ML23240A528
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| Issue date: | 03/15/2023 |
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1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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35TH REGULATORY INFORMATION CONFERENCE (RIC)
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COMMISSIONER CAPUTO PLENARY
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WEDNESDAY,
MARCH 15, 2023
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The Plenary Session convened at the
Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center,
located at 5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda,
Maryland and via Video Teleconference, at 8:30 a.m.
EDT, The Honorable Annie Caputo, Commissioner, NRC,
presiding.
PRESENT:
ANNIE CAPUTO, Commissioner, NRC
RAY FURSTENAU, Director, Office Nuclear Regulatory
Research, NRC
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
8:30 a.m.
MR. FURSTENAU: Welcome back to the
second day of our 2023 RIC. I hope everybody had a
great day yesterday and a nice evening.
This morning we have plenary sessions
with remarks by Commissioner Annie Caputo and
Commissioner Bradley Crowell and our Executive
Director, Dan Dorman. Then after that, we'll
complete the morning with the fireside chat from our
NRC Chair, Christopher Hanson, and Director General
of the Nuclear Energy Agency, Bill Magwood.
I want to mention for those folks here
in person for the Q&As, please use the QR code.
It's real easy to use and it gets you right to the
question and answer session and those online, when
you sign into the session, there'll be a tab for
Qs&As.
With that, it's my honor and pleasure to
introduce our first plenary speaker, the Honorable
Annie Caputo. She was sworn in as a Commissioner of
the US NRC in August of 2022 and is currently
serving the remainder of her five-year term ending
in June of 2026. As many of you know, Commissioner
Caputo previously served at the NRC from 2018 to
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2021. Most recently, she worked as a consultant for
the Idaho National Laboratory related to
international collaboration on advanced nuclear
reactors. Prior to her work at INL, she served as a
professional staff member on the US Senate Arms
Services Committee assisting with issues related to
the National Nuclear Security Administration's
infrastructure. She also served as the senior
policy advisor for Chairman John Barrasso on the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Commissioner Caputo held the same
position for then Chairman James Inhofe from 2007 to
2012 and from 2005 to 2006 and 2012 to 2015,
Commissioner Caputo worked for the House Committee
on energy and commerce, handling nuclear issues.
Prior to her positions on Capitol Hill, she worked
for Exelon Corporation. She's a graduate from the
University of Wisconsin - Madison and she holds a
Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering.
With that, let's all welcome
Commissioner Caputo and I didn't take your notes.
(Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you, Ray,
for that introduction. Go Badgers. Let's just you
know get started. Thank you and good morning to
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everyone here. It's wonderful to be live and in
person. Welcome to day two of the RIC.
I want to take a moment to recognize and
thank all of the countless NRC staff who have made
this event possible and are working very hard to
make it a success. Thank you for being here and for
all that you do.
I also want to welcome so many people.
This event is so well attended with international
colleagues, academia, federal and local governments,
non-governmental organizations, members of the
public and everyone both online and in person.
Thank you for joining us.
I also want to make a specific welcome
to NEA Director Bill Magwood for joining us and for
former Chairman Dick Mes-erve and Stephen Burns,
former Commissioners Apostolakis and Ostendorff.
You've all been mentors to me for a very long time
and I appreciate all of the wisdom you've shared
over the years.
Like my fellow commissioners, I want to
give one more thank you. I am blessed with a staff
of highly talented, high performers, who I would
just be lost without them. A special thanks to
Nicole, Heather, Eric, Marilyn, Bob and Julie, you
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rock!
The theme of this year's RIC is
Navigating the Nuclear Future and who better to talk
about the future than Daniel Yergin, the famous
author and energy expert. In his recent book, The
New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations,
Yergin lays out the case for how climate change
policy is changing our future through the reshaping
of geopolitics, global economics and global energy
supply. He describes how different kinds of power
are in play. "One is the power of nations that is
shaped by economics, military capabilities and
geography; by grand strategy and calculated
ambition, by suspicion and fear; and by the
contingent and unexpected." This statement is
particularly prescient given that the book was
published shortly before Russia's malicious invasion
of Ukraine. I want to associate myself with
remarks made by Director General Grossi and Chairman
Hanson on this situation yesterday. To our
Ukrainian colleagues, you have my heartfelt
admiration for your continued dedication given the
challenge of ensuring nuclear safety in a war zone.
