corrected design basis and expanding the design basis of u.s. plants. third, the timely disposition by the commission of the near term task force recommendations is important. it is also important to do this in an open and transparent manner. three months should be sufficient time. fourth, our process should be methodical and systematic. the three mile island experience is relevant here as the task force states that some of the actions taken by the nrc were not subjected to a structural review. subsequently, some of the resulting requirements for found not to be of substantial safety benefit and were removed. fifth, with these recommendations in mind, i believe deliberations would benefit from an evaluation of task force recommendations from battersea management, the views of stakeholders, and a review by

the advisers. these reviews might result in additional or different recommendations. i will be working with fellow commissioners to reach a solution. thank you. >> thank you very much. now we look to commission member william magwood iv. >> thank you. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before as soon as the seriousness of the events of folks shima became evident, the commission started a task force. they provided us with the recommendations we have discussed. i congratulate the six-person team, and also want to point out dr. charles miller, the chair, is with us.

tomorrow is his retirement date. >> can we ask him to raise his hand? >> thank you, charlie. nevertheless, while the task force found that u.s. plants are safe, and the state that quite clearly, this is not licensed for complacency. if there are lessons that could further improve the regulatory framework, and the task force has made the 12 recommendations we've spoken of this morning. odyssey, they are limited in time and scope and ability to reach out to stakeholders -- obviously, they're limited in time and scope and ability to reach out to stakeholders. we were able to deal with issues that were not covered by the task force in an open and

transparent manner. we must move quickly and effectively to engage stakeholders in consideration of the task force put the recommendations, as well as situations the task force did not have time to realize. while there are many who believe that we should move very quickly on every recommendation, i think what senator carper said this morning was apropos -- some recommendations can be implemented almost right away, and the votes of the commission so far have indicated that as possible, and there are others that might take more time, and we should take that time to do things the right way. with that, i look forward to your questions. thank you. >> thank you. mr. ostendorff, welcome. >> ranking member reso, members of the committee, thank you for the chance to be here today. i commend the nrc's near-term

task force for its dedication, but from this, and professionalism in conducting this review. they have provided a very significant product that will serve as well. i carefully studied the report before forming my position, meeting with the task force, seeking import from nrc staff, and listen to the views of my colleagues at this table. i cast my vote last wednesday and made the vote publicly available. serving my view as the anchor for this report our findings related to safety of reactors in the united states. the task force noted that the current regulatory approach has served the commission and the public well and the continued operation and licensing operations do not pose an imminent risk to public health and safety. as i stated at the july 19 public meeting, while i support thoughtful consideration of

potential safety enhancements in a systematic and holistic manner, at the same time i do not believe the existing regulatory framework is broken. my vote is centered on three key principles -- we need to implement a broad approach. the sale -- the failure to have this approach was the key lessons learned to the nrc response at three mile island. it was stated as a concern going forward with fukushima one we had our public meeting. not all 12 recommendations that have 35 sub-parts are equal from either a safety enhancement or urgency perspective. second, some action should be taken sooner than others. my vote supports edo coming back within 30 days with a list of recommendations.

i specifically called out in my vote six discrete actions i think should happen now. there are perhaps others. i will wait to hear as to what those recommendations might be third, and finally, i join with my colleagues in supporting the full engagement of my -- our stakeholders. that is absolutely critical. i appreciate the committee's oversight in this areathank you. >> thank you. each of us will have five minutes. we are not dealing with safety issues that are relatively straightforward, like seatbelts. we know it is essential people buckle up. we know they save lives. what we are dealing with here is potentially fatal doses of radiation, if you do not do your job right, we cannot do our job right. "the new york times" had a story, a fatal radiation levels found in the japanese plant.

