 I'm very pleased to be with you today, and I add my welcome to those of my other commissioner colleagues from yesterday and this morning. It really is a privilege to be able to address this audience of dedicated professionals all committed to global nuclear safety. Before I begin my remarks, I want to make a few notes of appreciation. First I want to thank Brian and Eric and their staffs and all involved at the RIC. As other commissioners have noted, this is a very long term planning effort. I commend the hard work and the thoughtful, relevant agenda you have prepared. Second I want to thank the entire NRC staff, and that includes fellow commissioners and their staffs. These are really, as Bill Magwood mentioned, they're not just colleagues, they're also good friends, and this commission is functioning in a very collegial, friendly manner, and I applaud Chairman McFarlane for her continued leadership of this body. One final note of thanks, and that's to two members of my personal staff. First, Andrea Cook, I know she's here today, but Andrea left my office last year after serving as my materials advisor for three years. Andrea was selected last summer for the Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program and is now serving in a senior position in NRR. As to Kimberly Sexton, my attorney since 2011 is leaving in a few weeks to a key position in legal affairs at the Nuclear Energy Agency. I could not have asked for two more high-performing professional and collegial individuals. I am most grateful for their hard work and service to the NRC. Thank you Andrea and Kimberly. This is now my fourth RIC as a commissioner. I want my remarks to be relevant and hopefully offer some insight into the thought process of a commissioner. Coming to this year's topic, we did require some careful reflection. As others have noted before me on this platform, 2013 was a busy year for the nuclear industry and the NRC. Announcements of nuclear plant shutdowns concurrent with progress being made on new construction at five plants sent mixed signals to ask the future of the industry. Concerns on the structure of electricity markets, post Fukushima implementation actions, waste confidence, and Yucca Mountain SCRs were also in the news just to name a few. I will not address the specifics. That landscape is very familiar to you and the audience today. My staff and I evaluated several topics to consider related to the commission and how we function and conduct business as a nation's nuclear safety regulator. That staff discussion concluded in a decision to address how we, the NRC, conduct ourselves as an independent nuclear regulatory agency charged with a nuclear safety mission. Faced with challenging economic and technical issues, court remands, numerous congressional inquiries, and public citizen concerns, I have tried, as do my fellow commissioners here, to always chart the right course. I ask, as do my colleagues, are we operating consistent with our principles and processes as we execute our nuclear safety mission? In evaluating this, I personally looked at three factors that I believe are the foundational attributes of an independent regulatory agency. First, independence, meaning is the commission remaining independent of undue influence. Second, technical competence, or our staff meeting and maintaining the highest standards necessary for safety. And third transparency is the agency operating in an open, frank, and candid manner. Starting with independence, I'll address the importance of our independence within the United States government structure. At the heart of this is the fact, as Commissioner Magwood noted, the NRC does not report to any other agency within the executive branch. That means the NRC is not subject to the supervision of the president or a cabinet officer. But the president is responsible for appointing the five commissioners who, like myself, are confirmed by the United States Senate. The commissioners intended to be bipartisan is no more than three of us can be from the same political party. The president also has responsibility for designating one of the five commissioners as chairman. There is a strong role for the legislative branch as well. The NRC receives its budget appropriation each year from the United States Congress and is appropriately subject to Congressional oversight. We believe that cooperation with and reporting to our Congressional oversight committees is absolutely essential to proper accountability under our system of government. Between 2003 and 2010, the commission averaged one to two Congressional hearings a year. However, since Fukushima, we have testified on the Hill at 11 oversight hearings. These are valuable opportunities for the commission to respond to tough, probing questions from our oversight committees, as well as to speak to the public about the positions we are taking on important safety issues. We therefore welcome the opportunity to testify before Congress, and we are always committed to keeping the Congress fully and currently informed. But we must remain mindful of any instance where oversight could potentially be perceived to cross the line into interference with commission decision making. The Constitution establishes a separation of responsibilities between the executive and legislative branches, and this principle has been squarely upheld by our court systems. Now independence is not just about independence within the government. It also reflects our need to be independent of other outside influences. Rejecting improper outside influence from any source is crucial to our safety mission. At the same time as it enshrined in our principles of good regulation, independence does not imply isolation. We cannot simply close ourselves off when subject to criticism from our stakeholders. We must do all that we can to consider those stakeholder interests, including those that do not agree with our regulatory actions. The NRC views itself as a technical organization of dedicated staff regulating nuclear power outside the scope of politics, outside the realm