Dan Yergin also refers to other kinds of
power, more specifically, "the power that comes from
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oil and gas and coal, from wind and solar and from
splitting atoms, and the power that comes from
policies that seek to re-order the world's energy
system and move toward net zero carbon in the name
of climate." Here in the US, we are seeing the
challenges of this net zero transition.
The PJM Interconnection, one of the
nation's largest grid operators, is growing
concerned about resource adequacy. PJM estimates
the retirement of 40,000 megawatts of electricity
generation, 21 percent of its total generation by
2030. Over half of the projected retirements are
considered policy driven. In contrast, PJM
estimates 15 to 30,000 of renewables and battery
storage may be added to the grid by 2030. All of
this comes at a time when policies are driving the
increase electrification of buildings,
transportation and industry. Calvin Butler, the new
CEO of Exelon, recently indicated that the
electrification of buildings in Baltimore would
double the electrical load. Consider for a moment
the impact of all of these policy dynamics across
the country.
Economic growth and growth in
electricity demand have historically been
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correlated. This correlation will become more
intense with increased electrification. This means
that economic wellbeing and efforts to eliminate
energy poverty around the world will be ever more
reliant on adequate supplies of clean, affordable
and reliable electricity. Hence, there is a growing
expectation that any success in mitigating climate
change and meeting future energy needs here and
around the world must include robust deployment of
safe and clean nuclear energy. While the completion
of Vogtle Units 3 and 4 will be a very significant
accomplishment, those units represent one small step
toward a net zero objective.
Here in the US, we at the NRC are
gatekeepers to that future. The primacy of our
mission to protect publish health and safety and
security and the environment is indisputable, but if
the global vision of success includes a robust
nuclear deployment, what does success look like for
us as a regulator? The posture with which we
approach our mission will have a distinct impact on
how nuclear energy will make a growing contribution
to our energy needs and that bears repeating. The
posture with which we approach our mission will have
a distinct impact on whether nuclear energy will
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make a growing contribution.
Years ago, we at the NRC embarked on a
transformation effort. The executive director set
our objective to be a modern, risk-informed
regulator. Similarly, the Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation embraced the motto, we make the safe use
of nuclear technology possible. What this
transformation effort and NRR's motto rightly
suggest is that as a regulator, our posture should
be finding solutions rather than raising obstacles.
For us to become successful as an
agency, I believe we need to become that moderate
risk-informed regulator who makes the safe use of
nuclear energy possible. I'm going to share with
you today what I think our success would look like
and there's no better time than the present to make
it happen. There's also no better time than the
present to innovate.
Once upon a time, space was the sole
domain of governments, now NASA astronauts ride to
the International Space Station on commercial
vehicles. Advances in artificial intelligence now
raise the question did I write this speech or did
ChatGPT? Innovation in nuclear technology is well
underway in both fission and fusion and we at the
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NRC consistently say we will be ready to review
applications we receive and we are, using our
established regulations, procedures, practices and
precedents. But by its very nature, innovation must
depart from precedent so the question is can we
innovate how we regulate? Congress has directed us
to develop a technology neutral, risk-informed,
performance based framework for advanced reactors.
Can we innovate where and when it counts?
This nuclear regulatory framework for
advanced reactors, Part 53, is now before the
Commission. Significant work remains to develop the
framework Congress envisioned. A framework that is
truly risk-informed reflecting the inherent safety
found in advanced designs and one that is efficient,
enabling timely reviews to allow safe nuclear energy
deployment on a scale warranted by our national and
global energy needs.
I am rolling up my sleeves to work with
my colleagues and shape a simpler, risk-informed,
innovative rule that will be the foundation for
predictable and timely safety reviews merited by
these advanced designs. This will require
considerable work on the part of the Commission, our
staff, but it is important that we focus our
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collective efforts to meet Congress' intent with a
sense of urgency. The challenge is how efficiently
can we enable these advanced technologies while
preserving safety.