workers on monday afternoon found an area near reactors one and two where radiation levels exceeded their radiation reading devices maximum level. when i hear colleagues -- this is my interpretation of what they said -- recommendations for safety, more washington red tape. i believe that is what the ranking member said. i can tell you, people in japan would have gotten down on their knees and prayed that they had more safety measures in place. so i want to ask some questions here. the task force recommends requiring hardened that designs and mark 1 and mark two reactors. the reason, what happened in the reactors, the fuel became partially uncovered, which led to a buildup of hydrogen gas. they tried to bend the gas, but

because the events were not working, explosions occurred in all three units. we know some of the mark two reactors have made some safety improvements. but the task force recommends requiring hard and that designs and mark 1 and mark to reactors. only three reactors in america have installed hard and then spirit that mean there are five remaining reactors that have not. why do we have to wait pick 4 we implement that recommendation? i'm going to ask each of you, do we need to move on that recommendation to move forward with this recommendation with a hardened vent designed? >> that is a fine recommendation. >> i do not want any editorial comment. yes or no. >> i do not know. >> sounds reasonable. >> i cannot answer at this point.

>> i support the venting capability. task force report noted they did not have a clear understanding it of whether the operators could of bread thevents. >> i will take that as a note. not good news for this commission. when you became a commissioner, what was your highest duty, in a word? >> public safety protection. >> public safety. >> protect health and safety. >> public safety. >> good. then i would like you to consider what happened in japan, looking at the similarities we see in the summer plants, and move on it. let me tell you why i am concerned. after 9/11, the nrc to seemingly decisive action. i want you to listen to this. i hope the public is listening to this.

you ordered u.s. nuclear power plants to take a series of improved security measures, because we were about a terrorist attack. in my home state, they were passing out iodide pills. we had millions of people that live within 50 miles of power plants. the nrc later codified those orders in regulation with requirements by march 312010. from 2001 through 2010. now, i want assurances from each one of you that you will not allow that to happen. and i want to hear from you as to whether or not you believe we can move on these recommendations and put them in place within a year. >> i believe we can move in on them within 90 days and have full implementation with

potentially long-term recommendations in five years. >> 90 days, if we can move on most of these recommendations and put them in place. a yes from the chairman. >> i do not believe that all can be enacted on -- >> how many? >> you do not know. next. >> we should disposition all of them within 90 days. >> excellent. >> some of them could be positioned within 90 days. >> thank you, sir. my time is up. >> thank you, madam chairman. when we had our june meeting, i had an armed services committee that kept me from being here, so i asked senator barrasso to ask

chairman jaczko to provide a full account of the actions he took while exercising his emergency authority as provided in section 3 of the nrc's realization plan of 1980. to date, i have not received such a report. section three states "following the conclusion of the emergency, the chairman shall render a complete and timely report to the commission on the actions taken during that emergency." let me start by asking each one of you, except for chairman jaczko, has the german provided such a report? -- chairman provided such a report? >> i have not received a report. >> i have not. i have not. i have never seen the report. >> has he inform you that he has ceased using his image of the authority? >> he has not. >> he has not.

>> he has not. >> so i would assume that he is still using this emergency authority. >> senator inhofe, would you like a response -- >> not yet. if you would like to extend my time, go ahead. >> sure, i will extend your time. >> it might be better for me to finish. i have to assume, he is -- since they have not received it. i think it needs to be in the record. none of us were around at that time, but when this emergency provision was passed by law, and it is important to have this in the record. this is from over 30 years ago. "there are two situations, one

where the chairman is a basic agreement with the majority, and those where he is not. in those cases when the chairman has a majority of commissioners with him or her, it is obvious the chairman will not need extraordinary powers to the way in this plan to exercise their will. the chairman and commission can move in unison towards their chairs and regulatory policy. but what about the other situation where the chairman is in the minority, regardless of party affiliation, when the majority of the commissioners opposed the chairman? isn't it equally obvious that at that moment, these special powers will be most appealing to the chairman? is it not clear that these powers are ever to be needed and utilized, it is precisely by the chairman bent on going against the majority of the commissioners? and if that is the case, is this plan not clearly constructed to get the commission a form of regulation, and would it not be

subject to the basis sort of partisan, political manipulation?" before you make your comments, chairman jaczko, i would like to make -- get a commitment from you that you will respect the will of the commission majority on this report and all other issues that you will not attend to act unilaterally to implement any of these task force recommendations. do you feel comfortable making that commitment in this hearing? >> everything i do, i do consistent with that. with regard to the emergency powers, the commissioners personally have been briefed by me on the status of our situation. we no longer have our emergency operations center activated, which is a clear signal -- >> but that is not what they said. they said they were not notified by you. >> which is a true statement.

