 So, before I get to my next presenter, Vick McCree, the Executive Director for Operations. I thought about Vick, and Vick is certainly an optimist and an engineer. An optimist would look at his glasses as half full, a pessimist would look at it as half empty, an engineer would look at it as twice as large as it needs to be. Okay. Vick McCree became the Executive Director for Operations in September 2015. He is the Chief Operating Officer of the Commission, and is authorized and directed to discharge the operational and administrative functions necessary for the day-to-day operations of the agency. Mr. McCree joined the NRC in 1988 as an operations engineer in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Over the years, he has held many leadership positions at the NRC, including most recently, serving since 2011 as the Regional Administrator in the NRC's Region 2 office in Atlanta. Prior to joining the NRC, Mr. McCree was a Nuclear Trained Submarine Officer and completed Nuclear Engineer Officer Certification. He also served on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations and retired from the Naval Reserve as a commander. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds an Executive MBA from Georgia State University. Our Executive Director for Operations is my good friend, Victor McCree. Good morning. On behalf of the staff of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it gives me immense pleasure to add my welcome to this year's conference. I look forward to the numerous interesting sessions and interacting with you over the next several days. Also want to thank the many people in the offices of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and Nuclear Regulatory Research, as well as other volunteers who contribute so much to the success of this conference. Having first joined the NRC in 1988 as an inspector, I was honored to become the NRC's 10th Executive Director for Operations this past September. In my 28 years with the agency, I've held a number of positions that have allowed me to get to know and respect many of you from the U.S. nuclear industry, our international colleagues and other stakeholder organizations who've joined us here this week for the Regulatory Information Conference. And as a result, I know you share with me a commitment to ensuring the safe and secure use of radioactive materials. I want to begin by sharing with you and reiterating to my NRC colleagues the priorities I shared in late September. Because of the inevitable challenges and uncertainties that arise when there's significant change, to successfully manage change in the day-to-day execution of NRC operations, it is imperative that we focus on four priorities. Our mission, our people, our values, and our communications. The NRC's safety and security mission must always be the highest priority, and we should carry out our work in a way that reflects our principles of good regulation. Independence, clarity, openness, efficiency, and reliability, or ICOR. We should recognize that people are our most important asset and continue to invest in people resources. We should demonstrate and reinforce our organizational values, integrity, service, openness, cooperation, commitment, excellence, and respect. Knowing that our values guide our behavior. Finally, we should communicate well and actively and openly engage one another and with you, our stakeholders, to create shared understanding and make good decisions. I would also like to note that we recently received the results of the 2015 NRC Office of the Inspector General Safety, Culture, and Climate Survey. As with all surveys of this nature, the results give us very useful information, including indications of our strengths and opportunities for improvement. This survey identified strengths and areas such as mission and objectives, training, and supervision. But it also highlighted opportunities for improvement in our differing views process, empowerment and respect, and senior management. It is important to keep in mind that our current environment is very different from the last time the survey was conducted in 2012. In the years leading up to that survey, we were a growing organization with the promise of substantial opportunity. Since then, the agency has had to adjust the way we do business to reflect the changing environment. The challenges that accompany those changes have in turn affected our workplace perceptions. So it's only natural that the survey results reflected some of those changes. However, as we've done in the past, we take the survey results very seriously and are taking a closer look at the results to better understand the insights and identify actions to address the underlying concerns. To reiterate, maintaining our focus on our priorities provides important continuity. Whatever the issue or challenge, and doing so is key to helping us to continue the past success we've had in fulfilling our mission. But it's also important to engage in constructive change. In the words of Winston Churchill, there's nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction. Although we're not seeking to constantly change, this has been and remains a time of remarkable change at the NRC and within the nuclear industry. At the NRC, we're pursuing the Project AIM initiative to improve our efficiency, effectiveness, and agility so that we're better positioned to respond to future changes while fulfilling our mission. Other changes at the NRC range from responding fully and effectively to the lessons learned from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi to ensuring an efficient and effective regulatory infrastructure exists to handle the increased workload and