There is also no better time than the
present for data driven, risk-informed decision
making. Our clarity principle of regulations states
that regulations should be coherent, logical and
practical and that agency position should be readily
understood and applied. To me, data driven decision
making is foundational to these principles.
Processes and outcomes should be objective, reliable
and reproducible. They should also be transparent.
External stakeholders should be able to review our
work and understand how we reached our conclusion.
What do we mean by risk-informed?
Fundamentally, it means regulatory activities should
be consistent with a degree of risk reduction they
achieve, once again, as stated in our principles of
good regulation. Many of today's operating reactors
were licensed in the '60s and '70s, at a time when
technology was young and operating experience was
limited. Toleration of risk and uncertainty was
unavoidable in the early development of nuclear
energy. Now, just in the US, we have nearly 4,000
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years, reactor years of operating experience. A
couple of years ago the Nuclear Energy Institute
produced a report detailing how the industry had
dramatically improved its safety over the past 20
years according to each and every NRC and in-post
safety performance indicator. With that experience
and safety improvement comes a highly refined
understanding of the technology and a wealth of risk
information. Have we put this wealth of information
and experience to good use to refine our
understanding of what is necessary for adequate
protection or as a regulator, do we instead seek
further precision? The desire for further precision
can lend itself to an insatiable appetite for
information and an ever shrinking tolerance of risk
and uncertainty.
With the combination of state of the art
probabilistic risk assessment and the computer
modeling and simulation tools available today, we
can debate the likelihood of an event happening once
in 10 billion years, billion with a B. How do we
balance the constant desire to know more with the
threshold of knowing enough? Is our ability to
model risk that small driving the pursuit of
absolute safety rather than adequate safety? Is it
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hindering our ability to accept some level of risk
and reach decisions? In the case of digital
instrumentation and control, the answer is clearly
yes. Thirty years ago, nuclear submarines went to
sea and commercial aircraft took off with digital
instrumentation and control. Yet, we still wrestle
with the issue.
We have processes in place that can
guide us to the extent that we follow them. Our
backfit rule is decision-making process that begins
with risk information before imposing a backfit and
requiring revisions, revising our requirements for
existing licensees, the agency must first determine
through a systematic analysis whether that change
will be a substantial increase in public safety and
that the change is cost justified. In this way,
risk information forms the basis for determining
whether the safety or security increase is, in fact,
beneficial.
Similarly, the regulatory analysis that
underpins our rule making proposals must also use
risk information to determine that each element of
the proposal is safety beneficial on its own.
Regulatory analysis shouldn't be an afterthought,
it should be a tool that helps us discern between
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proposals that merely sound good and those that are,
in fact, safety beneficial and cost effective. Our
ability to use effective risk information in these
processes rests on our commitment to data driven
decision making. We need to gather and utilize the
right data to make risk-informed decisions, but it's
not enough to simply gather the data, we need to use
it objectively. As our principles state: final
decisions must be based on objective, unbiased
assessments of all information.
If we become successful in making data
driven, risk-informed decisions, what would that
look like? If our regulatory activities were truly
consistent with the risk reduction they achieve,
what outcomes would we expect to see? For operating
reactors, I expect we would see a focus on
inspections and licensing reviews that are focused
on safety significance. That we would be using
risk-informed decision tools, like the risk-informed
process for evaluation and the Very Low Safety
Significance Resolution process to resolve things
that aren't safety significant. That we would
constantly, consistently adhere to the backfit rule.
We would produce complete, high quality regulatory
analyses. That we would be enabling widespread
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implementation of digital instrumentation & control
and that we would be executing predictable,
efficient 50.69 reviews to risk inform the
categorization and treatment of structures, systems,
and components.