for one to infer they are not aware of the status of agency, and as you indicated, you are assuming i am continuing to use emergency powers, i do not believe that is a fair assumption. staff is briefed on a weekly basis on our response to today's to japan. they were provided to tuition reports iraqi entire activity. moreover, they have received a report, which you all have received, which summarizes and looks at the actions following the fukushima incident. to infer the commission is being kept in the dark about what is going on at the agency is simply not true. they have received multiple briefings -- of them are notur telling the truth when they said they had not seen the report? >> i cannot speak to that but they have certainly received many reports reporting what we have done following cooper she met.

including what is front of you. -- following fukushima. their response, i cannot explain. >> well, i think i can. thank you. >> ok. how about a smile from everybody here? not quite. >> i am sitting here listening and it reminded me of something my mother used to say. with respect to moving along expeditiously on these recommendations -- my mother used to say, haste makes waste. my father, on the other hand, would say work expands to fill the amount of time we allocate to a job.

one parent pushing on the accelerator, another tapping on the brakes. it is not a bad combination. it sounds like what we want to do here, what the commission thinks we ought to do. in some cases, the recommendations, we can push on the accelerator. others, we can tap the bricks. one of the things i like to do around here is concur -- is encourage consensus across the aisle. i want to see if we can get some consensus with respect to these recommendations. mr. magwood, you said that there were some recommendations that could be implemented right away. others that would take time. would you mentioned some of the one that fall under the implement right away category? >> i have generally tried not to point out specific recommendations because i would like to allow the process to work its way.

but a clear example is what we call the walk down inspections, to confirm the plans are prepared to deal with flood and seismic events. that is one that can be done quickly. the commissioner highlighted half a dozen. i am in general agreement with what he recommended. the ultimate action on a bed, for example. we have to understand those carefully before we do anything. i think many of these can be implemented quickly. let me just share personally. i have spoken with other members of the commission. i have no sense there is any one in the commission that wants to delay this unnecessarily. everyone is looking at this seriously and wants to move forward as quickly as practical, but we want to make sure the process is done correctly. >> mr. ostendorff, did i hear

him say the ostendorff half dozen? >> yes, sir. i will summarize those. there are six things that could be done very quickly here and decided on a matter of weeks. the first is reevaluate the seismic and flooding hazards at all sides against current nrc requirements. second, seismic and flood protection walk down, including any plant and vulnerability. third come issue of events rulemaking to address prolonged loss of air-conditioned power. fourth, review our fire and flooding protection equipment to ensure they can withstand a seismic event or flooding. we also have additional of whitman in the event of a multi- unit equipment. fifth, review the bentinck capability and our marquand and market of your reactors. six, maintain and train on severe accident guidelines.

there are things that could be done right away. >> what was the sixth one? >> we have severe accident guidelines that help us deal with catastrophic events. making sure those are good order and making sure people are trained is a high priority. >> we will just go down the line. mr. chairman, react to the ostendorff half-dozen. >> certainly no disagreement. beyond that, there are really not that many recommendations that the task force recommended for near-term actions. so i think some of this discussion is really about semantics. four of the 12 recommendations themselves were long-term recommendations. two were specifically targeted toward nrc action, in an of itself. so there are actually only six recommendations directed towards licensees in the short term. so i do not think -- >> were those the six that

commissioner ostendorff mentioned? >> it is a subset of that. the one that seemed to be missing was the recommendation of spent fuel polls. that is one that most people would agree is an action that we would want to address in the near term. i do not think there are that many left once we take those particular issues that we cannot get this work done in 90 days. >> explain quickly, commissioner svinicki, commissioner apostolakis, could you give me some indication if you are in agreement with commissioner ostendorff's half- dozen? >> i would just add quickly, i did not have any negative reaction to the task force's recommendations. i agree there are varying complexity is. my proposal was to hear from those nrc staff who would be

