Good afternoon, my name is Anna Aurilio and I'm the Legislative Director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, or U.S. PIRG.  U.S. PIRG is the national office for the State PIRGs, which are environmental, good government and consumer advocacy groups active around the country.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

 

The state PIRGs have a long history of working for a clean affordable energy future.  Our goal is shift from polluting and dangerous sources of energy such as nuclear and fossil energy to increased energy efficiency and clean renewable energy sources.

 

Today I will be addressing nuclear energy issues. Nuclear power is unsafe, unreliable, uneconomic and generates long-lived radioactive wastes for which there is no safe solution.  It should be phased out as soon as possible and should not be encouraged as a future energy source.

 

Since the late 1970's, the PIRGs have worked to protect the public from unsafe, expensive nuclear reactors.  PIRGs successfully opposed the construction of several nuclear power plants because of cost, safety and nuclear waste concerns.  For example, in 1982, litigation by MASSPIRG helped cancel the proposed Pilgrim 2 nuclear power plant. In 1983, NJPIRG helped cancel the proposed Hope Creek nuclear power plant.  CoPIRG worked for the creation of the Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC) in 1984.  The OCC was key in protecting ratepayers from being burdened with "stranded costs" in the St. Vrain nuclear power plant case.  

 

During reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act, the PIRGs successfully advocated for lower taxpayer liability in case of a nuclear accident.  From 1993 through 1995, PIRG helped shift more than $500 million in nuclear and fossil R &D spending to efficiency and renewable programs.  During that time, we helped convince Congress to eliminate funding for two extremely expensive advanced reactor programs, the gas-cooled reactor and the Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor, saving taxpayers at least $5.6 billion.

 

 

Nuclear power is unsafe. 

 

Nuclear power poses an unacceptable threat to humans and the environment.  All aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle pose a risk to humans and the environment.  Uranium mining and enrichment has caused sickness and death in workers and has generated tons of mining and enrichment wastes, which continue to threaten nearby communities. Current uranium mining practices include "in-situ" leaching, which pollutes precious aquifers in the arid West.   Irradiated fuel from nuclear reactors is perhaps the most toxic material generated by humans.  Unshielded, it delivers a lethal dose of radiation within seconds.  According to the Department of Energy, 95% of the radioactive waste (by radioactivity) in this country has been generated by commercial nuclear reactors. 

 

Nuclear power plants are very complex and contain enormous amounts of potential energy in the fuel at the core of the reactor.  The most tragic example of the dangers posed by this technology is the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the Ukraine.  The explosion and core meltdown at Chernobyl released radiation that generated a plume encompassing the entire Northern Hemisphere [1]. Here in the U.S., in addition to the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 which forced the evacuation of nearly one hundred fifty thousand people, there have been four other nuclear accidents in the U.S. involving at least partial core meltdown.[2] 

 

The potential consequences of a serious accident are staggering.  A 1982 study by the Sandia National Laboratories found that a serious accident at a U.S. nuclear reactor could cause hundreds to thousands of deaths in the near term.[3] In 1985, in response to a question posed by Representative Markey, an NRC commissioner responded that there was a 45% chance of a severe nuclear accident in the following twenty years.

 

We are therefore very concerned about the safety of nuclear reactors currently operating in this country.  We are astonished that the industry and the regulatory agency have been lobbying for a relaxation of safety standards and oversight and limiting the public's access to these processes. We are concerned that utility deregulation and new ownership of reactors may increase risks of accidents because of increased pressure to run the plants closer to the margin.  This risk is heightened by the fact that the 103 operating reactors around the country are deteriorating with age more quickly than expected.  Even Vice President Cheney acknowledged the aging problem on the television show "Hardball" (March 21):  "[T]oday nuclear power produces 20 percent of our electricity, but that's going to go down over time because some of these plants are wearing out."

 

Current regulation is inadequate to protect public health and safety.