decommissioning. To subsequent license renewal beyond 60 years and to preparing to not only receive the first small modular reactor application this year, but also to complete the technical and regulatory infrastructure to support advanced reactor application reviews in the future. Within the U.S. nuclear industry, continuing energy market pressures affect the economics of both operating nuclear power plants and new nuclear construction. With such changes, challenges emerge for both the nuclear industry and the NRC. My experience tells me that the U.S. nuclear industry responds well to challenges, particularly ones that could affect operational safety. This was demonstrated by the significant security improvements after 9-11 and the safety enhancement at U.S. facilities that have already been made in response to the Fukushima accident, including the investment in flex strategies to mitigate the risks associated with beyond-design basis events. Also see safety prominently cited in plans to further improve industry efficiency and economic viability. And this is good because the NRC will closely follow these efforts to verify that their implementation does not have an unattended effect on safety and security. At this point, I'd like to briefly highlight several current issues of interest to the NRC and potential challenges for the nuclear industry. We continue to see events and conditions that indicate the need for more focus on the control and oversight of contractor and vendor-related activities, particularly during large-scale projects onsite. I recognize that this focus area is not new to the industry, but ongoing occurrences indicate that more can and should be done to reinforce standards, clarify expectations, and communicate lessons learned from such events. I'd also urge you to continue efforts to improve supply chain quality, particularly sub-suppliers that may not fully appreciate the nuclear safety culture. We also continue to see opportunities to improve knowledge management, particularly in the knowledge of the design and licensing basis. This is evidence in the accuracy and completeness of licensing submittals, as well as inoperability evaluations. Of course, learning from what has occurred in licensing and other regulatory matters is important as well as in equipment and system issues. But because of new entrance to the current nuclear workforce, including NRC staff, and given the sheer volume of licensing basis information related NRC documents and operating experience, knowledge management remains a challenge for the current and future industry workforce. Finally, over the next few years, licensee attention will be needed to ensure orderly transition to decommissioning for several sites. For plants that undergo decommissioning, it is important to continue to invest in equipment reliability and operator training and retention while maintaining appropriate focus on human performance during the period between the closure announcement and the final shutdown, which in some cases spans several operating cycles. As plants approach closure, the NRC will implement a tailored oversight plan for the final phase of operation at each affected facility. In the meantime, effective stakeholder engagement with NRC in the ongoing decommissioning rulemaking will help ensure that these transitions occur in a safe and effective manner. At the NRC, we are also changing as we respond to challenges to our established way of doing business and expectations for the future. Shortly after I assume my new role, I announced a number of leadership and organizational changes to streamline and refocus our efforts and bring fresh perspectives to bear on a range of agency activities. In parallel, we have reassessed our work, identified efficiencies and made budget reductions to reflect our declining workload. Our fiscal year 2016 enacted budget without the office of the Inspector General is $990 million and $3,552 full-time equivalents, or FTE. This represents a decrease of $13 million, including 163 FTE, as compared to the fiscal year 2015 enacted budget. This $990 million budget fully supports the safety and security mission of all NRC programs, and it reflects greater efficiencies in areas such as training, travel, rulemaking, and consolidation and streamlining of overhead functions. Regarding our fees, in fiscal year 2015, annual fees for most licenses decreased. Our fiscal year 2016 appropriations provide about $883 million of fee revenue, a reduction of over $12 million from the prior year. We expect a continuing downward trend in fees going forward, as you will see in our proposed 2016 fee rule that should be published for comment later this month. These staffing and budget reductions are closely tied to the larger change effort underway at the NRC Project AIM, and endeavor begun to my predecessor, Mark Sertorius, and Maureen Wiley, the NRC's Chief Financial Officer. With Project AIM, we are strengthening our ability to fulfill our safety and security mission by improving our efficiency and increasing our agility, by which I mean our ability to adapt more quickly to changes in our workload, budget, and other unexpected challenges that may come our way. This also involves a cultural change affecting our people, our planning, and our processes that will make us an even stronger and more effective nuclear regulator. We're moving quickly to implement these changes. Overall, rebaselining efficiencies in fiscal year 2017 and 2018 could further reduce the NRC's expenditures by over $40 million. As the commission approves all or most of the rebaselining recommendations, we expect NRC's costs to be comparable to our costs in 2008, without reducing our ability to fulfill