On the recordMay 24, 2016
I thank the gentleman. We have a lot of merchant nuclear plants that are now starting to get decommissioned. The first one that got decommissioned was in Vernon, Vermont. We have now got Pilgrim. The communities there face enormous challenges. One, we lose a lot of good jobs. Number two, there is the question: How do you get that asset back in production? That is where the local community, like select boards, citizen groups, are enormously concerned, and rightly so. It is their community, and they want to get it back operational. The purpose of this amendment is to try to get the NRC the resources it needs and, also, the process it needs for citizen community involvement to be accepted. They are in a new era. Generally, the NRC has been about regulating the safety of the plant. Now we are moving into the era where they have to deal with the decommissioning of the plant. Safety issues continue to be of paramount concern, but economic vitality in the future is an urgent concern. Our goal here is to make certain that those folks who are in the community and their elected representatives have the capacity for significant input. {time} 2130 We are very pleased that the NRC is starting a rulemaking process to try to open it up a bit. We want to encourage them to do so. This legislation is a big step towards that.
