The first safety actions for U.S. reactors based on Japan's nuclear accident will be issued next spring, more than a year after the Fukushima disaster, according to current plans of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The actions are scheduled to be completed between 2014 and 2016.

To Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), this amounts to "slow walking" by the four NRC commissioners who hold the majority on the commission's post-Fukushima agenda. Boxer and several other Senate Democrats rebuked the four at a hearing last week over the commissioners' conflict with NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko. The senators accused the commissioners of backing nuclear industry efforts to delay costly new safety measures at U.S. plants.

That claim stung NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff, a Republican, who had worked, eaten and slept next to reactors as a Navy nuclear submarine commander.

"Some of the statements made in the Senate hearing accused the four commissioners -- or implied -- that we were not concerned about nuclear safety, that we were trying to reduce safety regulation, and slow-walking the Near-Term Task Force recommendations," Ostendorff said in an interview.

"I strongly reject all of those allegations. We did not get a chance to answer those allegations, which completely misrepresent our views on nuclear safety," Ostendorff said.

Ostendorff gets support from senior NRC staff executive Jack Grobe, one of six members of the agency's Fukushima task force, whose list of proposed regulatory changes to strengthen U.S. reactor safety has split Jaczko from his colleagues.

"I don't think we can possibly go faster," Grobe said in an interview. "It is just a matter of the complexity of it. There is a need for interaction with all sorts of stakeholders, because if we don't do that, it won't be as good as it needs to be," said Grobe, who is retiring from the NRC. The commission's goal is to get one of the first six recommendations completed at all U.S. reactors by 2014 and the remainder by 2016.

Commissioners say fixes easier said than done

Jaczko wanted faster action and has chafed at the other commissioners' insistence that the NRC senior staff evaluate the task force recommendations before the commission acts on them.

Some leading nuclear power critics have a similar impatience.

Tom Cochrane of the Natural Resources Defense Council told commissioners at a Sept. 14 briefing that it shouldn't take years to require reactor operators to strengthen their plants against a prolonged loss of power for emergency cooling systems -- the issue that crippled Fukushima's reactors.

On this issue, the task force recommended that U.S. plants be required to have secure backup generation that could keep cooling systems operating for eight hours after outside power was lost, and a plan to bring in backup power supplies to last up to 72 hours, when outside grid power would be restored. U.S. plants currently have either a four- or an eight-hour requirement, depending on their grid connections.

"To me, it's sort of so obvious that the first thing you would do is go ahead and say, 'OK, let's bring everybody up to eight hours -- we don't need to have a discussion about this,'" Cochrane said.

On another issue, he said, "I mean, these are operators of nuclear plants. They ought to operate like commanders of nuclear submarines. And you ought to be able to tell them what needs to be done and expect them to do it," he added.

"I don't know if it should be eight hours," replied Commissioner William Magwood IV. "I don't know if should be 72 hours. I don't know what it should be." Industry representative Charles "Chip" Pardee of Exelon Corp. said the industry wanted flexibility in dealing with the issue, and the commission agreed to allow time for a plant-by-plant assessment.

Another task force recommendation called for the NRC to order installation of reliable, hardened vents in Mark I models (the type that suffered hydrogen explosions when venting failed at Fukushima), and also the larger Mark II models in the United States.

Cochrane said, "I would tell them, 'Get me a plan within 60 days for how you're going to implement hardened vents in the Mark IIs, or we're going to shut them down until you provide us with that plan.'"

Ostendorff said then that it was "an open question as to whether or not there's sufficient understanding of what happened to Fukushima" concerning the failure of the hardened vents to function. It needed more study, he said, and the commission majority agreed.

"Hardened vents is a kind of a simple, interesting illustration," Grobe said in the interview. At first glance, he said, it sounds simple to order nuclear plants to install a hardened steel pipe coming out of the reactor containment base leading to the open air so that hydrogen gas could not leak from vents, collect inside reactor structures and explode, as happened at Fukushima.

"Unfortunately, when it comes to having something that has the reliability you need in a nuclear plant, you really need to think very hard and carefully how you specify the design of all the components," said Grobe, a 30-year-plus NRC veteran. "That takes time," he added -- probably six to 12 months to define the changes before they could be ordered to be made -- if the commission takes that step with the Mark II systems.

'A big gulp'

The debate about a timetable for post-Fukushima regulations seems to break down over an even more fundamental issue -- the relatively safety of U.S. reactors.

The commission majority focused consistently on the conclusion by the task force and the NRC staff: "There is no imminent risk to public health and safety from continued operation and continued licensing activities for U.S. nuclear power plants," as NRC operations director Bill Borchardt said.

But the task force also concluded that NRC's safety approach "is incomplete without a strong program for dealing with the unexpected, including severe accidents."

The NRC relies on voluntary programs by reactor operators to create adequate defenses against extreme events (called SAMGs for "severe accident mitigation guidelines"). After the Fukushima Daiichi plant was battered by a historically severe earthquake and tsunami waves up to twice the anticipated heights, the task force called for the inspection of SAMGs at U.S. plants. The voluntary measures are not subject to regular NRC inspection.

The new inspection revealed weaknesses in preparations and operator training that "would have resulted in multiple violations had it been associated with a required program," the task force reported in July. While the task force did not conclude that the emergency procedures would have failed if called on in an emergency, it added, "continued reliance on [voluntary] industry initiatives for a fundamental level of defense-in-depth similarly would leave gaps in the NRC regulatory approach."

The task force concluded that a new regulatory program should be created to pull together the "patchwork" of rules and voluntary guidelines. That recommendation is on an 18-month study timetable.

The proposal "is visionary. It is a big gulp," Grobe said. "Putting it on an 18-month time frame is appropriate. It is a fundamental shift in structuring our regulations."

Accusations of bullying

Grobe said that reaching a new approach to severe natural threats to reactors will test the knowledge and judgment of the commission and staff, and he said he is very concerned that the current conflict among the five commissioners puts that process at risk.

The commissioners complained to the White House that Jaczko bullies and intimidates staff, chilling the work environment. Jaczko responded that while he is "passionate" in his advocacy for plant safety, he has not mistreated NRC staff.

"The interaction between our commissioners is embarrassing," Grobe said. "It's not a matter of whether these are good people or bad people. It's the leadership framework that won't work anymore, and from my perspective, it's got to change.

"What makes nuclear power safe is the open and collaborative work environment. It's the set of value that our organization functions in. It is not a set of value that our commission is using," he said.