The Senate Energy and Public Works committee yesterday released Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Allison Macfarlane’s answers to the more than 125 questions that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) posed as part of her renomination process. Many of the questions concerned safety requirements put in place post-Fukushima, the commission’s recent decision regarding filtered vents, and the status of commissioner interactions in the wake of former chairman Gregory Jaczko’s departure. Vitter also asked a few unusual questions, including whether Jaczko’s former chief of staff Angela Coggins continues to work at the agency—which she does, in the office of the General Counsel. Vitter also asked whether Macfarlane felt that proliferation concerns were an argument for completing the Yucca Mountain geologic repository project. “NRC policy is that spent nuclear fuel can be stored safely until a permanent solution for disposal is developed,” Macfarlane wrote. “I do not have any particular view about what the ‘best’ approach is, or whether the NRC should serve as an example for the rest of the world, and leave those judgments to Congress.” The questions can be read
here.
Macfarlane’s renomination continues to be on hold, though the primary reason Chairman of the Senate committee Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) placed the hold—asking for release of thousands of NRC documents regarding the San Onofre nuclear generating station—was largely nullified last week when Southern California Edison decided it would shut the station down. Boxer told Politico earlier this week, “We’re waiting for the documents. We’re very hopeful we’ll get them soon. As soon as we get them, she’ll be up. … We’re not stopping our work because there were major problems there in terms of the implications of the way SoCal Edison handled this and also for other plants across the nation that are gonna be modified.”
