For Immediate Release
Contact: Giselle Barry 202-225-2836; Eben
Burnham-Snyder 202-225-6065
May 12, 2011
Regulatory
Inadequacies Threatening
“
WASHINGTON, D.C. –Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a senior
member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the top Democrat on the House
Natural Resources Committee, today released a report prepared by his staff at
his direction entitled “Fukushima Fallout: Regulatory Loopholes at U.S. Nuclear
Power Plants”, a summary of Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) regulatory
inadequacies, practices and decisions that impair effective nuclear safety
oversight in the United States.
The report, created in the wake of the Japanese catastrophe, highlights the
following key findings:
·
Widespread malfunctions and inoperability of emergency diesel generators
at nuclear power plants
·
The absence of emergency back-up power requirements at some spent fuel
pools
·
The absence of requirements to prevent hydrogen explosions at reactors and
spent fuel pools
·
Outdated seismic safety requirements, even as applications for new
licenses and license extensions for many nuclear reactors continue to be
processed by the NRC.
“It is apparent that many of the failures of the reactor cooling systems
and measures to prevent explosions that led to the meltdowns in Japan could
also occur in the United States, and would not even be violations of current
regulations,” said Rep. Markey. “This is unacceptable, and I believe
that the NRC must halt its processing of all pending nuclear reactor licensing
applications until these vulnerabilities are fully remedied.”
The report concludes that “An examination of NRC regulations demonstrates
that flawed assumptions and under-estimation of safety risks are currently an
inherent part of the NRC regulatory program, due to a long history of decisions
made by prior Commissions or by the NRC staff that have all too often
acquiesced to industry requests for a weakening of safety standards. Coupled
with reports that the near-term inspections being conducted at United States
nuclear power plants may be limited in scope and subject to restrictions on
public disclosure, it would be unwise to move forward with any pending
licensing actions before the NRC fully completes its review and upgrades its
safety requirements.”
A copy of the full report can be found HERE.
Rep. Markey recently introduced legislation
to overhaul nuclear safety. The Nuclear Power Plant Safety Act of 2011 will
impose a moratorium on all new nuclear reactor licenses or license extensions
until new safety requirements are in place that reflect
the lessons learned from the
Rep. Markey has served on the Committees that have oversight
over the NRC and the nuclear utility industry since 1976. For more than
three decades, Rep. Markey has worked to secure nuclear power plants and ensure
the public safety in the event of a nuclear disaster. In 1979, before the