenses for
decommissioning trust funds, I would also like to express my
concern over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's
reconsideration of an industry request to use decommissioning
trust funds to pay for the maintenance of nuclear power plants
that are still operating. Allowing licensees to use
decommissioning trust funds to pay for major radioactive
components disposal during plant operations is completely out
of line with NRC regulations. Decommissioning trust funds are
only authorized to be used for radiological decommissioning,
not ongoing plant operations and maintenance.
Chairman Hanson, is it true that in 2021, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission denied a petition to change the
decommissioning funding assurance regulation for that purpose?
Mr. Hanson. We did decline to pursue a rulemaking in that
area, yes, Senator.
Senator Markey. Well, I would strongly discourage the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission from reopening that decision. It
was the correct decision. I will encourage the commission not
to bend the rules on decommissioning trust funds and funding
assurance. I think that we should keep a very bright line;
nuclear plant operators should not be pilfering funds reserved
for decommissioning of the plant to protect their profits
during operation. That is just two separate categories
altogether. It is just wrong.
In the latest version of the proposed decommissioning rule,
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have no ability to
approve, change, or deny plants decommissioning proposals,
assuming post-shutdown decommissioning activity reports based
on their content and feasibility. The NRC would simply
acknowledge receipt and look at whether these critical reports
checked the boxes for complete.
Chairman Hanson, is it true that under this rulemaking, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission just checks to make sure all the
necessary parts of the shutdown and decommissioning plan are in
the report, without having to formally approve the plan?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, that is the approach in the proposed
rule. We have gotten a lot of comments in this area. I
appreciated the opportunity to speak with you about this issue
in your office. I think we had a very substantive conversation
about this.
What I took away from our conversation was the importance
of providing the public with an opportunity to weigh in at the
beginning of the decommissioning process, whether that is
through the PSDAR (Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities
Report) something else. I understand the staff is taking into
account those comments along the lines of those that you
submitted and others at this area about the best way or a
number of options for doing that.
Senator Markey. My feeling is that it is like having a
mechanic who checks to make sure you have all four tires on
your car and tells you that you are good to go, without having
checked to make sure those tires do not have a hole in them. It
is a policy designed ultimately for a crash.
Chairman Hanson, if the NRC had to formally approve the
Decommissioning Activities Report, would it be considered a
major Federal action that would require a new national
Environmental Policy Act review?
Mr. Hanson. I am sorry, Senator, I will have to get back to
you on the specifics of that for the record.
Senator Markey. I hope the answer is yes. Although
companies have to certify their belief that the decommissioning
activities are bounded by previous NEPA reviews. I would
conclude that that was the correct position.
Mr. Hanson. Yes.
Senator Markey. Chairman Hanson, if the NRC had to formally
approve the Decommissioning Activities Report, would that
provide an opportunity for stakeholders to challenge the
activities outlined in the report through an adjudicatory
hearing?
Mr. Hanson. Yes, if we had to approve that, that would be
an action in which the public could challenge that or intervene
in that process.
Senator Markey. So it makes a lot more sense to me to
conduct an environmental review and give the public an
opportunity to weigh in before the decommissioning process
begins. Otherwise, you get situations like we have in
Massachusetts of potential boondoggle when nearby communities
are feeling unheard and under threat by nuclear power plant
operators. As I have expressed to you on multiple occasions, I
sincerely hope the commission requires the NRC to approve post
shutdown decommissioning activity reports in the
decommissioning rulemaking.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Carper. You are welcome.
Senator Padilla, thank you for yielding so that Senator
Markey could ask those questions. You are recognized.
Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have heard about Massachusetts, let's talk about
California. California is very proud of the recent scientific
breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence
Livermore National Lab. I particularly want to recognize
Livermore's director, Kim Budil, and her team, who made history
for achieving fusion ignition and unlocking, Mr. Chairman, this
new milestone for the future of clean energy.
Last week, the NRC voted unanimously to create a new
regulatory pathway for fusion energy, separate and apart from
the existing framework around fission energy. Mr. Chair, we
will go straight to the top, can you describe how the separate
regulatory pathway will provide the certainty needed to ensure
that fusion energy can continue to advance in the years ahead?
Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Senator. I am really looking
forward, I have a planned trip to Livermore, and I know Dr.
Budil fairly well. I look forward to catching up and seeing
that facility again in June.
By establishing this in what we call a byproduct material
framework, it really recognizes the fact that there is not the
risk associated with an ongoing fusion reaction. Oftentimes
with these facilities, if you have a loss of power that the
plasma just dissipates and that there is actually a relatively
low inventory of nuclear material, oftentimes deuterium or
tritium, something that poses much less risk to workers and the
public than say, a typical fission reactor, although those
operate safely, of course, as well.
By doing that, and by saying that we can regulate the
materials involved, or like a particle accelerated, say used in
a research facility or hospital, then that provides a certainty
in the knowledge of technology developers that they will be
then kind of outside of a lot of the big power reactor type
requirements, that the focus really will be on the materials
used in those things as well. Hopefully, then that allows that
technology to develop and reach commercial scale and we can
satisfy our safety requirements.
Senator Padilla. All in the next 3 weeks.
Mr. Hanson. All in the next 3 weeks. You got it.
Senator Padilla. That was a joke, for people watching at
home.
[Laughter.]
Senator Padilla. On a serious note, can you describe the
resources you will need to be able to fully support this new
pathway? Obviously, if additional support from Congress is
necessary, please articulate that as well.
Mr. Hanson. Thank you. No, we have the resources we need.
That was incorporated into our Fiscal Year 2024 budget request.
We have some resources from 2023 to get started on this. But of
course, as you just noted, the commission just gave the staff
direction, so they are going to get rolling here in pretty
short order.
Senator Padilla. Wonderful. Another topic, also California-
specific, not sorry. As you all know, there have been several
recent developments surrounding Diablo Canyon, the nuclear
plant in California. This includes dual tracking the process of
relicensing and decommissioning, and the NRC's recent
determination to allow Diablo Canyon to keep operating under
its current license as PG&E seeks full approval to extend its
lifespan.
Mr. Chair, given your previous work on this side of the
dais, you are well aware of the strong feelings that many
people in California have about Diablo Canyon. Can you discuss
your view of the recent events surrounding Diablo Canyon, and
more specifically how the NRC will continue to maintain safety
standards at the facility?
Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Senator. We are going to continue to
conduct our normal inspection activities. In fact, we have
series, I believe, of special inspections going into the fall
that may normally happen after someone had submitted a license
renewal application, but because of the timing of that we are
going to move, those are going to get moved up a little bit. Of
course, we will do that in full and open view of the public, as
we always do.
We are also going to be participating in the public meeting
out at Diablo Canyon on May 3d. Our staff will be there to talk
to the public about that license renewal process and what that
means and how we are going to continue our oversight activities
during that process.
Senator Padilla. And in the same spirit but more
specifically, not just maintaining safety standards more
broadly, but continuing to be operationally safe with specific
concern about seismic risk, which we have talked about for
years here, and maintaining of that. Any comments here would be
helpful. Also a friendly reminder to anticipate that when you
do have these public hearings.
Mr. Hanson. Of course. We are going to be looking at
updated safety information as part of that license renewal
process. We did require all plants to take a look at the
enhanced, re-look at their risks after Fukushima. Diablo, of
course, did look at their seismic risk and we will take another
look at that as part of the license renewal process.
We also have a process, it is the process on natural
hazards information, basically, it is kind of an ongoing
information gathering on external hazards to plants, where we
look at that in conjunction with the licensee about maybe any
changing conditions at the plant with regard to external
hazards to make sure we are incorporating that into our safety
bases.
Senator Padilla. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Carper. Thanks very much for joining us today, and
for your comments.
Senator Capito?
Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Commissioner Wright, I remember when you came before the
committee, you said your mother was watching remotely. So in
case she is watching, I wanted to make sure you got a good
question.
[Laughter.]
Senator Capito. The bill that we have been talking about,
the ADVANCE bill that Senator Whitehouse, Senator Carper, and I
are on, among others, directs the NRC to consider options to
enable the timely licenses of new nuclear facilities at
brownfields sites. This is where our State of West Virginia
could really have some interesting prospects for retired
conventional energy facilities.
