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Safety FirstAt every opportunity, Gregory Jaczko hammers homethe Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s No. 1 goal.By JOHN PulleyOnMarch 11, 2011, Japan’s nuclear powerindustry was shaken to its core by a9.0 magnitude quake followed by a massive tsunami.The 45-plus-foot wave swamped the six reactors ofthe Fukushima Daiichi plant about 130 miles North ofTokyo.In the weeks following Japan’s double catastrophe,Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman GregoryJaczko became the Obama administration’s nuclearpoint man, explaining, reassuring, and reiterating onemessage: The safety of U.S. reactors is the NRC’s singularfocus.At a March 16 hearing before two House Energy andCommerce subcommittees, Jaczko, 40, a physicistturned congressional aide turned nuclear regulator,patiently fielded questions from the wary representativesof a concerned America. If it was the tsunamithat did the real damage in Japan, then what abouta tornado here? Or terrorists? Or hurricanes? Blackouts?Or what about a quake like the one “that hit SanFrancisco in 1906?”Again and again, Jaczko offered variations on a fewthemes: It’s too early to speculate on what happenedin Japan. All the plants we’ve licensed and those weare reviewing meet strict site specific standards forearthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis and,PHOTOGRAPHY By JAMES KEGLEYsince September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. We determinethe largest earthquake likely to occur and howmuch it will shake a reactor, and then we require theplant to be able to withstand that and a little bit more.At the March 16 hearing, Jaczko illustrated his pointby pointing to a glass of water on the table in frontof him and saying, “If you think of this as the nuclearpower plant . . . when you talk about the magnitudeof the earthquake, it would be like me hitting the tablewith my fist. Something like that.” Banging the witnesstable. “And you’ll see it makes the glass over herevibrate.”“What we actually measure, and we design ournuclear power plants around, is that shaking of thepower plant,” Jaczko explained. “So the actual impactdepends on where I hit in relation to the glass.A large earthquake that’s very far away, may not havethe same impact on a site as an earthquake that’smaybe a little bit less, but much closer, so somethinglike that,” Jaczko said striking again, less forcefully,nearer the glass.And, as he has at almost every public appearancesince March 11, Jaczko repeated a promise: TheNRC’s review of events in Japan will be “systematicand methodical” and any new lessons will be appliedto U.S. reactors.S P R I N G 2 0 11 | COLL ABOR ATIVEGOV.ORG/LE AD | Leadership 23