SEN. BOXER CALLS FOR AN END TO NRC SENSITIVE DOCUMENT POLICY

Sen. Barbra Boxer (D-Calif.) sent a letter to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane criticizing the Commission’s new policy limiting the release of sensitive documents to members of Congress. Boxer, who chairs the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, called for an end to this new policy to ensure that Congressional oversight could continue to monitor the NRC. “This policy is a radical departure from previous NRC document policies and creates significant hurdles and delays that can be used to withhold information entirely from the Chairs and Ranking Members of oversight committees,” the letter said. “It also allows the NRC to broadly deny information to individual Members of Congress, even when the information is related to matters affecting their home states.” 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. “I call on the NRC to cease it efforts to circumvent Congress’ oversight authority and create a policy that is a model of transparency and respects Congress’ responsibility to oversee the NRC,” Boxer wrote.