our mission. And as we move forward, we will identify additional ways to increase efficiency and cost savings. You can hear more detail about our progress on Project AIM during a rec session later today. But if you take one thing away from Project AIM, I hope it is this, Project AIM is a serious effort to ensure NRC remains a strong credible regulator now and in the future. A key part of that and the essence of Project AIM is our commitment to our stakeholders to be independent, clear, open, reliable, and efficient. Providing the best possible management and administration of our regulatory activities, including use of our resources wisely and efficiently. While Project AIM and the other activities addressing change are important, we have remained focused on our core safety and security mission. And it has been another year of important accomplishments. This week marks the fifth anniversary of the accident at Fukushima Daiichi. So it is important to remember those directly affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and accident, as well as recognize and acknowledge the substantial accomplishments and still ongoing efforts here in the United States to address the lessons learned from that tragic event. We remain focused on assuring completion of the remaining high priority or tier one activities and are currently on pace to complete them by the end of this calendar year in accordance with the commission's five year implementation objective. As this slide shows, by the end of 2016, the majority of the post-Fukushima related safety enhancements will be complete or transition into normal agency processes. Specifically, this includes implementation of the mitigation strategies order, fleet-wide compliance with the spent fuel pool level instrumentation order, completion of emergency preparedness and communication assessments, and the reevaluation of seismic hazards. Additionally, by the end of this year, all sites, except those needing US Army Corps of Engineers input, will complete a reevaluation of their flooding hazard. And all the tier two and three activities will be disposition. That is, those actions that required additional assessment, critical skill sets or were dependent on the resolution or path forward on tier one activities. Limited work in 2017 will focus on documentation of NRC staff reviews, post-compliance inspections, and issuance of the high priority rule for mitigation of beyond design basis events. This rule will codify the most significant ongoing regulatory actions that all nuclear power reactor licensees are implementing in the United States following the Fukushima event. The comment period on the proposed rule closed in February, and the staff is unscheduled to deliver a final rule to the commission for its review in December of this year. Work continuing beyond 2017 includes completing implementation of the severe accident-capable hard and vents order, which requires plant modifications in an extended outage, supplemental hazard evaluations and development of a program for long-term oversight to ensure the lasting safety benefit of the NRC and industry efforts to date. We will, of course, continue to look for efficiencies and creative solutions in these areas to strive toward complete implementation of all Fukushima lessons learned ahead of even today's aggressive schedules. The NRC's initiatives have and will continue to result in significant safety improvements at U.S. nuclear power plants. I also want to recognize the recent successful completion of substantial licensing and inspection activities over a number of years, leading to issuance of the operating license at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Unit 2. This is the first operating license issued this century and the first in over 20 years. This was in addition to issuing combined licenses for an economic simplified boiling water reactor at the Fermi site in Ohio and an advanced boiling water reactor at the South Texas project near Bay City, Texas. We also issued a construction permit, as Bill mentioned, to shine medical technologies for a first-of-a-kind facility dedicated to medical isotope production. This permit is the first construction permit we have issued for non-power utilization of or production facilities since 1985. These actions demonstrate that we have the capability, that is, the organization and processes to successfully carry out our responsibilities for safe licensing and inspection of ongoing and future new reactor and other construction activities. While these are noteworthy accomplishments, we still face the challenge of enhancing our regulatory framework to better address advanced non-light water reactor designs. There's a great deal of activity and a lot to do in this particular area. To be clear, the NRC can license advanced non-light water reactor designs today, but we're working to improve our licensing infrastructure so that if and when applications are submitted, the reviews can be done timely and effectively and in a manner that reflects our principles of good regulation. And we're taking a number of strategic steps to prepare ourselves to do exactly that. We're focusing on technology-neutral activities, commensurate with the pace of non-light water reactor technology, development and maturity, and within our budget constraints. We plan to use off-feed-based resources, which the Chairman alluded to, to focus on three main areas. First, the licensing process, two, technical preparation, and three, stakeholder outreach. Our efforts recognize that the licensing process must ensure safety, security and environmental responsibility while supporting any future schedules that may be put forward for these new designs. In