With regard to advanced reactors, we
mustnt let the pursuit of absolute safety paralyze
our ability to reach decisions. Rather, we should
continue to pursue our statutory mandate of adequate
protection. It is difficult to justify regulating
safety to a level below that of an asteroid
destroying global civilization, a risk of 1 in 2.3
million years. We must innovate how we regulate
safety and find ways to risk inform our approaches,
recognize inherent safety features and exhibit
results driven leadership.
There is also no better time than the
present to improve our financial stewardship. Our
principles of good regulation state that the
American taxpayer, the rate paying consumer, and
licensees are all entitled to the best possible
management and administration of our regulatory
activities. My longstanding view is that the
agency needs to improve its financial management and
stewardship of its resources.
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The budget is the largest policy
instrument for the agency. It sets forth priorities
and it allocates resources. It should align with
our strategic plan. It should be performance based
and it should accurately depict our mission needs.
I'm not going to tell you anything that isn't
publicly available, but at the end of fiscal year
'22, the agency had a carryover of 92 million
dollars. This means the agency collected roughly 58
million dollars from licensees and 34 million
dollars from taxpayers that it did not need to
fulfill its mission last year. This, and a 906
million dollar budget, resulted in an excess of 10
percent due to inaccurate budget projections, yet
instead of adjusting the budget request down to
account for it, the 2024 budget request was
increased up to over a billion dollars.
The difference between what the agency
actually needed in '22 and the 2024 budget request
is 192 million dollars. This is difficult to square
with a drop in our workload. All the inspections
and licensing reviews are billed by the hour to our
licensees and applicants. This work is down 46
percent from 2016. In 2023, this work will require
roughly 419 FTE out of our 2,777 employees. That
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accounts for roughly 15 percent of our personnel and
only 21 percent of our budget. You can nearly
double this year's workload and still fit within
that 2024 budget request.
The agency will spend 46 percent more on
corporate support activities than on inspection and
licensing work. Compared to the 419 FTE doing
licensing and inspection, 579 will be doing
corporate support functions. We need to get back to
basics with a focus on actual expenditures to inform
budget development with a measure of detail
commensurate enough to make truly informed
decisions, but in my time on the Commission, we have
yet to effect these changes. We need to take a hard
look at necessary activities and services that
support the core mission of the agency and use data
driven decision making to reach effective outcomes.
So far, the agency's transformation efforts have
seemed to achieve the opposite of what was expected.
We are spending more to do less work.
In short, our workload has shrunk. We
are collecting significantly more revenue than we
need and our budget is growing. This is not what I
consider good stewardship. There is no better time
than the present to get our fiscal house in order.
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There's one last subject I'd like to
address today and that is the challenges facing
women in the workplace. There is no better time
than the present to empower women. As you're all
aware, March is Women's History Month. This year,
for me personally, it's different. I'd like to
share with you some personal experiences as a woman
in the nuclear field to illustrate why that is.
These experiences have caused me to
reflect on inclusion in the workplace, particularly
because some of my observations may feel strikingly
similar to other folks in the nuclear field. Some
of what I will say today I have shared with NRC
staff in a couple of venues. I particularly want to
recognize Region Two since they shared my first step
on this journey.
When I graduated and started working in
the nuclear field, I often felt like I was treated
as a young girl fresh out of college who doesn't
know anything. I shrugged it off because they had a
point. I was fresh out of school and I had a lot to
learn, but I figured it wouldn't always be the case
as I gained experience and knowledge. So, I plowed
forward with my career goals, choosing to ignore
that treatment and not let it stand in my way.
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Besides, the work environment was getting better for
women all the time, so this dynamic would wane over
time, right? Shortly after I was confirmed for my
second term, I found myself getting, for lack of a
better term, nukesplained. Someone with
significantly less technical and policy experience
talked to me as if I was clueless about an issue I
had monitored and studied for years. It was
frustrating and it was demeaning, but I let it go
and redirected the conversation to a different
topic.
Later that night, I reflected on the
experience. I was frustrated and I thought if this
is still happening to me at this stage in my career,
how many other women are also struggling. Not long
after this experience, I ran into Rumina Velshi, who
is an absolute inspiration, particularly on these
issues, but on so many others in our field. I
couldn't wait to share my story. She listened,
commiserated and then asked, so what did you do
about it? I was struck, wow, what a wakeup call.