 

For example, one aging-related problem is reactor embrittlement.  Cracks in the reactor vessel caused by constant neutron bombardment could lead to a meltdown. When problems were found, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) simply changed the safety margins and allowed the utilities to recalculate their compliance.  Steam generators are also susceptible to premature degradation.  The failure of as few as ten tubes can lead to a reactor meltdown, yet the NRC has inadequate steam generator tube standards.  For example, the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant is located 24 miles north of New York City, along the Hudson River.  It had been scheduled for steam generator tube replacement in 1993, yet this never happened thanks to increasingly lax NRC requirements.  On February 2, 2000, a tube ruptured, releasing radioactive steam.

 

There is a consistent pattern and history of lax NRC enforcement and oversight ranging from fire prevention to worker fatigue.  The agency is focused on increasing the industry's profitability, not protecting humans and the environment.  In fact a recent letter to this subcommittee from the NRC's Chairman Meserve reveals an agenda focused on, among other things:  wresting control of certain radioactive materials regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); limiting the scope of NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) review for new power plants; and promoting new nuclear power plant siting.  None of these changes will lead to increased public health and safety.  In fact, the NRC has been battling with the EPA for years over radiation standards.  NRC's proposed standards are consistently less protective than the EPA's.

 

Nuclear power is unreliable.

 

Complex and oftenmis-managed nuclear power plants are subject to frequent fires, leaks and other accidents.  For example, the Nuclear Energy Institute's website boasts that "Increased Nuclear Output Would Satisfy California's Residential Demand." [4]  It fails to mention a February 3 fire at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station that has shut the plant for weeks and is a key factor in current rolling blackouts in California.

 

Nuclear power is uneconomic.

 

Nuclear power would not exist in this country today if it weren't for enormous subsidies paid for by ratepayers and taxpayers.  Originally touted as being "too cheap to meter", nuclear power plants are still too expensive for America. The nuclear industry has received the vast majority of energy research and development funding, a special taxpayer-backed insurance policy known as the Price Anderson Act, unjustified electric rates from state regulators, enormous and unwarranted bailouts in state deregulation plans, taxpayer-funded cleanup of uranium enrichment sites plus a giveaway of the Uranium Enrichment Corporation, and an ultimately taxpayer-funded nuclear waste dump.  Many of the issues I raise here are described in more detail in the Green Scissors report (www.greenscissors.org) released by U.S. PIRG, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Friends of the Earth. 

 

It is incredible that the nuclear industry shamelessly revises history to pretend that it has transformed itself into a cost effective energy source.  Yet the industry continues to ask for more handouts. 

 

Taxpayer dollars should not be used for more nuclear research and development funding. 

 

According to the Congressional Research Service, nuclear research and development has gotten more than 60%, or $66 billion in energy research and development funding from 1948-1998.  Led by Representative Markey and others, Congress wisely killed funding for the gas-cooled reactor and the breeder reactor, saving taxpayers at least $5.6 billion. 

 

Now proposals to revive research programs to develop these uneconomic and dangerous reactors are creeping into the Department of Energy's budget.  Supporters of the gas-cooled reactor proposed for South Africa may tout its cost.  They do not highlight the fact that the design cuts costs by not building containment.  The breeder reactor supporters ignore the dismal failure of France's breeder reactor program and the chance of a reactor explosion if the coolant (usually highly reactive sodium) leaks. 

 

Phase out the Price Anderson Act. 

 

The industry is also lobbying for an extension of the Price Anderson Act, which is due to expire in 2002.  This law, passed in 1957 and amended in 1988 provides a taxpayer funded insurance for the nuclear industry in the event of an accident. We believe that this insurance program is an unwarranted taxpayer subsidy to the nuclear industry that has no parallel in any other industry.  During reauthorization of the Price Anderson Act, PIRG and others successfully fought for lower taxpayer liability in the event of an accident. 

 

The American public is being barraged by misleading NEI ads touting the safety and positive economics of nuclear power. Yet the February 28 letter from NRC Commissioner Meserve to Chairman Barton states, "[W]ithout the framework provided by the Act, private-sector participation in nuclear power would be discouraged by the risk of large liabilities."   The Federal Trade Commission has said that NEI's "advertising campaign touting nuclear power as environmentally clean was without substantiation." Several reactors are extending their operating licenses through a process which cuts out the public and essentially rubber-stamps the renewal application.  If these plants are safe and economical enough to get a license extension, they shouldn't need a taxpayer-backed insurance plan. 

