Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act of 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the bill so that the NRC can continue to protect Americans from nuclear disasters under current law, rather than the bill's proposed system.

Today's bill, H.R. 367, in the name of so-called reform, adds over 60 new procedural and analytical hoops agencies and departments must go through before a regulation can be issued. The result is simply to impede, obstruct, and delay the attempt of government to accomplish one of it's most basic functions: protecting the health and welfare of its citizens.

Not surprisingly, groups who care about protecting public health, safety, and the environment, such as the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Public Citizens, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, oppose this bill. According, to the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, which represents a coalition of many such groups, this bill ``will grind to a halt the rulemaking process'' and ``is nothing less than an attempt to roll back our critical public safeguards and promote industry interests instead of protecting American citizens.''

Americans should rightfully be scared that this bill will put their health and safety at risk. One example that highlights this fact is the subject of this amendment--nuclear power.

The risks and dangers of nuclear power were made all the more real by the nuclear disaster in Japan at Fukushima 2 years ago. We all watched in horror when that country was devastated by the earthquake and resulting tsunami. That disaster then caused its own disaster--the meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. That led to the release of radioactive isotopes, the creation of a 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the power plant, and displacement of 156,000 people. Inside the evacuation zone all farming has been abandoned.

In 2011, Virginia itself was struck by a relatively rare but strong earthquake felt up and down the eastern seaboard. It caused a nuclear power plant near the epicenter to have to go offline. For me, this concern hits close to home. A nuclear power plant, Indian Point, about which many people, myself included, have had concerns for years, lies just less than 40 miles away from my New York City district on an earthquake fault. There are 20 million people living within a 50-mile radius around the plant, the same radius used by the NRC as the basis for the evacuation zone recommended after the Fukushima disaster. Indian Point also sits near two fault lines and, according to the NRC, is the most likely nuclear power plant in the country to experience core damage due to an earthquake.

To keep my constituents, and indeed all Americans, safe, I am offering this amendment today. Because of the catastrophes that can result in disasters--be they natural or manmade--at nuclear power plants, prevention of meltdowns is the key. Since Fukushima, the NRC has issued new rules designed to upgrade plants to withstand severe events like earthquakes and to have enough backup power so as to avoid a meltdown for a significant period of time.

The NRC must have the ability and flexibility to issue new regulations to safeguard the health and well-being of all Americans and to prevent nuclear disasters. However, this bill is intentionally designed so new and vital regulations will likely never be put into place. We cannot permit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to never be able to create new regulations ever again should the need arise.

Therefore, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment to exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the onerous new requirements for rulemaking imposed by this bill. In that way, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would continue to have the ability to safeguard public health and safety, as it should.

We should not risk the lives of millions and millions of people. If a danger becomes evident and the experts in charge of protecting against that--the Nuclear Regulatory Commission--deem some new protection necessary, this bill would prevent those protections from going into effect. So my amendment would exempt the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with respect to safety regulations for nuclear power plants.

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Mr. NADLER. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, under current law, Congress can disapprove any proposed rule and regulation under the Congressional Review Act. Under this bill, no regulation could go into effect until Congress affirmatively approved the regulation. If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were to approve some rule that reduces nuclear safety, Congress, under current law, could block that rule.

What this bill says, and what my amendment seeks to exempt the NRC from, is that no safety regulation can go into effect until Congress gets around to approving it. The Republican leadership took the appropriations bill for the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Departments off the floor yesterday allegedly because they have no time to consider it. We've passed all of 12 bills this year for the President's signature, and we would have hundreds or thousands of regulations by all the different agencies that we would have to consider. Most would never be approved simply because we would not have time to consider them.

All this amendment says is, for regulations regarding nuclear disasters, to prevent nuclear

disasters, let Congress veto them if necessary, but not kill them by not having the time to get to them.

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