Riverkeeper Responds to Resignation of NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko
May 21, 2012
Riverkeeper Team
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tina Posterli, 516-526-9371, tposterli@riverkeeper.org
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.”
Related campaigns
Beyond Indian Point
Monitoring the shutdown of a nuclear power plant on the banks of the Hudson that killed billions of fish each year
Renewable energy transition
Working toward a sustainable future while protecting the Hudson River and its communities
Saving Hudson River fish
Protecting iconic species vital to our local ecosystems