A significant threat to the infrastructure and Information Systems of u. S. Facilities. So i would like you to answer, do you support the quick adoption of the twoperson security rodeo staff recommended . The commission decided not to go forward with that at this time. Why . It was a commission decision. Why . Was the vote . Im not sure. No recall what the vote was. Does anyone recall what the vote was not to go forward with this . That you remember. Madam chair, the specific issue was that the staff had not completed the costbenefit analysis to assess whether any of the twoperson room was appropriate corrective legislation we dont have an answer to what the vote less. I dont recall if. Does anybody five people, its done a lot of people, 32, 41 . Of voting against. And review the . Voted against. How did you vote . I believe i voted against. How did you vote . I dont recall. I completely this is a big and important issue. And this business of a costbenefit analysis when youre dealing with a potential terror attack and the takeover of a nuclear plan, you have got to be kidding. Let me say, you have never done a costbenefit analysis for the appearance checking in the past. And you found the cost was minimal, less than a million the year. Wood said the benefit of presenting someone from sterling major it to have Nuclear Weapon material would be priceless. I would suggest if you dont move to reverse yourself on this there will be legislation. Thank you a chance to my colleague. Question no, i think oftentimes in government in washington in particular we become very process oriented and lose the forest for the trees every son just going to suggest a question not to be answered here, but suggested question for all of us to think about. Senator sessions went through the last september into energy announced it would not move forward. They announced it would scale back work. No if any of us as individuals think most of all for unsafe or not save enough, thats a good result close to a pro wheel of those were safe. Its a little severe. Ours breaks, congress, though establishment. They dont lose sight of it. First of all, madam chair, at your confirmation hearing you stated your clearly, to be effective a regulatory body must be independent from Economic Policy and political interests. In the majority opinion, judge cavanagh stated that the commissions political prognostications may not prove to be correct regardless. In mayor may not rely of political guesswork about future congressional appropriations. Did not considered a close call. Why did it take you a Court Decision will to move forward without legal mandate. Why was the Political Part rustication about political this work about congressional appropriation not being independent from political interest to consideration. Those decisions are made. I was not trying to secondguess the decision that were made in the best. I can assure you that we are fully complying with the courts decision and we are moving forward continuing with the proceedings. Were moving for properly and this. Lets move to that. The commission has repeatedly and knowledge in this order that it does not have adequate resources. Issue a decision. Is that correct . For to fully complete the lessons in decision. Issue a decision pursuant to the review. That you propose a supplemental budget . We have not. Have you taken any other action to solve the problem . We are complying with the Court Decision. Let me ask you about existing resources. The few minutes ago, nrc staff has increased 34 since 2000. Meanwhile, the expected increase in workload is never materialized. Quite the opposite. A huge increase in staff note in terms of applications for licenses. Are you moving any of that staff to solve this resource problem . I have a little chart here. Its been its a story. It shows in actual dollars and custom dollars. If you look at the custom dollar chart which is in red is the lowest its been since 2007 to my belief. And in that timeframe since 2007 a workload has increased significantly. We have been dealing with it. We have been dealing with confidence. We have been dealing with fukushima. In addition to all the other worker doing, the new construction work, all the work. We are actually now doing more less. Well, there will be a lot of folks who disagree with you, and that goes back to my original statement. If you become completely process oriented, im sure youre dealing with more because he created that process. If you step back at think you come to the opposite conclusion. As you know, those resources were given to you to meet in the expected increase in license applications coming increase insights can increase in nuclear reactors. None of that and seven. In regulations have multiplied almost exponentially. But that fundamental growth of the industry as of happened that me as my question about people because you will agree that at least since 2000 there has been a huge increase in body. Since 2000, we hit our maximum a couple of years ago and we have decreased in size since 2010 we never of 30700 employees. Okay. Will not that long ago it was 2500. There has been a big increase over that time from. Are you moving in the of those folks to solve the year career resource . Absolutely. Absolutely. Moved recently from something else. I can assure you that we are currently about 80 staff cut for dealing with this safety evaluation report. So we are going to be ready to go. But again i was talking about following the whole process through. You said several times you dont have adequate resources. Of talking about the broader challenge to a have to you propose to solve that . The budget appropriations has been settled. We are in a reasonable position going forward. Ellen s. My colleagues. Cook seeking congressional reprogramming. Activities used must be appropriated. They have to receive a congressionally program. A commission decision, something will have to decide as a body. I you considering making the request . We will when it comes up in the future. The office, the new reactors. Smooth the number of his personnel of the last two years because of the drawback and licensing. The action items the appropriate fiscally prudent use of these resources. Well, i hope