committee. good morning. management and operation of the nuclear regulatory commission is an important subject. my perspective is grounded in my experience and observations as a member of the commission since being sworn in on april 23, 2010, and my former role as a 1450i6 ye 15-year chairman for four years at the nuclear reactor safeguards for experts. management and operation of the commission are carried out within an overall structure of law and policy. the commission's independent and multi-member character with staggered terms for its members is designed to insulate regulatory decisions from political consideration and to provide stability for regulatory policy. nuclear safety matters are technically complex. this commission structure allows for a diversity of insights to

be brought to bear in the commission's sdidecision-making. the commission as a whole formulates policy and regulations and conducts adjudication. policy formulation includes major administrative decisions with policy implications. the commission has the ultimate authority to determine by majority vote in an area of doubt whether any matter, action, question, or area of inquiry pertains to one of these functions. the senate committee on governmental affairs in reporting on the organization plan declared that, quote, the committee also intends the commission to exercise the authority to interpret the plan, end quote. the legislative history of the plan and the presidential messages to congress in submitting the plan emphasizes that the xharm is subject to the policies of the commission and the oversight authority of the commission.

as principal executive officer of the commission, the chairman has the ultimate responsibility to the commission and the public for the proper day-to-day management and administration of the agency. however, the chairman is statutorily responsible to the commission for ensuring that the executive director of operations and the staff are responsive to the requirements in the commission of the functions. the 1980 reorganization plan provides the heads of the offices the general counsel, the secretary of the commission and the safeguards shall continue to report directly to the commission. the chairman and the executive director through the chairman are responsible for ensuring that the commission is fully and currently informed about matters within the commission's functions. the reporting relationship of the executive director to the chairman is not intended to

interfere with the ability of the edo to make independent remss on mattrem recommendations on matter that the commission has delegated to him. while he has policy planning and development for the commission, the commission could not function in any satisfactory way if the executive director or other senior managers were required to present or suppress their views or analyses. the commission is well served by the dedicated staff with many senior managers who bring long experience and advanced technical expertise. the evaluations are essential to inform decision making. the transmission of adequate information and unbiased perspectives to the commission for decision making and oversight is special to the agency's mission of protecting public health and safl. i join my fellow commissioners to express our serious concerns

regarding the chairman's leadership. i regret that partisan on other ill motives have been ascribed to the action we have taken. this could not be further from the truth. thank you very much. >> thank you. i'd like to thank all of you for staying wp under the five minutes. all of your full written statements are by committee rule going to be in the record. i recognize myself for five minutes. chairman, who's your board of directors? for the people out there in sort of, you know, they don't know government necessarily, what's the equivalent of your board of directors? who do you report to? >> i would say i'm responsible as the chairman of the commission to carrying out the policy that the commission has a whole -- >> i appreciate that, but are you the ceo in your opinion? >> i believe the statute describes the chairman as the principal executive, so that

would probably be the closest thing. >> you view yourself as the chief executive officer, the chairman. who is your board of directors? >> i would say it's probably a combination of the commission, but the congress as well i think serves a role in its oversight capacity to oversee the operation. >> did this gentleman and lady sitting next to you yoor board? >> that's one way to characterize the commission as a structure that way. that they're responsible for establishing the policies of the agency as i am a member of that as well. >> right. if one of these four other members asks for a vote on something and four of them vote that what you're doing is wrong, do you consider that to be persuasive, interesting, or obligatary? >> well, certain if the commission takes an action and we have formal procedures to carry on our actions, then, of

course, those are actions that i would follow. >> if they asked to vote not to be locked out of getting information as alleged under oath here, is that your sponlt to ensure they had full access to information and never were denied any information that you had? >> yeah. i believe the commission's provided a tremendous amount of information. >> no, no. chairman. we're real funny about this here. we want the answer exactly to the question we asked. is it true that any information you had has ever been withheld from any of these people on your request? >> not that i'm aaware of. >> so you've never asked to have any information -- basically one of the commissioners just lied under oath is what you're saying? >> i work every day to ensure that the commission has the information it needs to carry on its responsibility. >> not what it needs. if i understand the statute, they have full and unfettered, just as you do, rights to

everything because they determine, as i understand it, assist any commission would. we produce commissions here all the time. they have to have everything or at least everything they think they have. what they don't know, they have to a right to ask and know whether they need to know. isn't that true? >> absolutely, and the commission routinely asks for information and that information is provided. >> obviously, they disagree with you a little bit. you have a background. you're a fizz iphysicist, not i nuclear but interesting stuff i don't know anything about. i figure you're smarter than me on anything related to the science. have you ever run an ofrgs of 4,000 people? >> no, this is the first time. >> what's the largest organization you were the ceo of in your career? >> i was responsible for managing my personal staff and as a commissioner and prior to that i served in policy capacities. >> so half a dozen or something like that? >> yeah. >> okay.

