Federal regulators are launching a 90-day review of U.S. nuclear reactors to address “severe accident management,” highly radioactive spent fuel, and other issues, the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources was advised March 29. Meanwhile, federal regulators have no plans to suspend relicensing the nation’s reactor fleet, maintained Bill Borchardt, Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive director for operations. “Our intent is if there’s a design change necessary” for safety in plants, “we would take it outside license renewal,” he added. Politicians and others are requesting the commission to suspend its license renewal process for Diablo Canyon (see story on page 10). Reactors are originally licensed for 40 years. About half the nation’s nuclear plants already have received 20-year license extensions. Senator Al Franken (D-MN) grilled panelists on the wisdom of building nuclear plants to withstand projected expectations of earthquakes and other hazards. “Are there any reactors in the U.S.--say California--built near earthquake faults?” he asked rhetorically. “My feeling is that Japan didn’t expect” earthquakes of that magnitude. Borchardt attempted to assuage senators that nuclear facilities are built “to withstand that [forecasted] motion, plus a little more.” Emergency evacuation plans were also on senators’ minds. They noted that there are “tens of tens of millions” of people within a 50-mile radius of some plants. Tony Pietrangelo, senior vice president of the industry organization, Nuclear Energy Institute, said that emergency plans drawn up in the 1970s remain “the gold standard of emergency planning.” An anti-nuclear engineer begged to differ. “Our evacuation plans are exactly as good as Japan’s were March 10,” said David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear power project director. The committee called the briefing to keep abreast of the “rapidly changing” events at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, said committee chair Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).