senator lautenberg. >> thank you, madame chair, and members of the nrc. i think you do a very good job. i will start off with that, but then i will get more critical. crisisapan's nuclear began unfolding, americans have wondered could it happen here? the nrc's taskforce study the situation closely and determined that our nuclear facilities posed no imminent threat to the american people, and while this is reassuring news, our work is just beginning. the nrc's taskforce issued 12 recommendations to strengthen nuclear safety and insurer reactors remain safe, including long-term steps to improve emergency preparedness and protect facilities when earthquakes or other natural disasters happen. it is critically important for the nuclear regulatory committee to act on these recommendations quickly. the five commissioners who we will hear today are from all mom our country's most important guardians, -- are from a long that our country's most important guardians. a prompt -- prompt action is particularly important to the people of my state, new jersey, where four

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

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 co

the nrc is an independently created organization credit by congress. their charges to license a civilian use of products sourced by nuclear materials in order to protect public health and safety, promote the common defense and security, protect the environment. >> madam chair, i would think that it is still a legitimate question, whether a traffic cop should stop all traffic. that is one way to have safety. his supervisor may have asked him to be more creative to allow people to drive -- >> that is not really the right analogy. no analogy when know a you are talking about nuclear safety. >> we have had 30 traffic deaths the past year. we have not had one in nuclear plants. >> they said the same thing in japan until recently. in any event, let us move on. obviously, we have differences here, just like you have differences there. and i want to make this point. i made it to you before. as many differences as we have here, we are friends. we argue, we debate. i am just sensing with you may be there needs to be all a little bit more friendship? speaking as

i don't look at it as simply the nrc staff looking at what the nrc staff has already said. i think it was nrc staff using the mechanism that is we have in place. public meetings, across table discussions in public venue, of course, to hear details about the reaction to the recommendations. it didn't get that back to the commission. that's really the normal, in large respect, what we do every day. >> okay. commissioner ostendorff. >> thank you. i respond and agree. i'll just make two points here in addition. one is when i asked the executive director for operations bill how we thought we should proceed, he supported his office and those who work for him, come back and give us an integrated list. that was a key lesson learned from the three mile island. the agency did not do that. i think we'll get more bang from the buck, implementing those that will make a real difference sooner by having them characterized less. second piece that not all of the recommendations are equal. and there's some that should be done right now, and some that require more information. >> all right. t

the nrc should. to quickly implement the safety recommendations contained in the report or we're wasting taxpayer dollars and money. in addition, i believe more work should be done as part of the longer term review to address moving, spent fuel to have other issues that are not fully addressed. today i call on the commission to announce a plan of action for adopting the task force recommendations. and i am not alone in my call for action. a july 23rd "new york times" editorial stated if nuclear power is to have a future in this country, americans have to have confidence that regulators in the industry are learning the lessons of fukushima and taking all steps necessary to ensure safety. they went on to say this month's nrc near-term task force issued thoughtful and commonsense recommendation. the five commissioners should quickly adopt them. an editorial reported the nrc should use this review not merely to respond to a single event but to ensure that it is actively assessing low probability but high

>> respectfully, my proposal asked that the nrc staff come back and provide us with the implementation path on these recommendations. before i made a final decision, i wanted to be informed by the final input by the nrc. >> all i can say is if i'm the people of california and i am watching this, right now, i am not sure if i want that plant to operate. because it is very simple. we have power plants out there coming in to be licensed. i urged them not to move forward until they studied it. you seem to be on my side, but then you have to be -- hear from everyone else. i would submit to you this is common sense. you should have more belief in what you say. this is common sense. i am just saying we have oversight over the work you do. mr. chairman, i want to compliment you and i want to say to the commissioners who are ready and willing to act in a timeframe of 90 days, thank you. if we do not do that, we are not going to see people supporting nuclear power. i take an opposite view of my friends on the opposite side today. the more you convince people you are doing your job, the more they

nrc is an entity created by congress. it is to license the byproduct in order to protect public health and safety, promote the common defense and security and protect the environment. >> madam chair, i would think that it is a legitimate question whether a traffic cop should stop all the traffic. that is one way to have safety. his supervisor might ask and if he could not be more creative and let people drive. >> i do not think that is the right analogy. it is no analogy when you're dealing with nuclear energy. >> we have had a lot more traffic deaths. 38,000 every year. we have never had one with a nuclear reactor. >> us as a loss for the fact we have an independent agency protecting the health and safety. they said the same thing in japan until recently. let's move on. we have differences here just like your differences there. i want to make the point, and i want to make this point because i made it to you before. as many differences as we have here, we are friends. we differ, we argue, we debate. i am sensing with you