commission commissioner, as a navy captain, how many people worked for you? >> i had several different jobs in the navy. i had 150 people as commanding officer of a nuclear attack submarine squadron, 1200. i was a chief operating officer for 2500 personnel who were feds and 32,000 people who were management and operating contractors. >> from your leadership training over 30 years from your years in the navy, an ought toe accuratetic organization, where you can go to jail for not obeying the ship's cap pain, you have said signing on with the other commission thaerz this chairman has exceeded any semblance of the kind of authority you believe he should have in his conduct. he has had conduct, p if i understand correctly, that

does -- i know there's some debase about this. it does debate safety because it is conduct demoralizing to an organization that, in fact, if my nuclear power plants in my district, if they had someone like chairman jaczko has appeared to be, you would view them dysfunctional enough to be unsafe? isn't that right? >> if i understand your question correctly, i do not believe that we have been kept fully informed of our staff's views and technical analysis and recommendations on more than one issue here in the last few months that could impact how we perceive with respect to to the fukushima reactor accident. >> i think commissioner magwood talked on the same subject, if he has anything to say. >> no, i think i would simply add that there are clearly cases where my office has asked for

information and been told we couldn't have it. it's very black and white to me. >> it was less than truthful in saying he provided you information you requested always. >> that's the true, and i'll tell you what my experience has been. >> thank you. gentleman from maryland, the ranking mesh is recognized for five minutes. >> commissioner, i want to thank you all for your testimony. i'm just sitting here wondering what's going to happen aafter you go back. weren't experts up here on dysfunction. the country at 8% says the congress isn't functioning very well at all. so i don't want to sit here and tell you how to conduct your business i am concerned about some of the statements that have been made, particularly chairman

jazko with women feeling intimidated that alarms me as a father of two daughters, it does concern me. i want to address that, please. how do you feel about that? is it true? do you think that's true? >> i'm very passionate about safety and all the things that i do at the agency are directed towards doing what i think is the right thing for safety. i -- when i heard the incident about the incident that i believe the commission certificate referring toshgs i tried to think through all the many meetings we had together where we had very good discussions, sometimes disagreements about policy issues and i believe there's one meeting that she may have been referring to as i recall the meeting i went to her office to speak with her about a letter that i believe it was at a certain point we were discussing it. she became concerned, and as i

recall, i simply motioned and said sit down and let's talk down and work through it. we continue to discuss it, and then at some point i left the -- >> is this a situation when you all go back -- i mean, you apologized, have you not? certainly many of these instances this is the first time i've heard many of these accusations and certainly if if there's a time when i made someone feel uncomfortable, i like to know so that i can take whatever action is necessary to remedy that. >> okay. the commissioner testified before the senate committee on environmental and public works that you were never told that the chairman was operating under his emergency authority until the nrc office of congressional affairs informed the senate.

do you remember exactly when that was, and how far away the earthquake and the tsunami did you find out? >> i don't recall the specific time period. if i remember the question that was posed before the senate committee, i think it was that was i informed that the chairman had invoked his emergency authorities under section 3a, so it was a very specific question about invoke indication about a provision of law. i indicated he learned of that when the office of congressional affairs responded to a committee request. i don't remember how many months after the fukushima event that was, sir. >> our committee staff kconductd a tribed interview with the general kounls sell who took a different view. this is what he said. he said i heard testimony they were not informed that the chairman was exercising his emergency power, however, the commissioners all were informed that the operations center had gone into this monitoring mode soon after the fukushima

earthquake and actually the gings concerns for the reactor. the fukushima reactors had occurred. that saturday, march 12th, i sat in on a conference call in which the chairman told each of the commissioners, i believe each one of them was on the conference call and was explaining what was going on with respect to the reactor. commissioner, were you on that call? >> i was, sir, and if i may say that the general counsel's response indicated that we were informed the agency was in the monitoring mode. the difference or misunderstanding is my view that does not correlate to emergency authorities. the agency going into the monitoring mode does not necessarily invoke those emergency authorities under law. >> it seems obvious that if the commission was operating in emergency operations center, they were responding to an emergency. you disagree with that? >> the agency has numerous times