First of all, are you aware of that in the ADVANCE Act? And
can you give some examples of what States would be looking at
if they were looking at retired power plants that might be
perfect sites for these kinds of developments?
Mr. Wright. Senator, thank you for the question, and thank
you for saying hello to Mom. I hope she is watching.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Wright. This is a really interesting time, and West
Virginia is trying to be a leader here in looking at
brownfields sites to put these plants at. There are some
concerns that the NRC needs to really take a hard look at and
be sure. Because if you are putting multiple units at one site,
I would like to be sure and would be encouraging staff to look
at whether or not an EIS is required for each one of these
things. I do not think that would be necessary, that might be a
little bit of overkill.
But from a prudency standpoint, from a State regulator kind
of perspective, they are going to be looking at things that are
of benefit to the ratepayer in the end. You have access to
transmission; you have a site. It has already been used before.
So those are benefits to the ratepayers and the State.
Whatever these uses are going to be for these different
reactors could have additional benefits, depending on whether
you are in a vertically integrated State or a market State.
Senator Capito. Thank you.
Commissioner Crowell, do you have a comment on that?
Mr. Crowell. Thank you, Senator Capito.
I think the other thing that the NRC could do well to
prepare for the eventually of using brownfields sites is to
start working now with the EPA to sort out where the
jurisdiction lines are and the liabilities, so that we can move
quickly for approving re-use of such a site if we receive an
application to do so.
I do not think we want it to get stuck in an endless
process of whose jurisdiction is whose, because the idea of re-
using these sites is for expediency.
Senator Capito. I think that is an excellent point. I think
we run into this in other kinds of permitting when there is
overlapping jurisdiction or not even overlapping, but maybe new
jurisdictions that we are unsure where one ends and where the
other begins.
So I would encourage the commission and the staff to begin
those conversations. Because that is the vision that I think we
and other States probably have in terms of being able to be a
player here, to be able to use this development. Thank you.
Chairman Hanson, just one last question, a slight beef
here. We had written a letter to you on the draft rule, or the
final rule establishing the emergency preparedness
requirements, encouraging you all to make a decision. We got
five sentences back. It didn't really exude enthusiasm for what
we were trying to say, or much information.
So in the spirit of independence, openness, effectiveness,
and clarity, which are your principles of good regulation and
reliability, we have also received some questions from others
in the stakeholder community, where some of the responses have
been lacking. So I would just ask you to review that rule of
openness to make sure that we are getting as good communication
as we possibly can.
Mr. Hanson. Yes, Senator, I apologize for the paucity of
that response. It is certainly not our intention to provide
those kinds of meager answers. Certainly, it is my intention in
my interactions with the staff, and I know my commissioners
share this, to share all the available information with the
committee and with you.
Senator Capito. Thank you. Thank you all.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Senator Capito. And thank you again
for your leadership on our new legislation, the ADVANCE Act. I
think it is well-titled, and I am excited about working with
you and Senator Whitehouse and others on its passage.
We have been joined by Senator Sullivan, and I am going to
yield to him for his questions. Welcome.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
commissioners all being here.
My State, the great State of Alaska, has a very diverse
energy portfolio. All of the above energy, oil, natural gas,
coal, renewables, hydro, wind, solar. But one thing is missing
from the mix in Alaska, and that is nuclear energy.
Despite our very incredible natural resources for Alaska,
America, the world, we have the second highest electricity
costs in the Country, 20 cents per kilowatt hour. The average
in the U.S. is 11. And we have 190 rural communities in my
State that do not have access to the power grid, 250
communities that are not connected by a road. We are very
unique. My colleagues here hear this from me about every damned
day. So almost all those communities use power generation
through diesel generators.
So we are very interested in the process for microreactors,
which we think has a lot of potential. Our Governor recently
signed into legislation a law that would help streamline the
approval process for microreactors in Alaska rural communities.
