Riverkeeper Responds to Resignation of NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tina Posterli, 516-526-9371, [email protected]

Will hold agency’s feet to the fire to make certain replacement puts public well-being over industry interests in relicensing of Indian Point

Ossining, NY – May 21, 2012 – Gregory Jaczko, Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), announced that he is resigning his post, pending the confirmation of a successor. In response to this news, Paul Gallay, President and Hudson Riverkeeper, stated:
“Chairman Jaczko was the only NRC commissioner willing to push for more aggressive inspections at American nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, and to recommend that other lessons learned from Fukushima be addressed as soon as possible in new regulations.

The NRC is an agency that even President Obama once referred to as ‘moribund’ and ‘captive of the industry it regulates.’ While far from the aggressive regulator the public needed, Chairman Jaczko was a better advocate for public safety than his four fellow commissioners by a wide margin.

The next NRC Chair must live up to the NRC’s mandate to put public safety ahead of the nuclear industry’s narrow interests. Riverkeeper will fight to keep Chairman Jaczko’s departure from giving the NRC an opportunity to replace him with someone who simply will forward the agency’s deeply-rooted pro-nuclear industry agenda, and, we will fight to prevent the NRC from shirking its duty to protect the public in connection with operational and relicensing issues at Indian Point.”