[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 71 (Wednesday, May 1, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2564-S2565]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION BUDGET REQUEST
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of
my opening statement at the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on
Energy and Water Development be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Budget Request
Mr. ALEXANDER. We run a real risk of losing our best source
of carbon-free power just at a time when most Americans are
increasingly worried about climate change. Nuclear power must
be part of our energy future if we want clean, cheap, and
reliable energy that can create good jobs and keep America
competitive in a global economy.
Today 98 nuclear reactors provide about 20 percent of
electricity in the United States, and 60 percent of all
carbon-free electricity in the United States. But nuclear
plants are closing because they cost too much to build and
cannot compete with natural gas. Two reactors have announced
they will retire later this year, and ten more have announced
retirements by 2025.
Let's do a little math here. If we closed those 12
reactors, that would mean a 17 percent decline in carbon-free
nuclear power by 2025, which is 10 percent of carbon-free
electricity. Today, solar power--despite impressive
reductions in cost--provides 4 percent and wind provides 20
percent of carbon-free electricity despite billions of
dollars in subsidies. To replace those 12 reactors that have
announced they will close with other carbon-free electricity,
we would have to almost triple the entirety of U.S. solar
power or increase wind power by another 50 percent. If half
of our existing nuclear reactors were to close, we would have
to double the amount of wind energy produced and or increase
the amount of solar energy produced by as much as 10 times.
Nuclear power is much more reliable than solar or wind
power. It is available when the sun doesn't shine and the
wind doesn't blow. The bottom line is, we can't replace
nuclear power with just wind and solar. We would have to use
natural gas to replace nuclear power, which would increase
emissions in our country.
Unfortunately, we do not need to speculate about what
happens when a major industrialized country eliminates
nuclear power. We have seen what happened in Japan and
Germany for different reasons. Major industrialized economies
similar to ours lost their emission-free, low-cost, reliable
electricity. Prices went up, pollution went up, and
manufacturing became less competitive in the global
marketplace. And that is where we are headed in the next 10
years if we do not do something. Stakes are high.
In Japan, the cost of generating electricity increased 56
percent after the Fukushima accident in 2011 when Japan went
from obtaining 30 percent of its power from nuclear to less
than 2 percent.
Before 2011, Germany obtained one quarter of its
electricity from nuclear. Now that number is down to 12
percent. Now Germany has among the highest household
electricity rates in the European Union after replacing
nuclear power with wind and solar as part of an expensive
cap-and-trade policy. Germany also had to build new coal
plants to meet demand, which increased emissions.
In late March, I proposed that the United States should
launch a New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy, a five-year
project with Ten Grand Challenges that will use American
research and technology to put our country and the world
firmly on a path toward cleaner, cheaper energy.
These Grand Challenges call for breakthroughs in advanced
nuclear reactors, natural gas, carbon capture, better
batteries, greener buildings, electric vehicles, cheaper
solar, and fusion.
I put advanced reactors first on the list for a reason. To
make sure nuclear power has a future in this country, we need
to develop advanced reactors that have the potential to be
smaller, cost less, produce less waste, and be safer than
today's reactors.
We need to stop talking about advanced reactors and
actually build something. Within the next five years, we need
to build one or more advanced reactors to demonstrate the
capabilities they may bring.
As we review the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's fiscal
year 2020 budget request we need to make sure the Commission
has the staff and resources it needs to respond to the
changing industry.
First, I would like to thank our witnesses for being here
today, and also Senator Feinstein, with whom I have the
pleasure to work again this year to draft the Energy and
Water Appropriations bill. Our witnesses today include:
Kristine Svinicki, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission; Commissioner Jeff Baran; Commissioner Annie
Caputo; and Commissioner David Wright.
Commissioner Stephen Burns retired yesterday after forty
years of distinguished service at the NRC. He started as an
attorney in 1978, rose to General Counsel, and then retired
from the agency to head Legal Affairs at the Nuclear Energy
Agency in Paris. He returned to the NRC in 2014 as a
Commissioner and Chairman. He was well respected in every
position he held. I would like to thank him for his many
years of service.
We're here today to review the administration's fiscal year
2020 budget request for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, the independent federal agency responsible for
regulating the safety of our nation's 98 commercial nuclear
power plants and other civilian uses of nuclear material.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's budget request this
fiscal year is $921 million, which is about $10 million less
than Congress provided last year. The request includes $38.5
million for the Yucca Mountain licensing process.
It has become increasingly difficult for the nuclear
industry to compete with other sources of electricity,
especially natural gas. One of the concerns the industry had
was the amount of regulatory fees charged by the Commission--
currently, $760 million of the Commission's budget comes from
fees paid by utilities and other facilities that are
licensed to possess and use nuclear materials.
So over the last five fiscal years, we have worked with the
Commission to reduce its overall budget by about $100
million, which represents about a 10 percent reduction in
budget--which means a roughly 10 percent reduction in fees--
and more closely reflects its actual workload while
maintaining its gold standard of safety.
These savings are important because they lower the fees
utilities must pay the Commission, and these savings can be
passed on to utilities' customers. These reductions have not
been arbitrary and represent the type of oversight the Senate
is supposed to do. Our subcommittee has only reduced the
Commission's budget in areas that the Commission has
identified as unnecessary to its important safety mission.
