Republicans Press on Yucca Allocations; Saunders Wants More State Involvement in Decommissioning
Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/31/2014
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) chastised the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for failing to produce documents and for allegedly taking actions to circumvent Congressional oversight during a Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety hearing held this week. Boxer has been trying to obtain documents from the NRC concerning nuclear plant safety concerns within her state, but her requests were partially denied due to the NRC’s new sensitive document policy which limits what documents Congress can obtain from the NRC. “You have promised the ranking member and myself that whenever we ask for a document that you would get them to us; you also committed that to everyone else as well,” Boxer said. “So I’m just saying to you that if we do not have the documents that we request rightfully and legally, you better assert why you are withholding them.”
Previously, the NRC had cited non-specific Constitutional powers as basis for withholding documents. This reasoning did not convince Boxer, who said that “there is simply no Constitutional basis that is applicable to the documents in question.” She went so far as to threaten a lawsuit to obtain the documents if the NRC did not comply with her request.
NRC Chairman Allison Macfarlane responded to Boxer’s criticism, saying that the NRC would work with the Committee to try to appease its requests. “We have been working with your staff to provide documents,” Macfarlane said. “In fact, we just provided another tranche of documents yesterday and the day before to your staff that was responsive to your request. If we have not been responsive to your request with the documents we just provided, we, of course, will continue to work with the committee to answer your requests.”
The controversy concerning the release of sensitive documents stems from the updated Commission policy that limited the release of sensitive documents. The NRC’s new policy says that only Chairs and Ranking Members can receive sensitive documents, but even then, NRC staff has the ability to limit sending them the sensitive material. In an effort to remove this policy, the FY 2014 omnibus appropriations bill included language that would stipulate the NRC revert its sensitive document policy towards Congressional requests for information back to its 2011 version of the Commission policy, an effort Boxer praised during the hearing.
Yucca Mountain Funding Questions
Meanwhile, the Republican Senators on the Committee pushed the commissioners for answers concerning the resource allocation for the Yucca licensing review. Committee Ranking Member David Vitter(R-La.) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked questions concerning the re-allocation of staff and money to cover the licensing review. Macfarlane said that 80 percent of the staff needed for the review has been moved to the project while Commissioner Kristine Svinicki commented that only Congressional authority can grant more appropriations to the NRC for Yucca Mountain activities. Vitter pressed the commissioners to see if they would submit a request to Congress for more money to complete the review, but Macfarlane remained vague, saying it was a “Commission decision.”
Vitter expressed his frustration with the process. “I hope that you can understand my general concern, which is, it took a court order to have the NRC follow a clear legal mandate and even as that happens there all sort of statements like ‘well, we don’t have the provisions to follow through and get everything done down the line.’” Vitter said. “I realize we are not talking about immediate work at hand but the full review and decision. So why don’t we start thinking about how to solve that problem? I don’t hear any requests for re-programs, any significant movement of individuals, even though there has been a significant increase over a decade, or any proposal to OMB.”
Saunders Calls for More State Involvement in Decommissioning Decisions
While Yucca Mountain and sensitive documents dominated the early part of the conversation, Sen. Bernie Saunders (Ind.-Vt.) turned the focus onto states’ rights in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities. Vermont, which recently announced an agreement with Entergy concerning the as soon as possible decommissioning approach to Vermont Yankee, recently went through the potential of having to wait 60 years under SAFESTOR, a time frame that shocked Saunders. “The important issue here is the role of that state itself in terms of the decommissioning process,” Saunders said. “Right now, the rules, as I understand it, allow the NRC to sit down with the companies and negotiate a decommissioning process. Generally speaking, the states do not have any significant role in that process On the face of it, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The people of any given state continue to have a right to have a place at the table.”
Macfarlane responded to this by explaining the NRC’s role in decommissioning. “What we do is regulate the safety and security of these facilities as they decommission, and in that, our relationship is with the licensee,” Macfarlane said. “We are holding them accountable to make sure that they are providing safety and security. Now, the public should have some kind of role, and we encourage strongly that the licensee forms some kind of community advisory board.” Saunders scoffed at the idea of community advisory boards, saying “suggestions can be ignored.” He also suggested that he would bring forth legislation to include state’s in the decommissioning negotiations if the NRC did not change, a notion that gathered support from Boxer.