But the big dog in terms of approval for any kind of
nuclear reaction is all of you. So I am just really going to
ask an open question that relates to the promise of
microreactors for rural communities, but more prominently, and
I know Senator Capito is really working hard on this, which is
great, we have this amazing potential resource, it is a great
resource we use, but as you all know, because you are right in
the middle of it, the permitting process by which to bring more
nuclear power online, whether large scale or micro, is very,
very time-consuming, cumbersome. I think it is discouraging in
order to enable capital investments and capital formation that
is needed to back these kinds of projects or innovations.
So my question to all the commissioners is, what should we
do about it? How can we address it? Micro, broader, just a very
open-ended question. I am always about trying to get more
efficient, timely permitting for anything in America. That is
really an Achilles heel for our Country. We need to do more,
especially in your area.
So I will start with you, Commissioner.
Ms. Caputo. Senator, I would just like to make the
observation, this is not the first time that Alaska has looked
at microreactors. Certainly, when I first started working in
the House for the Energy and Commerce Committee on Energy
Policy Act 2005, there was a lot of interest in Galena, Alaska
and microreactor design.
Senator Sullivan. Yes. Correct.
Ms. Caputo. I think it was basically just ahead of its
time. A lot more designs are out there now.
Senator Sullivan. And by the way, Iverson Air Force Base
has requested a proposal to conduct a 2.5-megawatt
microreactor. So we are kind of back to the future right now.
Ms. Caputo. Indeed. Yes, I think there is a fair amount of
competition in this area and a range of designs.
I do think it is really incumbent upon us as a regulator to
look at ways to create more regulatory predictability. There
are a lot of issues and requirements in our regulations that
really should not apply when you get down to that scale.
Senator Sullivan. Should not?
Ms. Caputo. Right.
Senator Sullivan. Right. So that is the big question. It is
not one size fits all.
Ms. Caputo. Exactly. So the challenge, I think, comes from
the fact that some of these technologies are different, and
they will need different sets of exemptions, which means it
becomes an open question which of our requirements will apply
and which will not. So I think we need to do a lot more to
create clarity in the applicability of our regulations, so that
applicants know exactly what they need to include in their
applications, so that they can have more predictable and timely
decisions.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Anyone else? Yes, sir.
Mr. Hanson. Senator, I think the key piece of this as well,
in addition to some of the clarity and predictability around
this, which I completely agree about, is the standardization.
So maybe we do a detailed look on the safety of the first
one of these, but the next of those, if they are the same and
the deployment is the same, then that becomes a pretty routine
and very, very quick and efficient exercise. So the
standardization on the part of vendors and designers I think
will be critical.
Senator Sullivan. Is that happening?
Mr. Hanson. We are starting to see that. We are making
progress I think on both fronts. There are some bright spots
there.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Anyone else who has a thought? Mr.
Wright?
Mr. Wright. Thank you so much, Senator. In my opinion, we
are supposed to enable the safe use of nuclear technologies,
not inhibit it or discourage it.
Senator Sullivan. Right.
Mr. Wright. So I agree with Commissioner Caputo and my
colleague, Chair Hanson, that we have to take a really hard
look at the efficiency of what we are trying to do and make it
a more efficient process. There are things that staff is
looking at to do that. I know that the vendors and people who
are looking at these technologies are certainly encouraging us
to meet that moment.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Anyone else?
Mr. Baran. I agree with all that my colleagues said. We are
getting this framework in place. We need to have a framework
that is going to be effective and efficient, not just for 1,000
megawatt reactors, but for 1 or 2 or 10 megawatt reactors.
Senator Sullivan. Yes.
Mr. Baran. It is tricky and a lot of work has gone into
that, and we have a lot more work to do on that big kind of
rulemaking, the Part 53 rulemaking. But a lot of our first
movers that are likely to move on advanced reactors and small
modular reactors, they are going to be using the existing
regulations. We call that Part 50 and Part 52.
We have other efforts underway to optimize those, because
we know those are going to be the regulations people use first.
Part 53, we need to get right. It is critical. Part 50 and 52
have to work, too, for the new designs, and we are on that as
well.
Senator Sullivan. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, thank you, commissioners.
