U.S. nuclear agency chief leaves reporters with more questions than answers

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney brought a special guest to the briefing room today - Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Gregory Jaczko.

He was asked repeatedly about the safety of U.S. nuclear power plants, but his answers did little to satisfy reporters looking for information that might assure readers and viewers that American nuclear plants are built to withstand a crisis of this magnitude.

Asked whether the Japan incident had led to safety concerns at U.S. nuclear facilities, Jaczko gave an equally general reply: the NRC is "always focused on the safety and security of nuclear power plants in this country. That will always be something that we do. Whenever there's any new information, we always take that information into consideration and -- and make changes, if necessary. But right now, we continue to believe that nuclear power plants in this country operate safely and securely."

In the White House briefing room that's exactly the kind vague answer that always provokes a series of follow-ups.

Is there any new attempt to study the ability of U.S. plants to withstand an earthquake? Another imprecise answer: All U.S. plants are "designed to withstand significant natural phenomena, like earthquakes, tornadoes, and tsunamis."

I tried to pin him down: "Would plants in the United States be able to withstand a quake of this magnitude?"

No luck. His response: "I don't want to speculate on anything like that at this point."

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I followed up with a one last attempt at getting a precise answer: "In the United States, are they built to withstand a quake of this magnitude, of an 8.9?" But he responded with another generality: "At this point what I can say is we have a strong safety program in place to deal with seismic events that are likely to -- to happen at any nuclear facility in this country." (watch the exchange in the video above)

Only after we get past the immediate crisis, he said, will the NRC will gather information and take a closer look at what this means for U.S. plants.

The truth is, of course, that Mr. Jaczko knows vastly more about this than any briefing room reporter. And maybe there is no precise answer to our questions, at least not yet. But for those of us seeking to understand how U.S. reactors would fare in a similar situation, his answers were pretty thin gruel.

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On another question about how the Japan quake could affect America, the NRC was much more precise - eventually.

Whe I asked whether harmful radiation from Japan could reach America under a worst case scenario, Mr. Jaczko said it was "very unlikely."

Apparently even the NRC was unsettled by that answer, because shortly after the briefing I received an unprompted email from a senior NRC official offering a more definitive response: "Based on the type of reactor and nature of the events, NRC expert analysts see no scenarios in which harmful levels of radiation would reach Hawaii, Alaska, the U.S. Territories or the West Coast of the United States."

Video Below: How close is Japan to a nuclear meltdown?

Chip Reid is CBS News' chief White House correspondent. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here.

[aftinc]

I wouldn't trust anything they say, they being the gov, NRC or the media. Just look behind you and as far as you can see it's all a wreck, housing market, wall street and so on. One crises after another for the last several years, I say many saw it all coming and either could not or would not tell us. Look what happened at 3 mile Island with no earth movement, waves or anything else. These plants are all sitting time bombs.

[nfission]

How many of you believe these people? They are liars of the worst kind. Why do you think NPR is reporting this factually? Because they tell the truth. Why do you think the Republicans are trying so desperately to get rid of NPR? You guessed it. NPR isn't controlled by political trolls. Here's the real deal: everything is fine until it isn't fine, that's what's happening.

[ancientdruid1424]

This was a pretty ignorant report. NPR is doing a much better job of intelligently covering this event.

[ammo17]

just like anyone else in this administration,what a disgrace.

[dire_ce]

Anyone want to quote him if a disaster should happen in the US? Bet he runs and hides at the first sign of a disaster. You would think in this day and age we could come up with better ways to create energy rather than put peoples lives in danger over nuclear power? Unfortunately money talks and as we are all witnessing the p%$#*s on Wall Street would sell their own children to fill their pockets with loads of money. So if it costs too much to beef up the safety of these plants they are not going to do it but instead lie about how safe they are. We are all witnessing just how safe these plants really are and it's a tragedy that lives and marine life are going to be destroyed once this plant melts down all in the name of 'saving money'.

[karek40]

As to governments killing their own people, that is the philisophical difference between a democracy and communism/socialism/a dictator. In a democracy the government exists for the benefit of the people, in the others the people exist for the benefit of the government, its OK to eliminate those that do not directly benefit the government.

[karek40]

No one can engineer a nuclear facility to withstand an earthquake that measures 9. We currently have 108 nuclear generating stations, we either take the risk build more and have cheap efficient electricity or use hydrocarbons. Wind will supplement but cannot supply all. I'm surprised we haven't been building them near the ocean where we can use the almost infinite heat sink (the ocean) as our coolant. We should also design to use waste heat to boil vast quantities of sea water and mine the remains.

[RAS08]

What have we learned children? Do not build sensetive structures near the edge of the tectonic plate. Really, how hard is it?

[Sky017]

Better to adopt a policy of no nuclear pants in earthquake zones. Just mothball the reactors and use solar thermal instead such as esolar.com (no affiliation).

Or, see what can be done with deep water windmills (you can't see them from land.)

sway.no

[ibsteve2u]

You have to remember GE built a lot of our nuke plants - and that is the same corporate culture that created Jack Welch, the man who famously told a 1998 shareholder meeting "PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.".

As I tend to believe that organizations are reflections of their leadership, I cannot find any particular reason to place an inordinate amount of faith in the safety of a existing operational GE reactor.