two of them were targeted towards nrc action. there is only six recommendations directed towards licensees in the short term. >> were those the ones that the commissioner mentioned? >> they were a subset. the ones that were missing or recommendations related to spent fulel pools. i think that is one that most people would agree is an action that we would want to address near-term. i do not think there is not many left when we take those particular issues that we cannot get all of this work done in 90 days. >> my time is expired. just real quickly. would you like to give some indication whether you are in agreement with the commissioner's half dozen? has he overstated the case? >> i would add quickly that i did not have any negative reaction to the task force recommendations. i agree they vary in complexity. my proposal was to hear from the nrc staff that would be irresponsible. i think the recommendations, when shade tree the programmatic offices, may come back slightly different -- when shaped through the programmatic offices. p

tell me in lay mans terms what are some of the recommendations, what should the nrc be looking at right to prevent this sort of thing from turning into a major catastrophe? >> well, the nuclear regulatory commission right now is in the process of approving a new ap 1000 reactor, which one of its own scientists, one of its own engineers says will actually shatter like a glass cup in the event of an earthquake. some of those plants are being planned to be build in earthquake-prone areas. in addition, the nuclear regulatory commission is extending the licenses of theses plants. as your report said, these plants were only meant to operate 20 years, 40 years. well the nuclear regulatory commission is now in the process of approving extension of the life of these plants out to 60 years even 15 to 20 years before they hit 40 years. so i just think that the nrc has turned into a lap dog and not a watchdog and i think that mother nature, once again, today gave us a warning that we should be humble and we should spend the extra money, take the extra time to make sure that a catastrophic nuclear m

the nrc is monitoring it.a here in mineral, there were two residential buildings that experienced complete collapse. no major injuries but we're getting an assessment of some of the damage right near the epicenter here, wolf. >> in mineral, a lot of our viewers will remember when you were in japan for that earthquake, the tsunami that followed the fukushima earthquake, that was destroyed not just by the earthquake but by the sun naum ma that devastated that nuclear power plant. theseth one the mineral s. it similar in design to the foouk reactor that caused so much destruction and damage in japan? >> wolf, i'm not sure what the similarities are just yet. with all of the nuclear power plants, you've got to take into an immediate consideration the spent fuel rods. of course, they have this on backup emergency pou we ever in order to cool those fuel rods down but that's the concern as it was at fukushima. the fuel rods melt down and then you have a real problem on your hands. you can have leakage and radioactive

it was intended to do, the computer shut it down when it sensed the earthquake and as you said, the nrc is examining all the functions of that to make sure everything is okay, there was no leakage of radiation whatsoever. as you mentioned, jon, there were ten other nuclear up and down the east coast, ten plants in four different states that also shut down, the nrc will have to examine that before they go back skwhraoeupb. very lucky a cold front has come through the east coast at this particular time because if it was a heat wave you'd have to wonder where you'd be getting the electricity from with all those plants down. one quick footnote, i suspect and i'll make a prediction, this is going to be a quiet kind of disaster. we just had a woman approach us who was complaining about the national media coverage, saying all the focus is on public institutions like all of this, she says go into any homes around here, my son's house shifted off its foundation, she lost her chimney. a lot of people have lost important antiques or mementos in their lives. i expect it's going to be a quiet tsunam

a new advisory from the nrc strongly discourages patients from going to any location other than a private residence. even so, doctors and patients do not have to follow it. in fact, a survey shows 14% of doctors actually recommend their patients stay in hotels! >> it's very troubling. it tells us that the doctors who really should know better are disregarding it. >> reporter: now, as for gretchen, ucsf specialists questioned her extensively about her home and family before they would even give her the radioactive drug. she sent her kids to stay with a friend for three days and she stayed in a bedroom upstairs until she knew it was safe to come out. a choice not taken by all. >> wise one. yeah. all right. kim, thank you. >>> not topping out with community service. >> i'm beginning to think that may have been, let's just pull the wool over her eyes kind of thing. >> the bay area judge who believes you do the crime, you pay the fine. how her hard-line approach on traffic offenses has a downside. >>> a missing rembrandt resurfaces. the odd place it turned up and how police believe it got ther

