Nuclear Senate Oversight Hearing: The Seeds Of Widespread Government Disruption

This government teabagger disruption strategy is coming to a neighborhood near you. They are going to cut the NRC's budget in half or defund it entirely before this is over. Can't you hear them: lets privatized the NRC.   

This is what the nation is going to look like if the anti- government teabagger factions take over both the House and Senate...anti-govermentalism disruption on a massive scale. At least we got a weak and do nothing democrat as president.  

I agree with my House and Senate extremist anti government libertarians brothers...at the plant oversight level the NRC is very dysfunctional. I seen this over and over again, the general cowardness of the general population. I know through personal contact, most of the NRC officials and NRC inspectors are good people with good hearts. But most of the good people confronted by seemly overpowering force just caves in to the corrupt forces. It just easier to comply, and less risky, to comply with massive corruption. I have always been so disappointed with the good people of the USA, actually all the good people all over the planet, the good people of the NRC is no better than the multitudes. The world doesn't get into the place we are today without the complacency and permission of the good people.

Don't you worry one bit you good NRC employees, you will never disappoint me. When you take that wrong "fork in the road"? You probably took it years ago and don't know it. I seen this so often, I just don't get disappointed anymore. I have adapted to my life's disappointments on massive scale. I wonder how god adapts to disappointments of the living world? Yea, I am just doing my pathetic mother's Irish guilt trip.

Republican legislation planned to revise US NRC's fee system

Washington (Platts)--8 Oct 2015 622 am EDT/1022 GMT

The Republican chairman of the Senate committee that oversees the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday he is developing legislation that would revise the way NRC collects fees from its licensees.

Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said in his opening statement at a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee that the agency's workload has been declining in recent years due in part to less applications for new reactor licenses than had been expected. Inhofe also said despite the fact the US nuclear power industry has spent more than $4 billion on actions taken in response to the Fukushima I accident in Japan, "NRC staff has repeatedly sent proposals to the Commission, which they admit are not safety-significant or cost-justified. I believe this shows the NRC's bureaucracy has grown beyond the size needed to accomplish its mission."

Inhofe also criticized "the NRC's extreme level of corporate overhead costs; reactor oversight spending increasing despite the decline in operating reactors; over-budgeting for new reactors work that no longer exists; and persistent carry-over funds."

Inhofe said he does not "have confidence that the agency will diligently address the need for reform on its own."

"I believe it's time for Congress to step in. I intend to draft legislation to reform the NRC's budget structure and fee collection in an effort to instill fiscal discipline in the agency and ensure that resources are properly focused on safety-significant matters and timely decision-making," he added.

Inhofe did not provide details about what might be included in the legislation, or when it might be introduced.

Asked whether Inhofe has definite plans to introduce such legislation during the current session of Congress, committee spokeswoman Kristina Baum said in an email, "the Chairman is developing legislation on the topic. However, we'll keep you posted in regards to timing."

NRC is required by law to recover 90% of its annual budget from licensee fees. The Nuclear Energy Institute has told the agency several times in recent years, in comments on the annual fee recovery rules, that the US nuclear power industry believes the agency's annual fees are increasing at an excessive rate.

NRC Chairman Stephen Burns and the other three commissioners said during the hearing Wednesday that the agency's ongoing Project Aim 2020 will increase NRC's efficiency and better tailor the size of its staff and budget to the type and amount of work expected in the next few years.

"A central element of the Project Aim effort is the rebaselining process," Burns said in written testimony. "In our direction to staff, my colleagues and I made clear that the focus should be on identifying what work is most important to the safety and security mission of the agency, and what activities can be shed, deprioritized, or performed with a less intense resource commitment."

--Steven Dolley, steven.dolley@platts.com

--Edited by Kevin Saville, kevin.saville@platts.com