The chairman of the House Oversight Committee says he's not pleased with what he calls a long overdue and incomplete response from the top U.S. nuclear regulator on decisions made following Japan's nuclear crisis in March.

A spokesman for Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said the congressman was disappointed with Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko's recent answers to his questions and that the committee is concerned about the direction NRC is taking.

Issa sent a letter to Jaczko in May, asking him to explain why he used emergency authority following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan's east coast, severely damaging a nuclear complex there (Greenwire, May 31).

Issa accused Jaczko of using emergency authority under a 1980s law on March 16 to solely recommend to the U.S. ambassador to Japan that all Americans within 50 miles of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant be evacuated. Jaczko did not consult his fellow commissioners and said he was acting within his authority to make the recommendation.

The move raised questions because NRC only evacuates Americans within 10 miles of damaged U.S. nuclear plants, and Japanese officials were evacuating individuals within 12 miles of the Fukushima plant.

Issa also asked why NRC had not yet provided information to the commission's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, which asked for data in April that supported the chairman's recommendation (E&ENews PM, April 7). The advisory committee -- which includes part-time government employees with expertise in nuclear engineering, risk assessment and engineering -- voiced concern over the lack of knowledge surrounding Jaczko's high-level statement.

NRC staff in April said the "conservative" decision to call for a 50-mile evacuation zone was based on assumptions that the spent fuel pool was full of fuel, as are American spent fuel pools.

Jaczko responded in a June 28 letter that the 1980 law allows a chairman to assume all of the commission's authority pertaining to the emergency.

"Although the language in the plan refers to 'an emergency concerning a particular facility or materials licensed or regulated by the commission,' this language for many years has been interpreted as not limiting the scope of the chairman's emergency response only to those incidents or threats involving particular NRC-licensed facilities," Jaczko said.

Jaczko said the commission used its emergency response structure to monitor for potential effects from the earthquake and tsunami in the Pacific Ocean. That status helped the agency assist the U.S. government and Japanese officials throughout the crisis, and the NRC staff is still focused on the situation in Japan, he said.

Jaczko also said the ACRS had been given a portion of the information it had requested and that the data was not readily available because the agency was conducting a nationwide safety review of the country's 104 nuclear reactors.

"The commission assigned the ACRS the important role of reviewing the task force's long-term report, rather than reviewing the task force's near-term activities or report," Jaczko said.

But the Issa spokesman charged that Jaczko's actions in office have been subpar.

"The reality is we have not had a new nuclear power plant built in this country since 1977," the spokesman said. "The NRC does not appear to be meeting its charge to support domestic nuclear energy production under Chairman Jaczko's leadership."