Today's hearing continues our ongoing oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This oversight began by my predecessor, Senator Jim Inhofe in 1998, and is the fourth oversight hearing in the last four years.
Senator Inhofe deserves a lot of credit for helping to turn the regulatory process around at the NRC. Everyone I've met with this year credits his oversight hearings for the change to the risk-based regulations at the NRC and for focusing the NRC on processing Relicense Applications quickly.
These changes at the NRC has helped create new interest in nuclear energy, including the first discussions in years about building new nuclear facilities. It is my intention as Chairman to continue this strong oversight to ensure that nuclear energy remains a viable energy option and an important part of our national fuel mix.
Over the last 40 years, nuclear energy has proven to be a safe, reliable, and clean source of energy. It currently produces 20% of our electricity. Since 1973, nuclear energy has avoided over 62 million tons of sulfur dioxide, over 32 million tons of nitrogen, and over 2.6 billion tons of carbon which would have been released by fossil fuel plants producing the same amount of electricity.
While the U.S. is 20% dependent on nuclear energy, we are falling behind world-wide. France is 76% reliant on nuclear energy and Japan is approximately 50% reliant on nuclear energy.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration predicts that we will need about a 30% increase in electricity generation by 2015. Currently we are dependent on fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) and we will be for the conceivable future. Nuclear is and will be the next best alternative. Together solar and wind provide less than one-tenth of one percent of U.S. energy needs.
If we are serious about protecting our environment and providing safe, reliable, and affordable electricity to all Americans then we need to improve how we burn fossil fuels, promote efficiency, and increase the development of nuclear energy for today and foreseeable future. We also need to continue investing in renewables such as solar and wind to make them cost effect and feasible, not for today or tomorrow, but for use at some point in the future.
In order to continue to rely on nuclear energy and increase its use the NRC must accomplish the following:
1) Most important is public safety. Nuclear power has a great safety record, we must continue to improve upon it.
2) We must do something about the human capital crisis affecting the nuclear industry. At the NRC for every employee under the age of thirty, there are six employees over the age of sixty. The private industry and the nuclear navy are having similar problems.
3) The NRC must continue examining the Relicensing Process. The first two renewals occurred on schedule. The NRC must examine the procedures to make sure they can process multiple applications at the same time.
4) The NRC must continue to improve the regulatory certainty. Over the last few years the NRC has made progress in delivering certainty in the enforcement and regulatory area through the risk-based approach. This needs to continue.
5) The NRC must address how we can get more nuclear generation. Can existing facilities increase generation? What can the government do to encourage the building of new nuclear units?
6) How do we address the waste issue? The federal government has a legal and moral obligation to solve the waste issue as quickly as possible. Nuclear rate payers across the country have paid $15.8 billion in additional taxes to the U.S. government for the building of a High Level Waste Storage Facility. We must stop the politics on this issue and get it resolved.
I hope to examine these issues in today's hearing, but we will continue to examine these issues in the weeks and months to come. In addition to today's hearing we will have another hearing addressing nuclear radiation standards. This is an important issue as we discuss possible storage at Yucca Mountain, the decommissioning of facilities, and the potential contact people have with radiation sources.
I am a cosponsor of the Murkowski Energy Policy Bill, S. 388, and I am examining the nuclear provisions of that legislation. Since the Nuclear Regulatory Commission falls under the jurisdiction of this Subcommittee I will be introducing my own legislation to compliment Senator Murkowski's to encourage and expand the safe use of nuclear energy.
Our witnesses today include a broad spectrum of view points; the Chairman and Commissioners of the NRC, industry, public interest, the GAO, and a wall street analyst. I look forward to their testimony and working with my colleagues on these issues.