pace of economic recovery. ann, independence, of oklahoma. caller: i am calling about a couple of items. one of the social security issue. they say it is broke. yet they lowered the social security taxes and they call it a payroll tax some people did not notice it. when it was originally set up, our legislators were not supposed to be able to mess with it. the other thing is the fact that no one is mentioning the ones who will really benefit of social security goes down and that is big business. they will not have to pay their portion of that. i did not even know why social security is considered part of the budget when it is a self sustaining entity. the other is everybody's thing about regulation. i kind of agree it would be

nice of government got out of regulating things, but when they stop the deregulation of banks, oil, utilities, what has happened to middle america? it is looking to me -- i am sorry to say that i think all of our politicians are putting middle america down the drain. host: in "usa today," they say manufacturing activity grew at the weakest pace in two years. july automobile sales are due out today and expected to show scant growth. the jobs number will be honored friday and they expect the unemployment rate to stay at 9.2%. democratic caller from maine. the morning. caller: how are you? i love your show.

host: what are your comments about the debt deal? caller: if congress wants to cut spending, let's have a 10% cut across the board in what congress makes, across the board 10% cut. they make more money than regular people. the second comment -- what was it? on the aides that each congressman has, can we get rid of them? >> capitol hill staffers? host: "the baltimore sun" has a story on what this will mean for state aid. hear of the top 10 states for per-capita federal spending. virginia tops the list followed by maryland, alaska, kentucky, new mexico, hawaii, north connecticutming, an

and massachusetts. donna, are you with us? caller: can you hear me? first, i have a complaint for c- span. but a couple of weeks ago, you had the wasserman shultz -- debbie wasserman shultz, and it was filthy. it made me sick. i cannot believe c-span was allowing that. i wish people would look into the health-care plan. i have already suffered from an. my daughter saved my life three times from cancer has quit because of the health-care plan. i had a new package sent to me in the mail, a new primary care doctor, and i already had one.

on top of that, they tell me i have to pay for my medicine. host: on the so-called super committee that will be formed, here is "usa today." he played key roles in the debt deals in the 1990 talks and talks about spending cuts that worked for several years were waived when it became to difficult to meet. independence from portland, maine, good morning. caller: the biggest thing that people fail to realize is the uncertainty for business. if they want to go on with both sides talking about jobs and the economy, uncertainty is horrible for businesses in terms of hiring decisions. on top of that, we have the deficit, and the article you just spoke about, where do we go

now? how do we -- how about we negotiate down the debt? host: as this is likely to pass in the senate at noon, will that give certainty the businesses? caller: absolutely. if we are downgraded, as we still might be, there will still be on certainty, but i think that is the biggest problem that we have seen. granted, obama had to make these moves, but it is a hard thing for business right now. on another note, with our deficit, if you look at real estate companies, banks, when they make a bad business decisions, they go and do loan workouts. why has not -- that not been talked about? we can talk to the chinese about not paying our bills. we do not have the revenue coming in from taxes and we need to manage this a little bit

better. host: we are waiting for the house to come in for a four promise session. -- for proma session. connie? go ahead. quick, if you could. caller: if you want to keep your social security check in your medicare, you better vote for democrats because the republicans want to take them away. obama said it right. i worked for the government for 37 years and they did not have much money on hand because of different things come due at different times and they would not have had the money to pay social security. host: the house is coming in. again, senate coverage of today's vote on the debt deal at noon eastern on c-span2. host: [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

restore our faith in the constitutional processes to the greatness our nation has experienced and which we hope continues to be a lantern shining on a hill. may all that is done today be for your greater honor and glory. amen the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 5 of house resolution 375, the journal of the last day's proceeding is approved. the chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the

speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on august 2, 2011 at 9:35 a.m. that the senate passed without amendment, h.r. 2715, that the senate passed senate 1466, appointments, united states commission on civil rights, with best wishes, i am signed sincerely, karen l. haas the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 4, no legislative business will be conducted on this day, pursuant to section 3 of that resolution, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on friday august 5, 2011.

60 votes are needed to pass and pass on to president obama. we will continue to follow this story and will bring you updates as they become available. right now, we are going to the office building on capitol hill where the senate environmental committee is looking at the safety of u.s. nuclear reactors in the wake of the japanese disaster. this started a couple of minutes ago. you're watching live coverage on c-span. >> further study and analysis is

needed. last month, i send -- sent a letter to chairman jaczko in which i urge the commission to act in their near-term recommendations that need to be implemented now. i support the chairman's roadmap for action within 90 days, and i encourage the commission to move forward expeditiously. it took 90 days to make the recommendation, and it should not take longer than that to accept or movetoward implementation. stalling will not be viewed favorably by the american people. their confidence in nuclear power is waning. the nrc safety approach is incomplete without a strong plan for dealing with the unexpected, including severe accidents. continued reliance on industry

