A trio of mostly Democratic senators reintroduced legislation that would require nuclear power plants to store spent nuclear fuel in dry casks rather than spent fuel pools.
Sens. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) reintroduced the Dry Cask Storage Act Friday. The bill “would ensure that every nuclear reactor operator complies with an NRC-approved plan that would require the safe removal of spent nuclear fuel from the spent fuel pools and place that spent fuel into dry cask storage within seven years of the time the plan is submitted to the NRC,” the Senators wrote in their press release.
“Overcrowded spent nuclear fuel pools like the one at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station are a disaster waiting to happen,” Markey, a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote in the release. “Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool contains nearly four times more radioactive waste than it was originally designed to hold. We need the NRC to post the ‘Danger’ sign outside these fuel pools and ensure dangerous nuclear waste is moved to safer storage before a nuclear disaster occurs.”
The bill last appeared in the 114th Congress, which ended in January. Bills that have not been signed into law at the end of one legislative session are declared null and void and must be reintroduced in the next session if they are to become law.
