Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Stephen Burns said Tuesday that from a legal standpoint, his short-handed commission is adequate, but he hopes for a fuller board soon.
The commission is now down to three members, with Commissioner William Ostendorff leaving his post in June, after six years with the agency, for a teaching position at his alma mater, the United States Naval Academy. The fifth seat, vacated with Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane’s resignation in December 2014, is set to be filled by Democrat Jessie Hill Roberson, vice chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, who the Obama administration nominated in July 2015. The Senate has given no indication on when it plans to move forward with the nomination.
“It depends on the president and the Senate,” Burns, during a meeting with NRC public stakeholders at agency headquarters, said of filling Ostendorff’s seat. “I don’t think the absence of two … I think it’s good to have four or five. It’s good to have that. From a legal perspective, we have a quorum, so (three commissioners) is adequate from that standpoint. I think we have good communication with each other. I think that we do hope that sometime in the near future we will have a fuller commission.”
Commissioner Jeff Baran agreed with Burns, ending the brief discussion on the topic.
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said in April that it’s important to understand the White House’s intentions regarding Ostendorff’s seat before moving forward with Roberson. The chairman said “a good Democrat” has been nominated, but a Republican counterpart is needed.
Macfarlane, in her testimony Tuesday to the commission, addressed how the relationship between local communities and operators plays a role in premature closures at nuclear power plants, citing the Entergy-owned Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant and the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station as examples. Entergy shut down Vermont Yankee in 2014 and has announced that Pilgrim will shut down by 2019, citing economic conditions.
“I think that the local communities there had a part in their demise,” Macfarlane said. “My observation, having visited a number of the plants around the country and talking to the different utility companies and also the local government, it’s an attitude of the owner-operator and whether they feel invested in the community, and feel that they are part of the community.”
Radiation dosage information, she said, is one example of data that could be useful to residents and improve the relationship between the operator and the community.
Beyond Nuclear Reactor Oversight Project Director Paul Gunter concurred, while also discussing public confidence and accountability for the industry. He cited NRC proceedings for tritium releases from nuclear reactors, which he said are “constantly trivialized” by the agency and the operators.
According to Gunter, when there are batch releases of tritium, either by air or water, the standard procedure is a phone call to the local municipality. Those communications, or at least a record that the cities have been notified of a release, he said, should be publicly noted, creating a “responsible” line of communication.
