News & Events

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this gathering for the sixth time. Indeed, this is the sixth regulatory information conference for three Commissioners, Commissioner Dicus, Commissioner Diaz and myself. I have not done the arithmetic, but I believe that you now have the most experienced Commission in NRC's history with three of us in our second terms. Most importantly, in recent years we have had full five-member Commissions. The White House personnel office in both the final years of the Clinton administration and the first year of the Bush administration has done a good job of making timely appointments or reappointments, and I look forward to similar positive action in the future.

Obviously, the career staff of the agency does the every-day heavy lifting on the wide range of issues that confront us. And I want to commend them for the tremendous work they have done throughout this past year and particularly since September 11. But I also think that having a seasoned Commission has helped us stay on a steady course in recent years. In much of government there is so much turnover at senior levels, even in the absence of elections, that the senior people are barely around long enough to recognize the problems before they are gone. This Commission has been around long enough to recognize problems, to set in place policies to resolve those problems, and even to see the fruits of the success of those policies in a wide range of areas.

A few years ago at this conference I commented on the six simultaneous miracles that an overworked staff was being challenged to perform. It is remarkable that they have largely succeeded in performing those miracles in the years since.