 

Protect citizens from unjustified rate increases and bailouts at the state level. 

 

We realize that this committee does not have jurisdiction over state deregulation and rate-making.  However, in analyzing current electricity problems, it is important to recognize the magnitude of the ratepayer subsidies enjoyed by this industry and the role these subsidies have played in blocking competition and propping up economically marginal nuclear power plants. 

 

In the 1980's, the PIRGs successfully blocked unjustified rate increases for nuclear power mismanagement.  As states across the country restructured their electricity markets, the promise to consumers was that these changes would provide competition among electricity providers. Instead, utilities lobbied, and for the most part received, an unjustified ratepayer-funded bailout of their uneconomic investments, usually nuclear power plants. The PIRGs, free market, and other consumer and environmental groups in several states fought back against these requests for "stranded cost" recovery.  We argued that these bailouts were unjustified and unfair to consumers and would hamper efforts to shift towards clean energy.   According to a report released in 1998 with the Safe Energy Communication Council entitled "Ratepayer Robbery" we estimated these bailouts could total more than $112 billion for just eleven states.  There is strong evidence that without these bailouts, almost half of the nuclear power plants would have shut down. Instead, aging plants have been given a new lease on life, are in some cases, still shielded from market forces.  Some have been sold at rock-bottom prices to new owners who have every incentive to run them close to the margin. 

 

Curb taxpayer costs for nuclear waste and index the fee to inflation.

 

The nuclear industry is the only industry that we are aware of which has a government program to guarantee disposal of lethal waste.  We agree with the industry that the DOE has mismanaged the program.  However, our solution is stop spending money on the program and insure that enough money is collected now to adequately cover future costs of a sound waste disposal program.  A 1998 financial review commissioned by the State of Nevada concluded that the funding shortfall for the program would range from $12 to $17 billion in 1996 dollars.  We urge that the Nuclear Waste Fund Fee be indexed to inflation so that there will be adequate funds to cover the ultimate cost of nuclear waste disposition. 

 

There is no current sound solution for the nuclear waste problem. 

 

Nuclear waste is one of the most dangerous substances created by humans.  This waste remains dangerous for at least a quarter of a million years (based on the decay of Pu-239).  One would expect that policies for dealing with this lethal material would be based on sound science and protecting public health.  Instead nuclear waste policies in this country have been based on political expediency.  The incredible problems faced by citizens living near former DOE weapons sites, such as Hanford, Washington should be a lesson to those who want to ignore science and public health.  

 

 We believe that the current project should be stopped, as the proposed dump site at Yucca Mountain cannot meet current standards for containing the waste.  In 1998, PIRG and more than one hundred environmental, consumer and safe energy organizations petitioned then-Energy Secretary Richardson to disqualify Yucca Mountain because it would not meet current standards for containing the waste.  Instead, DOE is in the process of weakening the current site guidelines, a clear case of changing the rules when science gives the answer that is not wanted.

 

We are pleased that President Clinton vetoed dangerous nuclear waste legislation last year.  This legislation would have interfered with EPA's ability to set radiation standards and would have prematurely moved nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, unnecessarily risking the lives of millions of Americans who live along the transport routes.  We are concerned that there are ongoing efforts by both the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission to weaken radiation standards for the site.  We are also concerned that EPA's ongoing review will lead to a standard that will not adequately protect Nevadans who live near the site. 

 

We urge this committee to re-examine nuclear waste policy and develop a public, fair process based on sound science and protecting the public for deciding the ultimate fate of this extremely dangerous material.  No country in the world has a permanent solution to this problem.  The U.S. should reject its current mismanaged program that relies on changing the rules when the science isn't favorable to the industry's solution.  Instead, we should show leadership by developing a solution focused on sound science and protecting the public.

 

 

Conclusion

 

Nuclear power is unsafe, uneconomic, unreliable and generates waste for which there is no sound solution.  It is a failed technology of the past and would not exist were it not for enormous and unjustified government subsidies and policies.  The U.S. should do everything it can to protect the health and safety of the public as well as our pocketbooks.  Nuclear power should be phased out as quickly as possible and replaced by energy efficiency and clean renewable energy.