June of this year, the NRC and the Department of Energy will host the second advanced non-light water reactor workshop between industry and government to discuss pathways for commercialization of non-light water reactors and to identify emerging issues and formulate possible solutions. At the same time, we're developing a strategic plan for licensing advanced non-light water reactor designs and expect to complete it later this year. We're also finalizing the proposed advanced reactor design criteria and in response to vendor requests are developing a step-wise licensing process for innovative designs within the current licensing framework. In addition, we're developing guidance on prototype licensing and testing, which we expect to issue for public comment by mid-year. In the course of undertaking these varied efforts to enhance the current regulatory framework for both new light water reactors and non-light water reactors, we're also keeping the commission informed and seeking resolution of critical issues such as annual fees, emergency preparedness, modularity and co-location, source terms and citing proximity to densely populated areas. Not unlike advanced reactor designs, the NRC is already ready to review an application for a consolidated interim storage facility. We've received two letters of intent to submit applications for such facilities, one or both of which are expected this fiscal year. And although we do not have resources budgeted for such a review in 2016, we will reprioritize work and seek additional resources if necessary if applications are submitted this year. Another challenge we've met in our overcoming has been in our operated licensing reactor action backlog. Our performance metrics in this area were challenged due to Fukushima-related work which competed for the same critical resources. Through increased management attention on timely completion of licensing actions, reallocation of resources from other areas, expanding the use of contractor support and other efficiencies, we have significantly reduced our backlog and are unscheduled to meet our metrics in this area by the end of this year. The NRC and industry also took important steps over the year as we prepare for full implementation of cybersecurity requirements. Licensees completed the first phase of implementation in 2012 by completing milestones one through seven with controls put in place to address the most significant threat vectors. And the NRC independently verified those actions through inspections completed this past December. Now we're working towards full implementation of cybersecurity controls which includes the completion of an expanded consequence-based approach to assessing critical digital assets and we'll work with industry to ensure necessary milestone eight guidance is in place prior to licensees full implementation commitment dates. Since the last regulatory information conference, we've issued a number of important guidance documents and reports. For example, we employed a first of a kind approach with significant stakeholder input and interaction to develop a draft revision of the standard review plan for renewal of specific licensees and certificates of compliance for dry storage of spent nuclear fuel. We use this renewal framework in the issues of the Prairie Island independent spent fuel storage installation license renewal. Our efforts to address and increase workload and decommissioning again has also been an area of recent accomplishment and continuing challenge. Currently there are 20 power reactor units in a decommissioning status. Five of those 20 have entered this status since the last regulatory information conference. This required the NRC to complete about 35 decommissioning transition licensing actions over the past year, including exemption requests for emergency preparedness and security requirements, use of the decommissioning trust fund, liability and property insurance, staffing training and qualifications to name a few. This is a challenging and important direction of regulatory activity within the NRC that will demand continued attention in the coming years. Of course, connected to this is our ongoing effort to develop a rulemaking for reactor decommissioning as directed by the Commission in late 2014. Our goal is to develop a proposed rule for commission consideration that provides a more efficient decommissioning process and reduces the need for exemptions from current regulations while supporting our principles of good regulation. We published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking last November to obtain stakeholder input in several key areas and held a public meeting in December to discuss the content of the advance notice. Because of the high level of stakeholder interest in this rulemaking, we extended the public comment period from January 4th to March 18th, and the Commission will hold a public meeting on the proposal we're making next week on March 15th. One final area of accomplishment that I'd like to highlight is in our corporate support services. As the chairman mentioned, we recently completed the consolidation of NRC headquarters office space, closing out a number of satellite buildings and significantly reducing our presence in the Three White Flint North Building. This action has resulted in significant savings in our rent, utilities and security costs, which of course is reflected in our lower overall costs. In addition, we recently upgraded the internet bandwidth for our resident inspectors, which removes many of their connectivity impediments and allows them to spend less time at the computer and more time out in the plants focusing on their core inspection responsibilities. As I