you can understand my general concern, which is it took a court order to have the nrc follow they cleared a legal mandate. And even as that is happening their statements. We dont have decisions to follow through and get everything done. The review and decision. And so what will we start thinking about how we solve that problem. I dont hear any requests for reprogramming, any Significant Movement of individuals, even though there has been a major increase over a decade. Any proposal to allow in the. So can you all discuss how we solve that problem overtime and present to us in congress and everyone appropriate your plan for solving that problem, not just identifying the problem, not just pointing to the problem. Thank you. Thats all i have. I do a fair amount of travel and im chairman of the Homeland Security and i need to spend more do more travel. I need to do a better job this year now i had the first year of the chairmanship behind me. But i travel a lot. Some of you travel the chairman doesnt travel that much. She hasnt been on the commission as lock. Some of you travel a lot to japan. Thats understandable. Most of you travel to places where its less clear. I ask in term of taxpayer paying for your travel, where are you my understanding is that, eh, come not from taxpayer dollars but fees collected from the utility. Can you give me the break down. 90 10. 90 . I go to justified places. Its hard to criticize you. Explain why it is important and why you think i always like to think one trip i take is front page of the niewp and i have to defend it. Take that approach to it. And make sure that you use the good common sense. I want to turn to sandy. Sandy visited my state and our region of the country did a lot of damage. I think if it is real, i think it is were going it see more sandy in the future. Certainly we were actually very impressed with our licensees response to sandy. They were on the alert. They were all prepared. We were prepared. We had extra inspectors at the facilities ready and watching. So we were all ready to manage. The plants managed very well. The only plant that any kind of incident during that time it didnt achght the plant. Others. What are some thing you learned from sandy acting on now. We could have done better not just within the nrc but the planet themselves and the state and local government. Thank you for the question. We had the Commission Meeting earlier this month. We had one in public. We had our supervisor there. I think the licensing learned some things. We learned some things. The two comments i have regional coordination and the licensing and communicate with fema. On sight there was areas identified to enhance the procedure. Anything the nrc is doing to better ensure that our plants in the Community Around them are better prepared for storms like this in the future . Well, were certainly he asked our plants to reevaluate the flooding hazard at the plant. We are getting their flood hazard reevaluations in. We got a big trunch in last year. Were expecting another this year. To keep up with the potential for increases in flood hazard from Climate Change or what have you. We are on top of that and analyzing other aspects of whether and Natural Disaster events as we work through the fukushima tier iii dfts. Okay. How are they doing in the recovery . Somebody give us how are they doing in the recovery from their terrible disasters they were visited by . How are we doing . No. How are we doing. At fiewksha ma . Yeah theyre a sister state to us. Its a difficult situation. Its an unprecedented celebration. They are so make it up as they go. Its a constant issue of radiation leakage in to groundwater. They have a lot of water issues there. And theyre working very hard to minimize it. They lorelly, i think, are working around the clock. So, you know, but new problems will crop up and as commissioner noted. We are learning more all the time now about the accident or what happened. I appreciate the question from you, senator. There are some important programs to begin relocating from the fuel. Thats an important milestone that people in japan are watching closely. I think the biggest challenge say that have in japan, frankly, is to continue set schism the public has about the ability of the government and the regulators to speak clearly to requirements and making decisions. And they have the doubts. I think this will be a challenge for our colleagues. As they try to make good decisions. I think they are doing a good job. Its very high. Okay. Sticking with fukushima for another minute or so. In response to the fukushima event the commission continues to long list of Lessons Learned from the accident. Thats good. The nrc has several deadlines to meet in the next couple of years. I believe to meet the timeline established in march of 2012. Are there any lessons or issues that have been a lot more difficult than you might have expected. And so what have they been . Issues that have made achieving the activity . Issues more difficult to address than expected. I would say at this moment not districtly, no. We are learning as we go and shifting around a little bit as we go. We issued an order, for example, on hard to make them more more secure. Last year the commission revisited this issue and said, you know, we need make sure the vents are hardin them as possible open them in a scenario. They have to be able to withstand the conditions of an accident. The it temperature, pressure. Intense condition. We revised the order and reissued it. So these vents will be capable of being operated under those conditions as well. So were doing that as we go along. Chairman, it was last september along with senator sessions and barbara sew. We sent a letter encouraging them to streamline the lining process. Since we sent the letter we understand they implemented a new expedited process for approving it which designs. I was wondering for you might elaborate for us on that process. I have some foodback you received from the industry. How are we doing here . There are no complaint from the industry. I think we are doing fine as far as i know. Anybody else want to respond . No. All right. Can you give us an update . Yes. As i said, we have finished our Public