Senator Carper. You bet. As an aside, a number of years ago
I was visiting my old Naval air station, Moffett Field out in
California, and stumbled on a re-used building there, it used
to be the hobby shop on the base. It was being used for
research on energy projects for creating energy on Mars.
Out of that came technology which involves something called
Bloom Boxes that use fuel cells and enable it to operate at
widely divergent temperatures. I am going to make sure somebody
from Bloom Energy reaches out to your office to explore and see
if there is something there.
Senator Sullivan. I am a huge fan of Bloom Energy and the
CEO there. They did their first experimentation on their big
technology actually in Alaska. They have an Alaska connection.
Senator Stevens was very helpful with those guys.
So I think their combination of technology, natural gas,
coming together to produce electricity is very low-emissions,
is very--it is outstanding.
Senator Carper. All right, thanks.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Senator Carper. I was asking a question earlier in the
hearing, and I think I called on Commissioner Baran to respond
to the question. I said we would come back and pose the same
question for other members.
I am going to mention again that question. I am going to
ask the other members to respond for the record. Then I have
some other questions I will ask you to respond to right here.
The question I asked Commissioner Baran to respond to was
would you please take a moment to describe how easing these
corporate support restraints will support the NRC's efforts to
modernize and hire the highly skilled workers needed to carry
out the NRC's important work now and into the future.
Again for the other members of the commission, I will ask
you to respond to that, as Mr. Baran has already responded to
it verbally.
I am going to come back to Chairman Hanson. We have had
some discussion already on fusion, we might want to come back
and revisit a little bit. I will ask you to respond to this. I
think I speak for a lot of my colleagues, I am excited, and God
knows, the Senator from California who was here with us earlier
is excited about the potential for nuclear fusion to provide
safe, clean, reliable energy to power our cities and our
industries. That is one of the reasons why I am encouraged to
see the commission's unanimous decision on the fusion
regulation, which appears to balance safety on the one hand
while providing a path for the deployment of fusion in the
energy systems.
My question, Mr. Chairman, would be, what resources does
the NRC need to both establish the basic rules of the road for
commercial fusion applications that are anticipated within the
coming years, while also laying the foundation for long-term
regulation of fusion energy systems?
Mr. Hanson. Senator, thank you. We have the resources we
need in the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, or we are requesting the
resources we need. I can get you the specific number for the
record on what those resources are. And we are able to leverage
some resources here in Fiscal Year 2023 as well to get rolling
on that regulatory framework.
I would expect there will be a lot of public interaction as
well. Both the commission and the staff will be working and
communicating with both industry and the Department of Energy
on technological developments to kind of understand and make
sure that we have that framework in place in a time that is
conducive for technology deployment.
Senator Carper. OK. Thank you, sir. I think I misspoke when
I said I was going to ask some of you to respond for the
record. The question that I would ask Commissioner Baran to
respond to would be to ask you all to take a moment to tell us
how the new regulatory framework development process is going,
and what is going well, what is an issue of concern. He
responded in person. I am going to ask the rest of you to
respond for the record.
I have two more questions, then we are going to wrap it up,
so I can go to the Finance Committee and ask questions there,
and we have a vote underway. So there is quite a bit going on.
Again, I am excited that you are here. It is great to see
you here. I think it is an exciting time for the folks who work
at the NRC, and I think it is definitely a glass half full,
maybe more than half full.
This question is for Commissioner Baran and Commissioner
Crowell. Looking at the budget for Fiscal Year 2024, would you
like to highlight for us any investments that you see as
particularly important or noteworthy?
Mr. Baran. I would point to a couple, and Brad may have
others. I would point to the investments throughout the budget
request on recruitment, retention, and hiring. We talked a lot
about that today. It is really critical for the work we need to
do now and in the coming years. We are doing a lot more hiring
than we used to just to kind of break even with staffing. Those
investments I think are really important.
The other thing I would note is we talked a lot today about
new reactor designs, new reactor applications. This is a budget
request where you start to see those showing up. It is a
request to perform technical reviews on a number of designs,
construction permits, combined license applications that are
expected.