of any improper influence. While this agency has faced a number of challenging issues of the past year, I believe that we have at all times maintained our regulatory independence. Independence alone, however, does not ensure responsible regulatory decision making. Technical competence is a key component of this and one that is the greatest important to the NRC and to the commission. The NRC is somewhat unique in my experience among many agencies and departments in the federal government in that the technical competence inherently resides in our staff. For example, of our engineers, scientists and technical managers, half have attained post-graduate degrees. There are almost 1200 employees here with master's degrees and over 300 with PhDs. This technical expertise provides the NRC with the ability to make reliable and technically sound regulatory decisions based on the best available knowledge. But it also places a great deal of pressure on us to always have the best and brightest on our staff and to ensure they remain that way. In my discussions with new entrant countries, as well as those considering the civilian nuclear power arena, I always emphasize that one should not underestimate the work it will take to build and then sustain a technically competent workforce. In the United States, we have many advantages. Universities that offer top-notch engineering programs, as well as the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. My 26 years in the nuclear navy helped shape my views on this topic, I was pleased to see my colleague, Commissioner Svanke, yesterday quote Admiral Rookover. He had an absolutely uncompromising commitment to high standards of technical excellence. From my personal experience, I'd say that every task in a submarine, from starting up the reactor to proceeding to periscope depth to conducting trash disposal unit operations is performed by men and now by women who have undergone an exhausting training and qualification program. My staff said I could tell one sea story today. This may be a bit cryptic, I think you'll get the message. And I note that I've got at least four of the people, five of the people from my Naval Academy class that I think were at the RIC, Bruce Sinkley, John Jolliker, Bruce Brevard, Elmo Collins, and Brad Poirier, I saw some of them yesterday. So some of those had the same time experience that I had with the nuclear program. In 1980, when I was qualifying service engineer officer, we had to be able to draw from memory and explain the operations of all, I'm going to emphasize the word all here, primary plant valves and piping in the reactor plant. We spent months committing those to memory, and not just to memory but also to detailed operational understanding. At that time, and I think this is still the case today, one particular focus was the interconnections between the reactor air system and the hydraulic system used to operate certain reactor plant valves. This specific diagram, which I and many others and some of the you in the audience have done this, committed to memory was a somewhat challenging task. Like you, I did it. But I never really had to use it until the fall of 1986 when I was serving as engineer officer on a special warfare delivery attack submarine. I can't discuss the details, but I'll simply say that we had a significant instant concerning a failed valve in the reactor plant. I cannot tell you how glad I was while wrestling with a very challenging safety problem as an engineer officer to have a firm grasp of that diagram in my mind. And I can attest to these same technical competence standards being upheld at the highest levels from the time of my interview with Admiral Rook over in 1975 through my reports to the Naval Reactors as a submarine squadron commander in 1999. The NRC's commitment, like the Navy's, is high and strong, and that's a great new story. The NRC focuses a great deal of attention on training and development. The agency's commitment to career training and development helps maintain the NRC's rank as among the best federal agencies in the federal government for ensuring that employees' development needs are assessed and appropriate training is offered. Let's take a look at a few examples of this. Our well-trained and highly competent staff faced a number of difficult judgments in 2013 that really highlighted just how well-prepared they were. For example, staff and headquarters in the regions worked together to determine that Fort Calhoun and the Honeywell Uranium conversion plant in Metropolis, Illinois were ready to safely restart after extended shutdowns. Having been initially placed in column four of the reactor oversight process action matrix in fiscal year 11, the Fort Calhoun station was later subjected to increased NRC oversight. In December 2013, just three months ago, after more than 23,000 hours of extensive NRC inspections and detailed evaluations to independently review more than 450 restart action items, the NRC reached the technical conclusion that plant could safely restart. No small accomplishment. The NRC also authorized Honeywell's facility Metropolis after being shut down for over a year. As a result of post Fukushima inspections led by Region 2, the NRC identified the potential for a large release of uranium hexafluoride and hydrogen fluoride during an incredible seismic event. Almost a year of evaluation, analysis, and review were required by all parties to determine what modifications were needed to achieve adequate levels of safety. As a result, Honeywell fortified the conversion building and modified the process equipment by adding supports in an automatic shutdown system that they called slam valves that stops operation if an earthquake occurs. There was no blueprint for this type of work. Successful resolution of these issues was a result of a tremendous amount of high quality work from our regional and headquarters staff in addition to that of the licensee. Our staff is currently also overseeing the first new nuclear construction in the United States in over 30 years, as Bill Magwood