been into the monitoring mode where the chairman of the agency has not invoked the emergency authorities. so i do not correlate being notified of being in the monitoring mode as an immediate invocation of those authorities, sir. >> but there was an emergency operation, is that right? >> yes, and other than the term being the same, again, and i apologize if my answer is complicated, it's simply that the agency going into a monitoring mode does not necessarily correlate or immediately invoke those emergency -- >> it's your main objection you did not receive some sort of paper stating explicitly and by the way we have an emergency? is that a fair statement? >> the significance to me of the invocation of the emergency authorities is under the reorganization plan at that point, the chairman has taken the authorities of the commission as a whoel and then in an emergency he is able it to exercise singularly the authorities of the commission as

bide. i do see a distinction. >> perhaps chairman jacko, you can you can clear that snup. >> the first action was very early on at march 11th at 9:43 in the morning. i believe one of my staff members indicated to their staff that we were entering monitoring mode. about 20 minutes later a formal agency e-mail went out. i then later that evening and this is all in the first day march 11th sent an e-mail to our colleagues informing them we were in monitoring mode and talked about our response and what we were doing to the accident. from that point on we had meetings at least three times a day, where their staff were briefed by members of the operation members and our status. i held approximately once a day and starting on march 12th

briefing phone calls with them to describe our actions and indicate what we were doing as an agency to respond to the emergency. >> my time has expired. thank you. >> now to the chairman of the subcommittee, mr. jordan, for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman. let me start with mr. osten dorff. you all sent a letter to the white house chief of staff. that seemed unprecedented to me that you would have two democrats, two republicans on a commission send a letter to the chief of staff of the white house about the activity the empties of this commission. do you know if there's any other examples that happening, other commissions where the same kind of information, same kind of action was taken to a letter to the white house chief of staff? >> mr. jordan, i agree it's an unprecedented action. i'm not aware of another situation. >> you knew this was something

not done before? this was pretty unprecedented? >> berp not aware of any circumstance in which a similar action was taken. >> my guess is you had several discussions amongst the four of you about taking this unprecedented action. can you elaborate on that? was there a time frame where over a period of months, maybe longer where weeks or months or longer you talked about taking this unprecedented action? >> we had significant concerns for a number of months. this is in the committee's report. it's in our letter to the white house. concern on withdrawal of the paperback in july associated with staff remlgss on how the fukushima report should be evaluated. it was withdrawn by the chairman. that caused significant concern among the four of us. we discussed our concerns with the chairman. we saw attempts to remove the executive director for operations, the eeo, which was a significant personnel step to remove the senior career person

of the agency. we saw the october 5th meeting that the commissioner referred to where the chairman made statements to senior executives in our agency that appeared to undermine the commission. that was the crossing line from my own standpoint, and i think my colleagues, you can ask them agrees and that's what -- >> safe to say well thought out over a period of time discussed thoroughly, and you said that the situation warrants us taking this unprecedented action. >> we had seen that our attempts to talk to the chairman about our concerns on various matters did not yield any difference in behavior or actions on his part. we felt as a commission we had an obligation to the united states to do this. >> can i go douwn the line? would you agree with the assessment given by him? >> yes, sir, i would. i would add that we had engaged, as i said, in fpro tracted efforts to try to resolve issues

that had not born any any fruit. >> commissioner, accurate? >> very accurate. >> yes, it is accurate. >> we have a chart here in our material of the five commissioners, in our material. the chart here with i'm guessing maybe 30 different folks here, obviously you can't testify for them, but is it fair to say that the staff that's on this page had real concerns about the leadership style of mr. jackson ka. that's before you sent the letter to the chief of staff? >> i can tell you to prior to signing a letter, i think the other three colleagues would tell you the same thing, that we had significant feedback from the career leadership expressing great concerns on there being a chilled environment, a lacking work environment with the

chairman. >> one more question for you. then maybe the same question to the other commissioners. you stated in your testimony that it bothers you that some of the action is politically motivated. that's certainly a stretch in the fact it's two democrats and two republicans. but do you think the actions of the chairman have been politically motivated? his style of leadership, what he's doing? are those politically driven? >> that's a difficult question, mr. jordan. i can't personally tell you his actions are politically motivated. i have no evidence that they are. i will just tell you that we have seen significant issues under his leadership that we think are unacceptable. >> commissioner?