Comment period of getting Public Comment on the way Environmental Impact statement. Were now in the process of going through those and addressing them and we will be about right now the estimate is one month over time. Well be done by the beginning of october. Our colleague the governor had on about the appropriate state and local government. We have a clear interest in the commission around the facility around our country including vermont. Theres clearly an interest. I would have it as welt. And the use of common sense to make possible state and local government to have and well followup senator sessions and follow up with you for further discussions. Thank you. I was have to confess i was hypoing that senator sessions would make it back because i always do so much better when i ask my questions after senator sanders ask his question. Youll find out in a minute. I let me ask this also. I really think, ive been here for quite quite awhile. I was the chairman of the committee a long time ago. I think we have an excellent commission. I appreciate your service. Its well balanced. I notice that youre going to be the next one that would be coming up for renomination. I hope you could continue on inclined to do so. I would appreciate your service to continue. In my opening statement, im going repeat something i said there. Its following up a little bit on what senator vitter was talking about. Maybe in a different way. I said that i remember so well. At that time i theired the committee. It was 2003. That the nrc asked congress for the bigger tbowngt build New Buildings and all the employees. By the way, i have some specific numbers. I have to say you werent here at the time. Youre off the hook partially. But they wanted to do this so they could add expected design certifications for new reactor designs and 17 of the thats not the normal we talk about. The construction and operating license. That was 4 and 17. That was actually at that time in discussing this. We were looking i went back and checked our note. E with would have to anticipate having the increase workload in three to five years. Its been a long time. And now ten years later, we only have approved one design certification. Its gone from one an expectations the design certification of 17 down one and two. Now i say this. I would like to get a response from each member maybe start with since you werent here. Tell me how it can happen. Why did it happen . I would note, senator, some statistics i found very quickly here that nrc does have under review right now three design certifications. And chairman is helping me out. I talk about underreview. We said at that time we would have those by three to five years. Not reviewing them ten years later. Some member of the committee noted in the opening statement. Some of the larger economic circumstances for the utilities that were interested in building these new reactors have changed somewhat significantly descrult some have suspended or withdrawn their application. Some have he creased the pace at which they are supporting the review of their application. By which i mean they generate questions. They indicated theyre content with a lower pace to our review. Some have become protracted for that reason. Because of timing. I come back and ask the same question of the other three. I want to get out thing in here. The nrc Near Term Task force in two japanese report determine that the disaster one we call made in japan. In other words, the cultural differences and the gaps that are out there. It would seem we need to have that determined. We talked about this way back in 2011 when it happened. We said there are difference here. There are cultural differences here. I would ask chairman has the nrc conducted a thorough gap analysis between the japanese and the united system and regulation to compare and contrast the complete picture compare u. S. And japanese nolgd more closely and wisely costeffectively suggest policy changes. Have we made that . We did a comparative study. But it wasnt comprehensive. We did no. In part because its to get in to the weeds of comparing the u. S. And japanese we have to translate all regulations to fullly understand the differences. Let me jump to the conclusion of the study we did. We found some similarities. And we found some differences. But the bottom line was there was no evidence that a fukushima type accident would have been completely avoided in the u. S. What ive learned from the fantastic staff at the nrc is that one of the most important things for regulator is operating experience. And the operating experience we have gained during the fukushima accident is significant. We did not prior to the fukushima accident expect or analyze for more than one retack or it at the sight to have an accident. That was not planned for. We had not prepared properly for extended longterm station blackout. No electricity. No backup sources. Were now addressing that. And do you know what . Every country with significant Nuclear Program around the world came to the same conclusion. They are doing the same. What i would like to have is the copy of the report you have. Certainly. Not as complete as we would probably want. I want to compare the note we took three years ago. On the change, for example. You have to go get permission and advance to do things we are through the nrc empower those people on the sight to do. And there are so many changes like that. I would like to ask, well, qap contain. Would you think its important for us to have the benefit of the complete report even more complete than the one we have right now . Senator, i appreciate the question. I agree with his response. I know, its been some discussion over the last couple of years. The committee. I think we have thoughtfully taken aboard the fukushima Lessons Learned including scope of japanese regulations in place at the time for those areas important. Okay. Well. We like to have the benefit of everything. While we talk about getting reports, miami chairman. Ive been watching closely to see do you have a date we would have the report . I think its about a year from january. But i need get back to you on that. Let me take it for the record. For the record, i would like to have you give