Nuclear powerLawmakers urge NRC not to exempt shut-down nuclear plants from emergency, security regulations
Lawmakers are urging the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to halt exemption of recently- shuttered nuclear power plants from emergency-planning and security regulations. The lawmakers are especially concerned about the nuclear waste which will continue to be stored on the grounds of shut-down nuclear plants, saying that the stored radioactive waste continues to be a security threat whether or not the plant itself is still operational.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-California), chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has urged the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to halt exemption of recently shuttered nuclear power plants from emergency-planning and security regulations.
In a letter to NRC chairwoman Allison Macfarlane, Boxer, joined by Senators Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts), Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), and Senator Bernard Sanders (I-Vermont), noted that retired nuclear plants in the United States store significant amounts of nuclear waste at their sites and that the practice will remain for the foreseeable future. The NRC has already exempted ten retired nuclear plants from emergency rules, and is expected to consider applications for exemptions from at least four other nuclear plants.
“The meltdowns at Fukushima illustrated the need for such planning (requirements), with the Japanese government ordering evacuations out to twelve miles and the NRC and other countries recommending evacuation out to fifty miles, in part because of concern about Fukushima’s spent nuclear fuel,” the letter states. “Similarly, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to new and strengthened security regulations, and a court decision and a (National Academies of Science) report both found that spent fuel pools could not be dismissed as potential targets for terrorist attacks,” according to the letter.
The Global Security Newswire reports that the NRC is in the process of finalizing a proposed “waste confidence” rule in which it declares it has confidence that nuclear waste from U.S. power plants will ultimately be disposed of safely. The commission is required to declare such confidence in order to grant an operational permit to any nuclear power plant. The NRC has stalled licensing decisions for new and some existing plants until it is able to finalize the waste confidence rule, an earlier version of which was rejected by a federal appellate court.
The senators note that the NRC bases its declaration of waste confidence “in part on the assertion that emergency preparedness and security regulations remain in place during decommissioning.” T lawmakers are concerned, however, that the NRC is foregoing those regulations at several decommissioned sites. The letter identifies the now-closed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station as a site that may soon been exempted from emergency-planning requirements. Other sites identified in the letter as those which the NRC may soon consider exemptions include the Kewaunee Power Station near Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Crystal River Nuclear Power Plant near Tampa, Florida, and the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station near Brattleboro, Vermont.