>> i will not testify to political motivations of chairman jackson ka. i think it was more on the basic conduct issues. >> i think i would answer the question the same way. i would never describe the political motivations. >> my motivation was not political. >> i understand that, but do you think the chairman's was? >> i have no evidence that it was. i think it's more his interpretation of his role as a chairman that is driving his actions. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. we now recognize the ranking member of the subcommittee mr. kus sin itch. >> behind closed doors, they snipe at each other. in public they question each

oth other's motives. and in front of congress they hang each other out to dry. that's life on the federal election commission. not the nrc, but the frc. i would imagine that if we called up one commission after another in front of this congress, you'd probably have some complaints that may not be dissimilar than what we have here. the difference is though that 104 nuclear power plants in various stages of re-licensing, some of which have questions of safety, post fukushima seven months ago, may 11, 2011, i'm

frankly, you know, wondering why you're here. i appreciate the chairman calling this hearing. >> the gentleman yield? >> certainly. >> the one big difference is i'm sure you have some of those actions taking place. you sited the fec. but no commission has taken the action of having four members sign a letter and send it to the chief of staff. that's why the chairman has called this hearing. >> i thank the chairman for calling the hearing. i thank my friend for pointing that out. i also think it's important for us to look beyond what we see and consider that, you know, we have an industry that's in trouble. wall street won't invest in nuclear power. the nuclear industry came to this government to look for a $60 billion-plus loan guarantee. the industry is in trouble. so the commissioners are going to reflect what's going on in

the industry. i mean, i would expect that's what's happening here. that's why we need to look deeper into what we're hearing about the nrc and ask what's going on with the industry? what are the titans of the industry have to say about the chairman. now mr. jackson ka, an associated press story reported that you were worried that the u.s. nuclear plant operators may have become complacent following the disaster in japan. and you said that recent instances of human era and other problems have threatened the safety of some of the nation's nuclear facilities. it was reported that incidents at nuclear plants in ohio and nebraska "almost lead to workers getting very significant doses" of radiation. the article also reports in addition to these events, three other plants were shut down for safety reasons. this apparently marks the first time in more than a decade that

several plants in the u.s. have been shut down at the same time. can you elaborate, mr. chairman, on some of these specific events that have occurred recently and which ones trouble you the most and why? >> well, congressman. the events in particular with the potential worker exposures were, in my mind, very significant events because they appear to indicate a lack of adherence to procedures. after i made those comments, i heard from industry officials and while they may have not necessarily agreed with my assessment of complacent si, they agree there's new change. there's new workers and we're seeing some of these incidents in which the new workers may not have a full appreciation of the procedures and the need for adherence to certain processes that ultimately ensure safety.

so it's an important signal. it's not clear yet that we're seeing a true decline in safety, but it's an important signal we need to keep a close eye on as the year goes on and as we continue our oversight. >> is safety your top concern? >> safety has been my number one concern since i came to the commission. >> after fukushima? >> first and foremost, i was proud of the staff at the nrc that we have worked very hard for a long time to be focused on safety. but that accident, i think, really reminded us that there is no way to rule out accidents. there's no way to e prevent ultimately all kinds of serious incide incidents. so we have to be even more vigilant and dedicated to safety than we have ever been. >> thank you. mr. chairman, my time has expired. i ask to place a staff report

called "regulatory meltdown." >> i'll reserve, but only for a very short period of time because it is another committee's report. >> well, i would appreciate it. >> it will only take a couple minutes for the staff to review it. >> we recognize the gentleman from utah, a state that gives us you are rain yum for five minutes. >> chairman jackson ka, you're aware of the letter that was sent to the white house to the chief of staff. there's five very serious cha e charges in there. number one, intimidating and bullying career staff. true or false? >> i have not bullied staff. >> true or false. ordered staff to modify policy recommendation intended to trim for transmission to the commission? >> there's one occasion which i discussed with a very senior

manager a recommendation that he wanted to make on an issue. >> so only one time in the history of your time there. >> correct. and i have -- >> true or false. attempted to intimidate the advisory committee on reactor safeguards -- if t goes on. true or false? >> false. >> ignored the will of the majority of the commission? >> i have never ignored the will of the majority in an area that is -- >> i'll take that as a false. such intem rans and disrespect that the commission no longer functions as effectively as it should? >> well, i'm a very passionate person about safety. and i often engage my colleagues in discussions about safety. that's been my style and practice. >> in other words, they're all wrong and you're exactly right.