Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/6/2014
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) hounded the Nuclear Regulatory Commission again this week for granting exemptions to emergency preparedness and safety regulations at shutdown reactor sites. Boxer has been critical of NRC exemptions, especially for pending exemption requests from Southern California Edison for the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station site in her home state, which came within a half-mile of a wildfire last month and sits in an active earthquake zone. She called on the Commission during the hearing to commit to opposing these exemptions in face of such serious safety threats, but each Commissioner could not oblige her request, a notion that led to a heated questioning exchange from Boxer towards NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane. “Never has the NRC denied a request for an exemption from safety,” Boxer said. “The fact that you cannot commit today to up-hold the safety plan for this plant, given the number of fuel rods that are in there, far greater than the plant plan for, which the Commission allowed, is outrageous.”
Macfarlane maintained that the NRC assures safety at decommissioning sites. “Emergency preparedness at decommissioning plants may in some cases be reduced, but it will not be eliminated,” Macfarlane said. “I want to be clear on that. Exemptions for decommissioning plants are done on a site-specific basis. We will ensure that plant will be safe.” Commissioner Kristin Svinicki added that a decommissioning facility is much different than an operating plant. “The NRC has historically had a heavy reliance on the use of exemptions to reflect the changes in the facility as it is decommissioned,” Svinicki said. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the committee’s ranking member, also pointed to this fact. “Clearly an operating nuclear facility is a different animal than a facility that is shutdown, so we are talking about changes made presumably to reflect the fact those are two very different animals,” Vitter said.
Boxer, along with Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has introduced legislation that would inhibit the NRC’s ability to grant safety and security exemptions at decommissioning sites. The “Safe and Secure Decommissioning Act of 2014” would prohibit the NRC from issuing exemptions from its emergency response or security requirements for spent fuel stored at nuclear reactors that have permanently shutdown until all of the spent nuclear fuel stored at the site has been moved into dry casks. Boxer is especially worried about the SONGS facility in her home state, which she feels hosts an over-crowded spent fuel pool in danger of an accident.
Spent Fuel Pool Vote Fallout
The Commission’s recent vote on the issue of expedited transfer of spent nuclear fuel to dry cask storage also came up at different points during the hearing. The Commission voted 4-1 last week against the idea of expedited transfer while also closing the matter. Macfarlane was the lone vote looking to keep the matter open for further scenario analyses. Markey has been vocal about his desire to see expedited transfer of spent fuel to dry cask storage, and he reiterated that desire at the hearing, citing the NRC staff’s finding that a spent fuel pool fire could lead to disastrous results. “Throughout the United States, many pools including the one at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant are dangerously overcrowded,” Markey said. “The solution to this is simple: take the waste out of the pool and put it into safer dry cask storage.” He later added, “We just had Fukushima. We know that many of the nuclear power plants in our country are built on or near earthquake faults, and we have the Commission’s own conclusion here. I understand the industry does not want to spend the money, and the industry doesn’t want to absorb this type of cost. But again, we are just dealing with your own agency’s conclusions about the danger that exists.”
Republican lawmakers backed the vote, however, praising the Commission from avoiding unnecessary regulation. “Appropriately, the NRC staff concluded that ‘expediting movement of spent fuel from the pool does not provide a substantial safety enhancement,’” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.) said in his opening statement. “And when you consider that mandating this would cost the industry an additional $4 billion, it was right for the Commissioners to vote in favor of the staff’s position.” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) also put his support behind the vote, as well as praising the nuclear industry for its safety record.
Regulating Industry Out of Business?
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, used the NRC hearing to accuse the Obama Administration and Senate Democrats of trying to cripple the nuclear industry through attempts at regulation. Vitter led the attacks, using the shutdown of the Yucca Mountain repository as ammunition for his reasoning. “When he first announced the Climate Action plan, the President notoriously stated that he supports an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach,” Vitter said. “The disingenuous nature of this claim requires only a cursory review of recent actions by the Administration. For the nuclear sector, the work being done to undermine the waste confidence rule and kill the Yucca Mountain project is a clear example of a long-term strategy to shut down more of our nation’s nuclear reactors.” He also added, “I am concerned that Senate Democrats are using these hearings to provide cover for their efforts to kill nuclear generation in their own states.”
Inhofe echoed the accusations voiced by Vitter. “Many environmentalists and members on the other side of the aisle are similarly positioned … pursuing every regulatory impulse to enact an unbearable cumulative cost of compliance while prohibiting the final construction of Yucca Mountain, leaving room for folks like the Natural Resources Defense Council to challenge the issuance of additional licenses due to the Waste Confidence issue,” Inhofe said in his opening statement. He later added, “We should not be looking for ways to regulate the industry out of business.”