What had I done about it? Nothing. The same
approach I had taken for my entire career. I
ignored it and plowed forward. I tolerated it.
What I now recognize is it's incumbent
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upon me at this point in my career to wrestle with
these issues and do what I can to impart change for
the better. Women have faced these issues as long
as they have been in the workplace and currently
things are a lot better than they were years ago and
certainly better than what our mothers faced, but
there's a saying, it's not enough to climb up the
mountain, you should reach behind and give someone
else a hand up.
Director General Grossi and Secretary
Granholm have both focused on the need to recruit
and retain women in nuclear and that's important. I
think the recent reports from the Nuclear Energy
Agency, Gender Balance in the Nuclear Sector, is an
important effort to gather data on the challenges
women face.
I think Director General Magwood has
really been a role model in trying to bring
attention to this issue and encourage women to
pursue careers in nuclear, but I think he goes
beyond that. This is where I'm going to insert a
strong caveat, I think my struggles have been a
fraction of what some women have faced, so what I'm
about to say is in no way intended to trivialize the
women out there who faced much tougher situations
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than I have, but these dynamics twice in my career
have influenced my decision to actually leave a
position. Once as my sole reason and the other as a
strong contributing factor. The fact that women
struggle in the work environment and they can choose
to leave as a result of that should be a reason for
all of us to focus on making our workplace more
inclusive. Among the strongest drivers of job
satisfaction were for people to feel appreciated and
I believe the extent to which people feel
appreciated is strongly influenced by how inclusive
we are.
I'm going to share two stories that
illustrate this. A recent one where I played a role
and one that happened to me many, many years ago. A
few months ago, I was in a meeting with about 15
people, three of them women. We had a PowerPoint
presentation over lunch and we were engaged in a
discussion. A woman across the table from me
started to speak up. She was interrupted. I
noticed it. I looked at her, she looked at me
expressionless. She waited a few moments for
another opportunity to jump into the conversation.
She tried to jump in and was cut off again. She
gave me a little knowing smile and I gave her a
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little knowing smile back.
I thought to myself okay, fine, I'll
barge into this conversation. I'm going to
interject and give her an opening. She deserves to
be heard and I want to hear what she has to say.
So, I tried to speak up and I was cut off. I gave
her a surprised look. She gave me a surprised look.
So, I waited a minute and I jumped in a little more
forcefully and I asked for her input. She had a
wonderful, insightful contribution to the
discussion. What stuck with me though was the level
of effort it took to elicit that contribution.
Women face these situations every day
and every situation is fraught with a judgment call.
Should I speak up? If a woman asserts herself, she
risks being labeled as bossy or aggressive or does
she choose to play it safe, withdraw and sit
quietly. It's so easy to focus on the substance of
the meeting and get lost in our own thoughts and
miss a moment like that one. In many cases it isn't
intentional and others in the room would be
mortified if they realized what that outcome was.
These moments can be subtle and fleeting, but when
we miss them, there is an equally subtle message
that her voice isn't worth hearing. This is a very
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subtle and crucial aspect of inclusion. How hard is
it for anyone, not just women, to contribute and be
heard?
Now I'm going to dive way back in my
past to a time when I was a volunteer firefighter
and emergency medical technician. Obviously, this
is a work environment where physical strength
matters and as a young woman, I was fairly self-
conscious about my physical strength and I wasn't
alone. One of the other women on the department and
I committed that we were going to lift weights
together at the station and build our strength.
One evening when we were working out,
one of the fellow firefighters came over to us with
an air of contempt. It was palpable instantly. He
stated in no uncertain terms he would never go into
a burning building with either one of us because if
something went wrong, neither of us would be able to
carry him out. In his opinion, we shouldn't even be
on the department. It was like a shot to solar
plexus. I couldn't breathe. I felt devastated.