So it starts to get real, I think, in this budget, that
kind of anticipation that we have been talking about.
Senator Carper. All right, thank you. Commissioner Crowell,
same question.
Mr. Crowell. Thank you, Mr. Chair. While agreeing with
Commissioner Baran's response, I would also highlight something
in the budget which is specific to the Minority Serving
Institutions Grant Program, which is part and parcel to the
future of the work force at the NRC. I think the more we can do
in the space of promoting the upcoming generation to be in the
fields that are important to the NRC, it is going to serve our
purposes well. So that budget item is an important one for the
NRC.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Let me ask in closing, starting
with the chairman and going right down the line, any final
thoughts, anything else you want to share with us on the
committee? Just briefly, any final thoughts, please, before we
close.
Mr. Hanson. Thank you, Chairman Carper, for the opportunity
to be here.
I would just like to highlight the NRC's international
activities briefly, and how important they are both for the
agency in terms of the things that we receive with our
counterparts around the world, but also the kinds of expertise
that we are able to provide.
I would highlight three main countries very briefly. The
first is Poland, obviously. They signed an agreement to buy a
Westinghouse AP1000. There were a lot of things that went into
that deal.
But I would note the decade-long relationship that the NRC
has had with the Polish regulator, and how we have ramped up
the intensity of that relationship to prepare them to safely
license and oversee U.S. technology. We value that relationship
a lot.
The second one I would highlight is Ukraine. I appreciate
the support the Senate has given both for Ukraine generally but
also for the NRC's activities to support our Ukrainian
regulatory counterparts, from an active communication with them
about the status and the safety status of those plants in
Ukraine. We are providing things, both technical expertise but
also just some basic things like equipment and helping them
keep their offices staffed and the lights on and so forth. That
is a great privilege for us to be able to support our Ukrainian
counterparts. Thank you very much.
Senator Carper. Thank you. Every day I get up and get
dressed and I put a lapel pin here, some of you can probably
see it, it is our flag, it is the Ukrainian flag. My wife and
I, along with a lot of other Americans, are supporting with
their own modest means the folks in Ukraine. I applaud the
efforts that you are doing there to be of support and
encouragement to them.
Mr. Baran?
Mr. Baran. Just very briefly, I know it is not a
legislative hearing, but we talked a lot about the bipartisan
ADVANCE today. I would close by saying I think there are some
terrific provisions in that bill. We talked about several of
them, but easing corporate support restrictions, additional
hiring flexibilities, the brownfields program, I think those
are all really beneficial.
Another one that we didn't talk about at all today that I
think is a really good provision is modernizing the foreign
ownership control and domination restrictions that have been on
the books since the 1950's. That is a provision there that
really recognizes there is a global nuclear market today that
wasn't there back when the Atomic Energy Act first was enacted.
So I think that is another really thoughtful and well-designed
provision.
I would just say, I think there is a lot of good work that
went into that bill and a lot of provisions that will be very
beneficial.
Senator Carper. Good, thanks.
Commissioner Wright, any closing thoughts you have?
Mr. Wright. Thank you so much. One of the things I love
about hearings with you is that you ask this question. Thank
you for this.
Really to steal your line a second ago, it is an exciting
time to be a safety regulator. There is no place that I would
rather be than right here, right now. We have an opportunity,
the five of us, to meet a very special moment in time, not just
here in the U.S., but to our allies around the world.
Doing things a certain way because that is the way we have
always done them is not a recipe for success. Myself, any
person, much less an agency, we are not going to be able to
grow if we continue to do things the way we have always done
them.
Now, having said that, safety is our mission. That is our
focus. Reasonable assurance of adequate protection is the
standard, that is the floor and the ceiling, and our strike
zone over home plate. So it is non-negotiable.
How we do things, though, how we do things at every level
should always be up for discussion and debate and ways to be
innovative, novel, transformative, and to just be better and
improving effectiveness and efficiency, and using our resources
that we have been entrusted with.
Thank you for your interest and your support and your help.
Senator Carper. Our pleasure. Thanks.
Ms. Caputo?