To ensure nuclear power will continue to play a significant
role in our nation's electricity generation, I'd like to
focus my remarks on four main areas:
(1) Licensing small modular and advanced reactors;
(2) Solving the nuclear waste stalemate;
(3) Safely extending licenses for existing reactors; and
(4) Maintaining adequate staffing at the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Advanced reactors and small modular reactors represent the
future of nuclear power. The Commission needs to be ready to
review applications for new these new reactors. In fiscal
year 2017, we provided enough funding to complete the Small
Modular Reactor Licensing Technical Support program at the
Department of Energy. NuScale, which was one of the
technologies selected in that program, filed an application
for design certification of a small modular reactor with the
Commission in December of 2016. A utility group has been
working with NuScale and Idaho National Laboratory to build
and demonstrate a small modular reactor in Idaho. TVA also
has an application under review for a permit to build and
demonstrate a small modular reactor at the Clinch River site
in Tennessee.
Licenses to build and demonstrate small modular reactors is
an important step, and we need to make sure the Commission
has the resources it needs to review the applications. I also
understand that the Commission expects to receive an
application in fiscal year 2020 for a construction and
operating license for an advanced, non-light water reactor.
The fiscal year 2019 appropriations bill included $10
million for the Commission to prepare to review advanced
reactor designs, and the current budget request includes
$15.5 million for fiscal year 2020. I'd like to know what the
Commission plans to do with the funding Congress provided for
advanced reactors so that we can make sure the development of
advanced reactors stays on track.
To ensure that nuclear power has a strong future in this
country, we must solve the
[[Page S2565]]
decades' long stalemate over what to do with used fuel from
our nuclear reactors. Senator Feinstein and I have been
working on solving the nuclear waste stalemate for years, and
I'd like to take the opportunity to compliment Senator
Feinstein on her leadership and her insistence that we
find a solution to this problem. The only way to break the
stalemate is to get a final decision on whether Yucca
Mountain is safe or not.
And this year's budget request for the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission includes $38.5 million to begin to answer that
questions by restarting the licensing process for the Yucca
Mountain repository. This is the next step the Department of
Energy must follow to determine whether it can begin
construction of Yucca Mountain. After a public hearing where
all parties, including the State of Nevada, can provide
expert testimony and evidence, the Commission will make a
final determination whether it is safe to build Yucca
Mountain.
I strongly believe that Yucca Mountain can and should be
part of the solution to the nuclear waste stalemate. Federal
law designates Yucca Mountain as the nation's repository for
used nuclear fuel, and the Commission's own scientists have
told us that we can safely store nuclear waste there for up
to one million years.
But even if we had Yucca Mountain open today, we would
still need to look for another permanent repository. We
already have more than enough used fuel to fill Yucca
Mountain to its legal capacity.
The quickest, and probably the least expensive, way for the
federal government to start to meet its used nuclear fuel
obligations is for the Department of Energy to contract with
a private storage facility for used nuclear fuel.
I understand that two private companies have submitted
license applications to the NRC for private consolidated
storage facilities, one in Texas and one in New Mexico, and
that the NRC's review is well underway. I'll be asking some
questions about that today. I want to make sure that the
Commission has all the resources it needs in fiscal year 2020
to review the applications for consolidated storage
facilities because we have to start working together to solve
the nuclear waste stalemate if we want a strong nuclear
industry.
Senator Murkowski, along with Senator Feinstein and I,
introduced a bill this week to implement the recommendations
of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future,
which include using temporary private storage facilities. The
legislation complements Yucca Mountain, and would create a
new federal agency to find additional permanent repositories
and temporary facilities for used nuclear fuel.
Instead of building more windmills, which only produce 20
percent of our carbon-free electricity, or solar farms, which
only produce 4 percent of our carbon-free electricity, the
best way to make sure the United States has a reliable source
of inexpensive, efficient, carbon-free electricity is to
extend the licenses of our existing nuclear plants--which
produce 60 percent of our carbon-free electricity--if it is
safe to do so.
Most of our 98 reactors have already extended their
operating licenses from 40 to 60 years (although many have
decided to close prematurely for economic reasons), and some
utilities are beginning the process to extend their licenses
from 60 to 80 years.
The Commission has spent the past several years developing
the framework to review these types of license renewal
applications to make sure the reactors can continue to
operate safely from 60 to 80 years.
This year's budget request includes funding to review what
the Commission calls ``subsequent'' license renewal
applications for six reactors in Florida, Pennsylvania, and
Virginia. Just those 6 reactor extensions would equal about
what solar power currently produces and a fourth of what wind
power currently produces. That is just accounting for the 6
reactors that have applied to extend their licenses rather
than shut down. If even half of the remaining 92 reactors
decide to extend their licenses another 20 years, it would
produce almost double the amount of wind power that is
currently produced and as much as 10 times the amount of
solar power produced.
So if you care about carbon free emissions, the short term
solution for the next 20 years is, where safely, to extend
the licenses for these reactors. I want to make sure that the
Commission has the resources it needs to review those
applications in fiscal year 2020, because I think it is
important to maintain our existing nuclear power when it is
safe to do so.
The Commission's budget reduction has been steep over the
past five fiscal years. As part of its effort to reduce its
budget, the Commission has limited hiring, especially entry-
level hiring. We have heard from the Commission that of its
2,900 current employees, 24 percent are currently eligible
for retirement. Four years from now, 42 percent will be
eligible for retirement. Those numbers are not a concern as
long as the NRC has younger staff ready to take over the
important work of the agency. But I understand that only 2
percent of NRC employees are under 30 years old. To have
nuclear power in the future, we need to have a nuclear
regulator. I would like to understand how the Commission is
ensuring that the next generation is in place.
I look forward to working with the Commission as we begin
putting together our Energy and Water Appropriations bill for
fiscal year 2020, and also with Senator Feinstein, who I will
now recognize for her opening statement.
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