initiatives similarly would leave gaps in the nrc regulatory approach." these findings are important. although the task force stated that an accident like what happened in japan is not likely in the u.s., they did conclude that changes should be made to improve safety. they further concluded we cannot count on voluntary industry initiatives to provide the necessary level of safety. the japanese were not prepared for the disaster that hit them on march 11. that is a lesson learned. we cannot afford to make the same mistake. we should make improvements that will enhance safety and prepared this for disasters. to that end, the 90-day review includes recommendations to move quickly to implement safety recommendations contained in the

report while we are wasting tax -- or we are wasting taxpayer money. more work should be done in terms of the longer-term o view. today, i call on the commission to announce a plan of action for adopting task force recommendations, and i am not alone. a july 23 "new york times" editorial stated if nuclear power is to have a future, americans need to have confidence that the industry is learning lessons from fukushima, and taking all steps to ensure safety. they went on to say that the task force issued a thoughtful recommendations and the five commissioners should quickly adopt them. an editorial in "the washington post" stated "the nrc should use

this review not to respond to a single event, but to ensure it is actively assessing low- probability, but high- consequence risk." 15 organizations sent a letter to the nrc asking them to act to implement the recommendations. more recently, july 28, my colleague, senator mark kirk of illinois was reported saying "we cannot let the lessons to be -- become a forgotten story by dragging our feet on improvements that can be made now." i could not agree with him more. the nrc must act without delay. if it is not acceptable, not the we have the results of the task force review to merely call for more study and further delay. i look forward to hearing each of you make a commitment that you are ready to move on their

recommendation. you must act now the you know some of the problems. it is your moral and legal responsibility. i call on senator in office. >> thank you. i would like to put into the letter from the president of the new killer of the nuclear institute -- the nuclear institute -- "the task force report lacks." i would like to enter that into the record. >> absolutely. what is and to go to this report, -- enjoy go to this report -- into gold to this report, chairman

jaczko said "we always ask ourselves the question, a are theplants still safe, is there anything we can do to address that, and the answer is no. we want to have good information." i want to a three. frankly, we need to take time to insure that we learned the right lessons, that any regulatory changes have the maximum benefit to safety. in that spirit, the task force describes how following the three-mile island event, the nrc took actions that were not subjected to structure review, and which were "subsequently not found to be of substantial safety benefit and removed." i am pleased to see that a majority of the commissioners are committed to ensuring that

the task force recommendations proceed through a structured review process that incorporates a views of a wide range of the agency staff, the nrc's advisory committee, the industry, and other stakeholders. meanwhile, a full commission can take action at any time should new safety information warrant. there are many facts we do not know about the accident, not just technical aspects, but about emergency preparedness, and an external influences on decision making. the japanese regulatory system is different from our own. i believe it is crucial for the nrc to understand those differences in order to assess whether proposed regulatory changes will adequately address the problems highlighted by the fukushima accident. accordingly, i have sent a letter to each of you and the cord to responses. i was pleased to see

commissioner svinicki support that, and disappointed to hear the chairman considered it too difficult and time-consuming. i do not think but a different -- a country with different practices means that ours are broken. i hope the nrc will focus on solving specific safety weaknesses highlighted by the fukushima event, rather than allowing itself to become distracted by redesigning a regulatory framework that has served our country very well. principalefficiency -- "regulatory action should be consistent with the degree of risk reduction they achieved their call a structured process into the comments -- achieved." a structure processing to the comments of commissioner

magwood, ostendorff, and apostolakis, should achieve that." >> thank you. >> commissioners, welcome. this is a day when our economy could have melted down, and it looks like we could avoid that. we will make sure that the recommendations from the smart people that work at the nuclear regulatory commission -- we can somehow seize the opportunity to ensure we will not have a meltdown in our complex. i'm happy your hair. these are challenging times for the nrc, and they have been challenging for my colleagues and me as well. we will get through this day, and hopefully your recommendations. as many of you know, my interest

in nuclear energy comes from a clean air and energy security perspective, and from 23 years of a naval flight officer. i have a lot of the debentures from that perspective. -- ventures from that perspective. nuclear power has helped to reduce air pollution that damages for our health and cause global warming. as we saw the crisis unfold at fukushima, one wrong step could have big and bad consequences. this crisis is a strong reminder that we can never be complacent. safety must always be our top priority. i look forward to an update from our commissioners regarding their reviews of our nuclear power fleet, and look forward to a hearing more about the task

force recommendations. i hope to learn how commissioners expect to move forward on them. i was relieved that the task force concluded that an accident like fukushima is not likely to happen in the united states as our fleet posed no immediate risk to public safety. this is due in part to the due diligence of the nrc to protect public safety. as colleagues have heard me say once or twice, if it is not perfect, we need to make it better, and i believe this task force took this to heart. we can agree on some of the recommendations that are common sense, and they should be implemented sooner than others. i liken these recommendations to patching up a hole in the boat that is slowly leaking. some of the recommendations will need much more time and a fair amount of vetting.