Ms. Caputo. I would like to add my thanks to Commissioner
Wright's, that it is wonderful how you ask this question at the
end. I would respond with two quotes: you can not manage what
you do not measure, and people will meet expectations. We have
a brilliant and dedicated staff at the NRC, and they will
strive to meet the goals set for them. I think we need to do a
much better job of setting ambitious goals and using meaningful
metrics to spur performance improvement.
In 2008 and 2009, when the NRC was the best place to work,
it was the start of the renaissance and the agency was
executing a heavy workload with challenging schedules and a
sense of urgency. I believe recognition of success is a strong
contributor to job satisfaction, and I think demonstrating that
we can achieve recognized success is the fastest path for us to
improve our morale.
So I would leave you with that thought.
Senator Carper. That is good. You were prepared for that
question.
Ms. Caputo. Yes, I was.
Senator Carper. Commissioner Crowell?
Mr. Crowell. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for giving
the most junior member of the commission the last word.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Crowell. I think what I said in my opening statement,
which is as we sit here, in what we all hope is a meaningful
and lasting, the precipice of a meaningful and lasting nuclear
renaissance, the NRC really needs to double down on its efforts
in public engagement and building public trust. That needs to
apply not just to the existing reactor fleet and advanced
reactors, it needs to apply to all of the things that the NRC
oversees. Because if we are not doing things well in the waste
management and decommissioning and materials space, we are not
going to have the trust of the public to do all the other, more
high-profile things that we talk about in these hearings.
So I think the NRC needs to look at how they can do
engagement with the public and build that trust in a new way.
Senator Carper. Good. Thank you for that.
I would just conclude by thanking each of you. Mr.
Chairman, thank you and each of the commissioners, Commissioner
Baran, Commissioner Wright, Commissioner Caputo and
Commissioner Crowell, we are grateful to you for your
appearance today, for your preparation and your responses to
our questions and willingness to work forward on this as we go
forward.
We especially appreciate your insight regarding the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal
year. A well-functioning nuclear industry is critical for the
future of our economy, and I think for the future of our
planet. We look forward to continuing to work with you and your
team to ensure that this future is realized and to ensure that
the NRC has the assets and resources that you need to carry out
your critical responsibilities.
Before we adjourn, some housekeeping. Senators will be
allowed to submit questions for the record through the close of
business on Wednesday, May 3d. We will compile those questions,
we will send them to each of you, and ask that you reply to
those questions by Wednesday, May 17th.
As my colleagues know and our staffs know, I like music a
lot. I used to promote concerts, the first one at Ohio State
when I was 21 years old, and my last one when I turned 64. We
had a great concert with the three best rock and roll bands in
Delaware at the Queen Theater. At the end of the evening, 1,000
people sang ``When I'm 64,'' which was huge fun.
I go back and forth on the train just about every day, and
I drive to the train usually pretty early in the morning in
Wilmington. I am always listening to music, it is about a 10,
12-minute drive. Interestingly, I heard a great song by Carly
Simon, some of you remember Carly Simon, whose husband was
James Taylor. What a combination they made.
But there is a Carly Simon song called ``Coming Around
Again'' that some of you have heard. I see people nodding in
the audience. I was thinking that might be an appropriate theme
song here for this industry that is coming around again. At a
time when we see great threats to our climate from the threat
of climate crisis, we need every arrow in our quiver to be
there, to be available. I think nuclear maybe this time may be
coming around again at a time when we really need that.
So we want to make sure that we make the most of that, and
we work actively and use other ways as well as we address
climate change.
The last thing, whenever we talk about climate change, I
mention jobs, economic opportunity. I do not care whether you
are creating electric vehicles or you are deploying charging
stations or whatever, there is a lot of economic opportunities
and job creation coming out of our climate change work.
There is economic activity and job creation potential
coming out of what we are talking about here today. If we are
smart, we will not only do the right thing for our planet and
for the people who are here now and will live here in the
future, but we will make sure that future generations have some
great jobs that will flow from this activity.
With that, I want to thank our staffs for the work you have
done in preparing us for this. We look forward to driving off
into a brighter future with all of you.
With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thanks so much.
[Whereupon, at 11:59 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[all]