know, many of you want them to, and I'd like to thank those licensees who have resident inspectors for their support and cooperation as we completed this critical upgrade. The accomplishments and challenges that I've highlighted today are only a selection of the wide-ranging achievements of the past year and the continuing task before us, but all this makes me immensely proud of the people at the NRC. The work they do on behalf of the American people indicates how well and faithfully they are discharging their duties and reflects well on our ability and our willingness to address the challenges yet before us. The many conference technical sessions and poster presentations over the next several days will give you a broad view of the work we've accomplished, as well as the issues confronting us and implementing our mission. I began my remarks by discussing our priorities, which include fulfilling our important safety and security mission by carrying out our work in a way that reflects our principles of good regulation. If you've listened closely, you may note that this is the fourth time I've mentioned our principles, but given that this year does indeed mark the 25th anniversary of their correct creation, and as Bill noted, we are in a period of such significant change, I think it's an appropriate reminder that constant vigilance and faithful adherence to those principles will enable us to continue to make sound regulatory decisions. In closing, I feel confident that NRC has continued to do its job to regulate the peaceful uses of nuclear materials in a manner that has protected public health and safety in the environment. But essential to the success now and in the future is the continued recognition by our licensees that they hold the primary responsibility for safety and security. This recognition is evidence in the actions licensees take and decisions they make, which demonstrate that safety and security is the overriding priority. So as we go forward, the NRC staff remains committed to continued productive engagement with our many stakeholders so that we are prepared for and can respond to change while ensuring nuclear safety and security. Thank you for your attention and I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you have. So Vic, we have time for a couple of questions. The first one, I'm going to ask you really, I'm going to combine a couple of questions, but it deals with the agency's culture. First, you mentioned that for the NRC to become agile, its culture must change. And so what specific cultural changes are needed? And then in light of the recent unusual step taken by seven NRC staff to submit a 2.206 petition related to open phase conditions, does that reflect that there are cultural issues within the NRC? Thanks, Bill. Let me start with the 2206, which is under review. So I won't engage that specifically, but as I was sharing with colleagues the other day, Bill and you, as you know, we have a number of ways that employees can share their differing views. I think it's a healthy sign for NRC that we have people willing to bring forward and share their differing views. I believe doing so makes us stronger as an organization where only as smart as the collective intelligence of the people that work for us. But as you know, there are a number of ways that people can bring forward their concerns. Some are informal, there are open door policy, there's a non-concurrents process, there's a differing professional view process, two other formal processes, the generic issues program, as well as issuing a 2.206, and it's not unprecedented that someone would bring forward an issue, a differing view through a 2.206. I think this particular issue may reflect some frustration that the individuals had with the pace of resolution of this particular issue, and that's something we need to be mindful of. But again, I don't view the submission of this 2.206 as a negative indication of the NRC's culture. As for cultural change and project aim, I do believe one of the key benefits, whether it was intended or unintended, is that our participation in project aim has highlighted the importance of NRC being more focused on not only the effectiveness of carrying out our mission, but the efficiency with which we do it. And again, that's highlighted in one of our principles of good regulation. So we need to look at, in fact, we've already made changes to processes that will enable us to create that cultural change. And there's certainly a heightened impact within the staff. So I do see the essence of project aim living long after we no longer refer to project aim, because we'll have built it and ingrained it into the way we think, the way we act, and into our processes that will make us more disciplined going forward. Let me ask you one more, and then it'll be time for the break. In your statements, as well as the Chairman's, there was 100 years ago that you did talk about the Shine Facility. Materials have an impact on work patients, the public environment, et cetera, and accidents are more common in the materials world. Is the NRC underestimating materials? No. The NRC is not underestimating materials. And I do recognize that this is a regulatory information conference, and the materials and waste areas are a significant part of what we do at the next RIC. I'll discuss materials programs a bit more, and of course we have other sessions by three other commissioners, and I'm sure they'll make mention of that as well. So the answer is no. So that's our time for this morning. Please a round of applause for the Executive Director for Operations, Vic McCree. The next session starts promptly at 10.30, so please be in here seated in time. Thank you. Thank you.