Nuclear industry calls for stakeholder review of task force's report

The nuclear industry said Wednesday that key stakeholders should have the opportunity to “vet” a federal report recommending a series of sweeping new regulations at the country’s nuclear power plants.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry’s trade group, applauded the release of the task force’s 90-day review of the country’s reactors. NEI called the report a “first step” in a broader review of Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

But, on a conference call with reporters Wednesday, NEI Senior Vice President Anthony Pietrangelo called for “greater stakeholder engagement” as well as a thorough review by the NRC commissioners.

“I think the entire report should be vetted not only with the commission but a broader spectrum of stakeholders across the board,” Pietrangelo said, adding that many of the recommendations include in the report “greatly overlap” with those being considered by the nuclear industry.

In an interview with The Hill this week, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko called on the commission to quickly begin reviewing the task force’s report. He said he wants the commission to make decisions on all of the report’s recommendations within three months (read more from the The Hill’s interview later this week).

In a statement on the report Wednesday, NEI faulted the task force’s report for neglecting to cite data and information from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster to support its recommendations.

“Given the mammoth challenge it faced in gathering and evaluating the still-incomplete information from Japan, the agency should seek broader engagement with stakeholders on the task force report to ensure that its decisions are informed by the best information possible,” Pietrangelo said in the statement.

The task force's report, which was officially released Wednesday, recommends that the NRC impose new rules aimed at ensuring that nuclear power plants can respond to major emergencies and prevent catastrophe in the event that a reactor loses power for an extended period of time.

President Obama formed the task force in the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, when some Democrats raised concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear reactors to major natural disasters.

Now that the 90-day report has been completed, the task force will conduct a second, six-month review of the U.S. reactor safety.