responsible for carrying out such actions. the recommendations, when shaped through the nrc programmatic offices, may come back to us tightly differently. i would like to do it once and right, as opposed to continually interesting prolonged uncertainty. >> dr. apostolakis? >> all i am saying in my boat is i would like to have the opinion and judgment of senior management. that does not mean that it will take forever to get that, but this sounds like a reasonable list. but i would like to have this additional input before we make a decision. and senior management may come up with additional recommendation that we need to implement immediately. i do not think we should limit ourselves to what the task force said. >> thank you. >> senator barrasso. >> chairman jaczko, how involved were you in the selection of the six members of this near-term task force?

>> not involved. i believe the edo would tell me the list of people on it and i okayed it. >> were you involved in any way of the deliberations of the task force? >> not all. i spoke to them before their work, told them they had a tremendous response ability and that they should do the best they could. >> the commission talked about a patchwork of current programs flowing. do you agree that our current program of nuclear safety in the united states is defective, not working? >> i do not believe that is what the task force said. the inference that it is defective, therefore, is not true. it is true we have a patchwork of regulations. that is what the task force indicated. if you just look at emergency procedures, we have emergency procedures that fall into three classes. emergency operating procedures. we then have operator procedures

for severe accidents. then we have potential september/11-type of actions. each one has a different regulatory treatment, but all three are likely comparable and their importance and should be integrated into a whole process of emergency procedures. that was the patchwork that existed. each of those came out of a particular incident. the severe accident came out of the 1980's, when we realize we need better preparation for serious accidents. substantial mitigation guidelines came out of 9/11. that is simply what the task force is recommending. in some cases, someone get greater regulatory treatment than they get right now, in particular, severe accident management guidelines. >> commissioner ostendorff, you indicated that the nrc was an organization that prides itself on openness and transparency.

you also reference the nrc has "principles of good regulation that you use in your decision making." if the nrc has a couple of meetings on this task force recommendation, would that supplies to meet the goals of openness and transparency, and meet the standards of the nrc principle which you referenced? >> i think public meetings are a key component of that effort. we had a meeting last thursday. i think that is a good start. all of the commissioners here support the chairman's call for open meeting being a key component. there is also discussions that will happen outside of public meetings that will help form the prior to his nation that these recommendations should receive. >> you said that you do not believe the existing framework is not broken. is this report larger in scope and perhaps you expected, in light of that statement? >> i agree with all of the chairman said a few moments ago

on his characterization of the patchwork comment. there has been a dynamic, devolving buildup of regulations in response to events. i do not think the patchwork is a fair characterization itself. the chairman's explanation is correct. it is something we ought to look at, but i do not think it is something that is an immediate concern that with just our existing regulations were not safe and proper. >> thank you. commissioner svinicki, you said in your vote, lacking an rsc technical staff evaluation, -- nrc technical staff evaluation, i do not have a basis to accept or reject the recommendations of the near-term task force. in your opinion, how can we achieve that sufficient basis of knowledge to make the decision about accepting or rejecting

these decisions? >> i had made a proposal to my colleague which is not yet decided upon, but it would be that the nrc programmatic staff would take recommendations, and within 45 days, come back to the commission with a prioritization and plan for how the agency might move forward to get that more complete evaluation. they could also identify the more strict or recommendations and how they would propose to move forward on those more quickly. i did not think it needed to take an excessive amount of time. >> thank you, madam chairman. >> senator sanders. >> let me tell you where i began my thinking. i am going back to the ap article, in june 2011. federal workers are working with the industry to work with and safety standards by repeatedly weakening those standards or simply failing to been forced them. .n investigation has found >

throughout this discussion, members of the committee have a quoted the statement in the task force that says that the task force concludes that a sequence of events, like the fukushima accident, is not likely to occur in the united states. what we have not heard is the parent before that. the paragraph before that says, "this regulatory approach established and supplemented piece by piece over the decades has addressed many safety concerns and issues using the best information and techniques available at the time. the result is a patchwork of regulatory requirements and other safety initiatives, all important, but not all given and equivalent consideration by licensees or during