they won't be back up today because they need approval from the nrc and fema in washington.that's just paperwork. it is fine, they should be able to power become up as soon as they get approvals from the nrc and fema. we had no problems with salem or hope creek on the nuclear plant side. last thing, i've watched over the last 72 hours most of which i've spent here on the extraordinary work of the folks in government. you know, -- >> martha: governor christie thanking everybody. two people dead as a result of hurricane irene in new jersey. a lot of flooding and more to come. a lot of pictures coming in from new jersey. tough situation there. he says that the cost of irene could run into the billions. if not the tens of billions. we'll keep you posted from new jersey as we go state to state. >> bill: a lot of people think we dodged a bullet, perhaps we have. some of these big storms can be wind makers or rain makers. right now this is a rainmaker which will lead to significant flooding. think about isabel 2003, floyd in '99, katrina six years ago tomorrow, everybody thought we

we're getting word from david mcentire, the nrc spokesman.an tell you a bit of information in case you were concerned about that situation. they're apparently monitoring the situation. trying to get as much information as quickly as they can. we're talking about lake anna, off -- it's the closest plant to the epicenter in mineral, virginia. both units were tripped. they were shut down automatically. the plant lost off site power. all diesel generators are working. they've declared an unusual event which the nrc says is the lowest of the four emergency categories. just a precaution there. two reactors taken off line. what do you want to do here? take a quick break? all right. we'll take a quick break and be back with much more on this earthquake. you don't have facetime on your phone, which makes it this easy to talk face-to-face with another iphone. this easy to talk with a mac and this easy to talk with an ipad. facetime. just one more thing that makes an iphone an iphone. you've been stuck in the garage, while my sneezing and my itchy eyes

examples to look at, and i draw the contrast between kentucky and my own race where in kentucky we had the nrc and senator mitch mcconnell really campaigns against rand paul. you know, he was the worse thing to happen to politics until he won the primary. the day after he won the primary, the two, you know, mitch mcconnell and rand paul for arm-in-arm saying that's the past. we have to move forward to be sure this guy crosses the finish line. unfortunately, that didn't happen in delaware, but it's got to happen in order to win in 2012, so that's the message i hope people take away with them by reading this book. i tried to tell the story of how i got involved in politics, and what made me embrace the principles that i did and why i chose to become a republican, and i told it in a way that some political advisers have said was a little too honest, probably shouldn't have admitted some thing, but i did that again so that the reader can relate because it's not about how many mistakes we've made or if we've ever fallen because you simply can want pretend to be perfect. it's too exhausting to keep

there is an emergency there or any concern of an emergency, but they have declared or notified the nrc of unusual events, and so they go through a number of steps to insure that the plants are safe. but the north anna plant at lake anna, virginia, that plant has two reactors and came online in 1978 and both reactors have tripped and shutdown au automatically and the plant has recorded unusual event and now beginning the procedures to assess any, any concerns whatsoever. and while i have you on the line, several airport control towers were evacuated. and they include jfk in new york as well as newark airport on the new jersey side of newark as they inspect the towers for potential concerns, but the a airstrips themselves to make sure there is no serious cracks in the foundations at that point. that is what i can give you at this moment. >> that is a lot. our colleague john harwood said he was on the amtrak fast train, if you will, that stopped outside of baltimore while amtrak checks the soundness of the track. that is the information i'm receiving from john harwood, and also according

there appears to be no damage, although the nrc continues its investigation there.plants in four different states shut down as a result of the earthquake yesterday. back to you. >> steve: live in mineral, virginia. >> juliet: were you ever in an earthquake before? >> steve: yeah, i felt them before in california. >> brian: the thing is, i was in a building that had rollers on it at a tv station. that was interesting. there was no rollers here. you knew you were swaying. >> steve: that's a problem with a lot of the buildings here in new york and washington, d.c they weren't designed to withstand big earthquakes. >> brian: i was about to head downtown. i felt it and i started the e-mails coming through. do you remember the first one? we don't believe it was a terrorist attack. you saw it coming in from the capitol. we're evacuated. we think it was an earthquake. i was interviewing michael shirt-off for something we're doing in 9-11. i asked him, when stuff like this happens, why is it that we always think terror? >> unfortunately the legacy of 9-11 is when there is an

this is an area where the task force recommended an nrc requirements. our containment design has never been done as a formal regulatory requirements. we can monitor and make sure it is being used effectively. that is something specifically that we take action on. >> it would take years to fully understand what would take place there? it is hard to imagine, because of the specific event. we are not talking about the influence of the people in the area. the specific trigger is pretty much obvious. >> and they acknowledged that there are some things we do not yet know and need additional studies. they did believe we had sufficient information to take action on some things retina. >> you said in a 2008 speech that the nrc should develop a new regulations that require this to be moved to dry cask storage after certain the amounts of years. it did not advocate certain storage. it falls short of year 2008 problem. how can we be sure that the task force approach will ensure the safest form of storage? >> and knowing how much water is in the poll and how much to