Not 10 seconds later, our lieutenant in
charge of fire training, Scott, came around the
corner having heard everything. He looked us each
in the eye and told us to forget everything we had
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just heard. He told us that he would go into a
burning building with either one of us because he
trusted our judgment and our dedication. He knew
that most importantly, we would maintain situational
awareness and keep our partners and ourselves out of
dangerous situation and if the worst should happen
and our partner went down, he knew that no matter
what we would stop at nothing to get them out. It
wouldn't be a glamorous fireman's carry like in the
movies, but dragging a person out accomplishes the
same objective of getting them to safety and that is
what matters.
He was glad to see us in the weight room
and encouraged us to stick with it. He stressed
that everyone in the department has important
contributions to make. The strongest men aren't
necessarily the best in the back of an ambulance
with an injured child and a terrified parent. What
made us an important part of the team is that we
were all intent on finding ways to serve and help
those who needed us. That mindset together with our
judgment and dedication was why he wouldn't hesitate
to go inside a fire with either one of us.
I felt so valued. I felt empowered. I
was inspired and most of all, I was motivated.
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There was no challenge too big for me to tackle. I
was ready to face my fear and follow him into a
burning building because I knew that we were a team
and together we were unstoppable.
Stephen Covey has written about a
concept he calls the shadow of the leader. It means
that as a leader whether you realize it or not,
you're casting a shadow so be mindful of the
influence you exert, even when you are unaware.
This conversation took only a few minutes of Scott's
time and it took place over 30 years ago. He has
probably long since forgotten that conversation, but
you can tell the impact it had on me and how it
inspires me to this day.
Think of all the contrasts between these
two examples. One where women hesitate to speak up
in meetings and one where a woman would run into a
burning building. The difference is leadership.
Imagine for a moment if everyone felt as motivated
as I felt under Scott's leadership. Think of the
untapped potential that could be unleashed in a work
environment where women felt comfortable speaking up
and contributing.
True leadership inspires us to grow
beyond who we are and become something greater.
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Scott inspired me to grow beyond who I was and be
braver than I thought I could be. While I shared my
perspective as a woman, I have no intention to
ignore or dismiss the experiences of minorities or
gender diverse individuals, particularly because I
think some of these observations are probably
strikingly similar for them also.
This is an issue where we can all lean
in. Our workplace reflects how we as individuals
interact and treat each other. Our careers are the
sum of our experiences and interactions of those we
work with. Our coworkers help shape our work
environment and we shape theirs. So, the question
is, how do you want to shape it?
Megan Rapinoe, the professional soccer
player said, real change lies within all of us. It
is in the choices we make every day. I thought the
passage of time and my leaving footprints would make
the path easier for those who follow, but it isn't
enough, so I will find ways to step up my game, find
my voice and give a hand to others to help them up
the mountain. I recently had the pleasure of
inviting Mary Casto, a brilliant environmental
scientist new to the NRC team, to spend a day with
me in the office and my intent is for her to be the
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first in what I hope is a long line of proteges.
Encouraging women's engagement and helping them find
their voice is a choice that we can all make every
day and it's crucial to the future of the NRC and to
the nuclear industry at large. This is where
inclusion goes beyond principle and into practice
and there's no better time than the present. Thank
you.
MR. FURSTENAU: Thank you, Commissioner
Caputo. I've got to start with this. I started, as
I was monitoring questions, I've got to admit it, I
got a little bit overwhelmed because there were so
many great comments about what you were talking
about towards the end of your talk. I just wanted
to share some of those comments with you and the
audience before we get into the Q&A.
First, thank you for your bravery to
speak frankly about women's issues in the nuclear
field. Another comment, racial minorities have
expressed similar frustration with very similar
challenges. Thank you for addressing the common
struggles that we, as women engineers, face on a
daily basis and just, again, another comment, a
hearty thank you for sharing your experiences on
that.
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Okay, now we'll get to the --
COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Thank you to
everyone for the thank yous.
MR. FURSTENAU: A question related to
the topic, I think is coming from industry, what
actions or incentives do you feel we could implement
to entice the under-represented at mid career or, I
think, any level of career to come to the NRC?
COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Oh, to incentivize
them to join the NRC rather than industry?
MR. FURSTENAU: Yes. I threw that in,
that's my part of question.
COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: Okay, no that's
fine. That's fine. You know I really think that's
a better question for our NRAN cohort because they
made that decision. They're all quite talented and
bright and capable and they joined us instead of the
industry. I think a lot of times we are very self-
conscious about the fact that we can't necessarily
offer competitive salaries with industry, but what
we do offer is public service and a mission that
everyone can embrace with dedication and commitment.
I think that appeals to a lot of people. I think it
also appeals to the right kind of people.
For employees that are drawn to that
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mission, it's because they are dedicated and they
have a public service mindset and I think that that
level of commitment is exactly what we're looking
for. So, I think there's a certain amount of
natural affinity there.
MR. FURSTENAU: Okay, thank you.
Another one related to work force. What role do you
think the NRC should play in nuclear work force
development?
COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I think we need to
continue doing a lot of what we're doing. One of
the challenges that we face as an agency is
attrition. Over half of our work force is over 50.
Our attrition rates have increased from four to
seven percent over the last several years, so if we
continue to see attrition at that level, you can
think about swapping out one-third of the agency
over the next five years. That's an incredible
hiring challenge, so recruitment is a tall order.
I think we have a very active HR
department that is working on being very strategic
in recruitment and places that they target to find
the high quality people we need for our mission and
to find a diverse set of people that are wanting to
engage in the mission. So, that is a part of it,
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but I also think retention is a big issue, not just
to recruit these people early in their careers, but
to show them an exciting career path where they can
grow and develop and continue to contribute to the
mission for a number of years and find the position
challenging and exciting. But, we also have a
contingent of middle management, who because we have
been blessed with such a large section of
experienced employees, perhaps have not had the
upper mobility as much as they might have liked. So
I think it's incumbent upon us to pay particular
attention to making sure that we are giving these
people the challenges and the room for growth that
they need to develop because in short order, we're
going to need each and every one of them to fill the
shoes left behind as our deep experienced bench
heads into a well-earned retirement.
MR. FURSTENAU: All right, thanks. I
think we have time for one more question here. How
do your statements on a decedent in workload square
with other statements from our external stakeholders
that the NRC will need to address new SMRs, new LWR
proposals, increase in international demands,
increase in advanced reactors and an increase in
regulations that the staff will need to address?
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COMMISSIONER CAPUTO: I think that's
probably a natural, I will call it, knee jerk
response because there's an expectation that there
will be a lot of applications and a lot of advanced
reactors coming. The natural response to that is to
make sure that we have the staff we need. I think
having enough staff with the right qualifications is
exactly what we need. We need to be focused on
that.
The challenge that I see is the fact
that we have significant resources to do that. When
you look at the scope of the workload, as these
applications come in the 419 that I referenced, this
includes all of our resident inspectors in all of
our plants full time. Everyone that's reviewing
license amendments. Everyone that's reviewing
advanced reactor applications, topical reports, pre-
application engagement right now. So, when I say we
could double our workload and still fit within the
'24 budget, that encompasses an enormous amount of
work that we could handle if we staff according to
our technical staff needs.
I think the concern that I have is the
fact that that portion of work is 21 percent of our
agency at this point. It's our primary mission, but
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it represents a small minority of the work that we
do.
I think it's that other work that we
should really scrutinize because I think, if
anything, I think it's quite possible that our
employees' time is getting cluttered with things
that are not necessarily crucial for the mission,
whether it's working groups, meetings, etc. I think
there's room to find ways to have our employees use
their time more wisely and smarter and expect less
clutter in their schedule to allow them the time to
focus on what's truly important. That, I think, is
an area that is ripe for us to focus on.
MR. FURSTENAU: Okay, thank you very
much, Commissioner Caputo. Appreciate your remarks
and the Q&A session. With that, I'll close this
session. There's just a couple of minutes until the
next plenary, so a very short, a very, very short
stretch break. Let's thank Commissioner Caputo
again.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter
went off the record at 9:12 a.m.)
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