LET GO UNDT March 22, 2012 - Patch - NRC Issues First Major Industry Orders Since 9/11 to Nuclear Industry - The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued safety orders to the nuclear industry that are the first of this scope since orders issued following the Sept. 11 attacks. The orders require all nuclear reactors to take significant steps to fulfill safety requirements in the event of a “beyond-design-basis natural phenomena” and are based off of NRC’s findings in their studies of the Japanese Fukushima Dai-ichi accident that occurred on March 11, 2011. On March 12, 2012, the NRC issued two immediately effective orders that pertain to all of the county’s nuclear reactors. It also issued a third order to all power reactor companies operating boiling water reactors. Entergy’s Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan has two pressurized water reactors and is subject to all three orders. “It is a big deal and there was a great deal of deliberation by NRC staff and commission itself,” said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan. “This is not something the NRC does lightly we have variety of regulatory tools at our disposal and one of those are orders…There has been nothing along these lines since Sept. 11.”