these recommendations are more like take in theboat apart, and putting it back together. i sincerely hope the commission will take time to talk to shareholders and get public reaction from all sides of these issues before moving forward. however, i will be disappointed if we are down the road and have not seen any action from the nrc on any of these recommendations. that would not sit well with me. i would urge you to keep that in mind. we are all in this together. we need to make sure we incorporate the right lessons learned to keep our nuclear fleet safe in the future because in the thing to tell, we are all in the same boat. >> my pleasure to introduce john barrasso. >> thank you, madame chairwoman. i think you and senator carper for holding the hearing today,

entitled recommendations for enhancing reactor safety in the 21st century. there are a couple of points that need to be stated from the report itself. first, our regulatory frameworks to protect nuclear plants is working. although complex, the current regulatory approach has served the commission and the public well, and allows the task force to conclude that a sequence of events like those happening in the food fish in the accident is not likely to happen in the united -- fukushima accident, is not likely to happen in the united states, and to be mitigated reducing the cord damage and radiological releases. as commissioner ostendorff stated on july 19, "i do not believe our existing framework is broken." i agree. second, our regulatory system is quite different than japan's.

i agree with commissioner ostendorff's opinion that the fukushima tragedy happened in another country whose regulatory structure is quite different from that found in the united states, and there is still a great deal that we do not know about fukushima concerning the sequence of events, failures of modes of equipment, functionality, and execution procedures." because of the reasons i have just mentioned, with so much uncertainty remaining, i find the report to be light and suggested recommendations directly tied to the events at fukushima. install, these are recommendations to overhaul our entire system of oversight and safety. i agree with commissioner svinicki, who commented that the recommendations ours -- surprisingly specific and detailed for what was to be an additional 90-day review.

the document is 82 pages long. if you put six career regulators in a room for 90 days, you will get a lot of suggestions for more washington red tape that appears to be based on old agendas. that appears to be what we have before us today. some recommendations might be good and worth pursuing. some may not be, but as commissioner svinicki stated about the recommendations in the report, lacking the staff evaluation, beyond that of the six and r c staff members to predict -- nrc staff members who produced the report, i did not have basis to accept or reject the recommendations. there is no immediate to be addressed, so we do have time. there is no need to rush to regulate. before we move forward with more red tape, perhaps we need to let

these suggestions more closely. i am not advocating for a few nrc public meetings to simply check a box. i am talking about real staff and stakeholder input to an open and transparent process, where recommendations can be improved, prioritize, and eventually either approved or rejected, which is essentially what commissioner magwood has said in his letter of july 29 to congressman merkley. this is the type of review that i believe four of the commissioners before us today are advocating. thank you. i look forward to the testimony. >> thank you. senator sanders. >> thank you for holding this hearing. thank you to the members of the nrc for being here. the first and most important point that i want to make is the function of the nrc is not to represent the nuclear power

industry. that is not your job, whether we have more or fewer -- that is not your job. your job, foremost, is to make sure that the nuclear power plants that we have in this country are as safe as humanly possible. my friend from wyoming, senator russell -- barrasso said it is "on likely that we will have the fukushima disaster in this country." for the people of vermont and most people in this country that is not good enough. we want to make sure that everything humanly possible that can be done is done to make sure that nuclear power and nuclear power plants are as safe as possible in this country. madame chair, for the commissioners here today, it seems to me that we should take note of the associated press's

report that found that the nrc and the nuclear industry have worked, "in tandem" to weaken safety standards. in that regard, i have joined with the chair of our committee, senator boxer, to call for an investigation. americans are concerned about nuclear safety not just because of the 80 investigations, but because of what happened in japan. we have 23 reactors in this country that are the same as before dishing up plant. the president asked the nrc for a safety review after japan, and the nrc task force did a 90-day review, laying out 12 recommendations. they did what they were asked to do. a "new york times" editorial summarize that "the group's most

important finding is that our nation's oversight is a less than rigorous patchwork of mandatory and voluntary provisions." the task force recommendations include measures to test earthquake and flood resiliency, and to install the vents to reduce the risk of hydrogen explosions. we are here today to find out what the nrc is going to do about these recommendations. some people might think this is a local government red tape." some of us think that we have to do everything we can to make sure the impossible does not happen, and that a major nuclear accident happened in the united states. the answer from what i am hearing up to this point is that nothing is going to happen with regard to these recommendations. the chairman has asked the nrc to begin t