NRC: News Release - 2006-031 - NRC Posts Comments and Responses from the 2005 Emergency Preparedness Public Meeting

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NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs	Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001	E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
www.nrc.gov

No. 06-031

March 1, 2006

NRC POSTS COMMENTS AND RESPONSES FROM THE
2005 EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS PUBLIC MEETING
Printable Version

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has posted more than 700 generic comments and questions provided during and after the agency’s 2005 emergency preparedness public meeting, held in Rockville, Md., last summer. The comments, along with responses from the NRC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), fall into 15 major topic areas, including emergency communications, exercises and drills, federal government responsibilities and security-based emergency action levels.

The NRC is considering the comments as part of an on-going review of emergency preparedness regulations and guidance for commercial nuclear power plants. The comments and responses can be found at: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/epreview2005.html. Comments on site-specific issues will be posted by March 31.

The call for comments was part of a two-day emergency preparedness public meeting that featured discussions among senior officials from the agency’s Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, FEMA, local, state and tribal representatives, advocacy groups and nuclear industry representatives. Attendees were given the opportunity to submit additional comments and questions for NRC review after the meeting.

"We received a large volume of valuable stakeholder input and we appreciate the interest the public showed in this subject," said Eric J. Leeds, director of the NRC’s Division of Preparedness and Response. "We’ve made significant improvements over the past few years in the NRC’s emergency preparedness program, but we continue to look for ways to improve. We will consider what we’ve learned from this call for comments as we move forward."

Each of the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants has onsite and offsite emergency plans to assure appropriate protective measures would be taken in the event of a radiological emergency. Federal oversight of these emergency plans is shared by the NRC and DHS. More information about the NRC’s emergency preparedness program can be found at: http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/emerg-preparedness.html.