mentioned. The two units of Vogel, two at Summer, and a Watts Bar too. The NRC dispatches five resident construction inspectors during the pre-operational phase of construction to oversee day-to-day construction activities. A lot of construction activities such as pouring of safety-related concrete or assembly of modules require special skills. Fortunately, we have developed effective recruiting and training programs to ensure that we can deploy appropriate expertise to almost any situation. I personally place a high value on the NRC's independent analytical capability and its role in supporting realistic safety decisions by the Commission. For example, the Commission is currently deliberating on whether additional study is warranted to assess possible regulatory action to require expeditious transfer of spent fuel from nuclear power plants to spent fuel pools to dry-cast storage. The NRC staff provided a thorough and systematic analysis of the potential consequences of a beyond-design basic seismic event affecting the spent fuel pool. This in-depth technical analysis by the staff provides the Commission with the best available information upon which to base its decision-making. The NRC's analytical capabilities have also been valuable in supporting new reactor design certifications. NRC staff have conducted confirmatory calculations in areas such as seismic and structural analyses and thermohydraulic analysis of transients and accidents. These capabilities are also critical to our ability to perform our oversight of licensees assessment of external hazards in response to the events of Fukushima. The expertise of our regional headquarters inspectors also plays a critical part in our safety mission. Just three weeks ago, I had the chance to visit Calvary Cliffs during an outage of Unit 1. I met with NRC inspectors both at the Resident Office and from Region 1 who were on site to observe an in-service inspection of the reactor vessel head, observe shutdown plant operations, and watch various licensee surveillance activities. These inspectors' role in the oversight of nuclear security and safety cannot be emphasized enough. There are a number of challenges ahead for all of us in this room, further implementing safety significant Fukushima lessons learned, overseeing new decommissioning activities, licensing a new generation of nuclear power plants, and addressing cybersecurity, just to name a few. Successfully addressing these issues requires a staff that day in and day out exhibits the highest standards of technical competence. But we cannot assume that simply because we have technical competence now that we will always have it in the future. And I might add, we should never apologize for having high standards. Let us now turn to transparency, the final topic. We, and that's the collective we in this room, we do not occupy a space where we can say, trust us, we're the government. As explained in our principles of good regulation, nuclear regulation is the public's business, and it must be transacted publicly and candidly. Because nuclear energy is not easily understood, the more transparent we are, the more the public can trust the actions we take. President Lyndon B. Johnson once noted, quote, a democracy works best when the people have all the information that the security of the nation will permit. End of quote. If we transact our business in an open, frank and candid manner, that transparency promotes the utmost accountability of our agency. Based on my experience working in and with other agencies and departments in the federal government, the NRC is by far the most transparent from my experience. Transparency is truly a hallmark of this agency. We hold over a thousand public meetings a year. We've made more than 100,000 documents public in 2013. And we're constantly looking for new and innovative ways to communicate with our stakeholders. One of the most striking examples to me of transparency is that as a commission with a very few exceptions for security adjudications and budgetary matters, we make all our votes public. With these votes, we call them written notation votes, you're able to see into the minds of the commissioners and why they decided and voted the way they did. And most of these are not just checking the block approved or disapprove. These written notation votes can be sometimes multi-page narratives that go deep into rationales and decision making considerations. And we benefit from our predecessors here, as Commissioner Magwood noted, with Chairman Diaz and Jeff Murrayfield and Pete Lyons and Dick Mazzerve. I am not aware of any other government agency outside the court system that provides this kind of transparency into the minds of decision makers. A telling example of the commitment and transparency at the staff level is in our handling of the waste confidence issue. The director responsible for this undertaking holds monthly public teleconference status meetings. It held 13 public meetings all around the country last year with over 1,400 people in attendance. And they're dispositioning 32,000 public comments. These comments will be evaluated and considered in the final rule. I think it's a real success story, irrespective of the outcome of that rule. At the same time that we believe in transparency, I think it's important to acknowledge that even with an absolute commitment to transacting our business publicly, there are simply some things that are not appropriate to share because of timing or the nature of the issue. For example, while we try to release as much information as possible, it would be inappropriate and in some cases absolutely irresponsible for the agency to release ongoing investigatory information, adjudicatory information, or sensitive security information. Thus, there is an inherent tension for an agency committed to operating in a transparent manner. This is not something we should feel the need to apologize for. Rather, we must clearly communicate our rationale and legal basis. Now, I tell you today, this is exactly what this commission has done. I'll now conclude.