Back to the Chairman Jackson years...House blackmailing the NRC into safety cuts.

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Utilities Professional

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About May 4 I wrote it down...the conversation occurred about three weeks ago.

"It is interesting, in my recent discussions with a NRC branch chief he began discussing the old history of the industry. He talked about Millstone, I reminded him I got fired from the industry for raising safety issued just before Millstone. Well, we came to a agreement and exchanged money. It was deregulation coming and the influence of the big power user that frightened everyone. This guy sums it up pretty good:http://steamshovel2002.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-we-got-here-with-our-electric-system.html

The Chief brought up the 31% budget cut threat to NRC during the Clinton years and Chairman Jackson. Those mad dog House republicans! I reminded him about Illinois ComEd and their debacle with prolonged fleet wide nuclear plants problems that ricocheted into issues with their transmission and distribution system. Right, we are talking about pressures on chairman Jackson- a weakening Clinton in the opening stages of the nuclear renaissance. This is how we drastically overhauled the ROP and jumped into the deep end of the pool with risk respective. This is why plants have big accidents and we discovered sitting hidden under the plant a mountain of non conformance with licensing and regulation going back for years and decades. I was shocked a branch chief would be talking these issues with me…after all, we were supposed to be focused on Palisades. Usually its me that draws outside the lines…he has to genteelly pull me back to my senses. He was pulling a mike mulligan thing with discussing decades of NRC history.

I am convinced he was warning me sections of the NRC thinks we are heading back to 30% or more budget cut blackmail and chasing off another women NRC chairman. In other words, the Industry would take revenge over any liberalization of safety like they did in the 1990s. Will Obama cave like Clinton?

If that isn’t an example of regulatory capture, I don’t know what else is…"   

Vedio of meeting: The NRC FY 2015 Budgetand Policy Issues

 US House subcommittee blasts NRC's proposed $1.06 billion budget

Washington (Platts)--7May2014/640 pm EDT/2240 GMT

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission's proposed $1.06 billion budget for fiscal 2015 was under attack at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday as lawmakers questioned how agency expenses could increase by $434 million in 10 years, while roughly 600 fewer licensing actions were slated for review.

"The NRC budget for fiscal year 2015 [which begins October 1] shows an increase in resources and staffing despite a shrinking fleet of reactors," Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican and Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, said at the panel's Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing.

Standing in for subcommittee chairman Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican who was not at the hearing, was Representative John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican, who repeatedly criticized the agency's proposed budget for next fiscal year.

Ten years ago the NRC's budget was $626 million, the agency had 3,040 staff and planned to review 1,500 licensing actions, Shimkus said in his opening statement. Shimkus, who chairs the committee's Environment and the Economy Subcommittee, noted that NRC's proposed $1.06 billion budget for fiscal 2015 would involve 3,881 staff members and the review of 900 licensing actions.

The agency's request is $3.6 million more than its enacted 2014 budget.

By law NRC must recover 90% of its costs from licensees. The US now has 100 licensed, operating power reactors, down from 104 in 2013. And Entergy announced last year that Vermont Yankee would shut at the end of this year because it was no longer economical due to competition from low-cost, natural gas-fired generating plants.

Meanwhile, five power reactors are under construction in the US, NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane noted.

"As the size of our nuclear industry shrinks, the NRC cannot pretend that it needs more regulators to oversee fewer plants," Shimkus said. "This is another pattern that is not sustainable."

Reactors have shut in the US but that does not mean there are fewer licensees, Macfarlane told the subcommittee. The agency also is busy with other activities, she said, noting that it is working with the nuclear industry and reactor vendors and manufacturers to ensure they will understand the guidance NRC is developing for small modular reactors. Also big on the agency's agenda, and which will continue to be, are post-Fukushima items, requiring licensees to take certain actions to ensure their reactor's safety.

Shimkus, who has been a vocal supporter of the US Department of Energy repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, also criticized NRC's response to a court mandate requiring the agency to restart its review of the Yucca Mountain repository license application.

NRC, under then-Chairman Gregory Jaczko, began an "orderly shutdown" of its Yucca Mountain licensing activities in 2010, the same year that DOE dismantled the Yucca Mountain project without having a replacement program in place. In 2011 NRC terminated all work associated with the congressionally mandated Yucca Mountain project.

Shimkus questioned whether NRC would seek funds to complete its review of the Yucca Mountain license application and how much completing that proceeding would cost. Macfarlane did not voice support for NRC filing a supplemental budget request to complete the licensing review and noted that agency staff is assessing how much the Yucca licensing proceeding would cost.

In response to questions from Shimkus, Commissioners Kristine Svinicki and William Ostendorff said they would support filing a supplemental budget request for the Yucca Mountain licensing review. Commissioner William Magwood noted that the commission has asked staff to perform an analysis to determine how much money would be needed.

Shimkus pressed Magwood again, asking the commissioner that if he knew how much money was needed, would he make a budget supplemental request.

"I would consider it," Magwood replied.

Shimkus did not ask Commissioner George Apostolakis that question. Apostolakis earlier recused himself from all Yucca Mountain decisions because of repository-related work he did before joining the commission in April 2010.

NRC is now using Nuclear Waste Fund carryover allocations from previous fiscal years to complete staff's multi-volume safety evaluation report, which assesses the ability of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository to meet regulatory requirements. In its March monthly status report to the committee, the agency said it had roughly $11.3 million for that work and that staff had estimated about $8.3 million would be needed to complete the SER.

Staff expects to complete and release the safety evaluation report in January, Macfarlane said.