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EMERGING THREATS: ASSESSING PUBLIC SAFETY

AND SECURITY MEASURES AT NUCLEAR

POWER FACILITIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MARCH 10, 2003

Serial No. 108–43

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DAN BURTON, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

CHRIS BELL, Texas

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

LAWRENCE J. HALLORAN, Staff Director and Counsel

J. VINCENT CHASE, Chief Investigator

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

DAVID RAPALLO, Minority Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 10, 2003 ............................................................................ 1

Statement of:

Blumenthal, Richard, attorney general, State of Connecticut; John T.

Wiltse, director, Office of Emergency Management, State of Connecticut; and Richard Bond, first selectman, town of New Canaan ................. 123

Conklin, W. Craig, Technological Services Division, Office of National

Preparedness, Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, Department of Homeland Security; and Hubert Miller, NRC Region 1

Administrator, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accompanied by Lawrence Chandler, Associate General Counsel for Hearings, Enforcement

and Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission .............................. 67

Wells, Jim, Director, Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. General Accounting Office; Michael J. Slobodien, director, emergency programs, Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.; William F. Renz, director,

nuclear protection services and emergency preparedness, Dominion Resources Services, Inc.; Angelina S. Howard, executive vice president,

Nuclear Energy Institute; Alex Matthiessen, executive director,

Riverkeeper; and David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer, Union of

Concerned Scientists ..................................................................................... 157

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Blumenthal, Richard, attorney general, State of Connecticut, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 126

Bond, Richard, first selectman, town of New Canaan, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 146

Conklin, W. Craig, Technological Services Division, Office of National

Preparedness, Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, prepared statement of ........................... 71

Howard, Angelina S., executive vice president, Nuclear Energy Institute,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 197

Kelly, Hon. Sue, a Representative in Congress from the State of New

York:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 115

Indian Point Emergency Preparedness Independent Expert Task

Force report ............................................................................................ 12

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio, prepared statement of .................................................................... 7

Lochbaum, David, nuclear safety engineer, Union of Concerned Scientists,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 278

Matthiessen, Alex, executive director, Riverkeeper, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 253

Miller, Hubert, NRC Region 1 Administrator, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, prepared statement of .................................................................... 88

Renz, William F., director, nuclear protection services and emergency

preparedness, Dominion Resources Services, Inc., prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 189

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3

Various prepared statements ................................................................... 53

Slobodien, Michael J., director, emergency programs, Entergy Nuclear

Operations, Inc., prepared statement of ..................................................... 182

Wells, Jim, Director, Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. General Accounting Office, prepared statement of ........................................... 161

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Wiltse, John T., director, Office of Emergency Management, State of

Connecticut, prepared statement of ............................................................ 133

(1)

EMERGING THREATS: ASSESSING PUBLIC

SAFETY AND SECURITY MEASURES AT NUCLEAR POWER FACILITIES

MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:05 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Turner, Janklow, Kucinich and

Tierney.

Also present: Representative Kelly.

Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director and counsel; J.

Vincent Chase, chief investigator; Robert A. Briggs, clerk; Mackenzie Eaglen, fellow; David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Jean

Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. This hearing entitled, ‘‘Assessing Public Safety and

Security Measures at Nuclear Facilities,’’ is called to order.

The attacks of September 11, 2001 should have seared this hard

truth into our national consciousness: Security is not a state of

rest. It is not a static measure. Sanctuary from the terrorists of the

21st century demands a new level of vigilance to protect the public

from known and emerging threats.

Heightened awareness of new threats and proactive countermeasures are particularly imperative to protect critical infrastructure facilities, fixed assets of enormous importance to national economic and social well-being. Of those, civilian nuclear power plants

stand as highly attractive targets of terrorism.

Today, we ask if Federal regulators are demanding the physical

security and preparedness enhancements needed to protect public

health and safety from nuclear terrorism. Recent reports suggest

the answer may be no. Although specific to the Indian Point reactor complex in Buchanan, NY, observations by the General Accounting Office [GAO], and to a private security firm point to systemic weaknesses in nuclear incident response planning that have

implications for every community within 50 miles of any of the Nation’s 64 active reactor sites.

A release of radiation caused by terrorists is a unique event, one

that requires acknowledgment of the distinct factors and fears that

will define the public response to such an incident. Yet the chairVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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man of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC], recently wrote,

‘‘Necessary protective actions and response are not predicated on

the cause of events.’’

I disagree. That view overstates the reach of an all-hazards approach to first responder capabilities and ignores the obvious need

to accommodate unique causal elements in any effective response

scenario. Just as flooded roads will alter an evacuation strategy,

transportation routes flooded by the spontaneous evacuation of

frightened families will impede response to an attack on a nuclear

plant.

One dangerous element not predicated on the cause of an incident, but certainly capable of compounding the negative effects, is

poor communication between Federal, State and local officials.

County, city and town leaders wait at the far end of a dysfunctional daisy chain of confusing directives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], the NRC and plant operators.

In the event of a terrorist attack on a reactor, timely information

will be local officials’ most potent weapon against the panic and

overreach that terrorists hope will drive property damage and loss

of life. Emergency response plans and exercises have to include

more accurate, more direct communications to local officials and

the public.

It is telling, no nuclear plant license has ever been suspended or

revoked due solely to weaknesses in emergency response and evacuation planning. Deficiencies can linger for years. Compliance with

critical incident response and evacuation planning has been allowed to become a static bureaucratic exercise. That has to change.

If the planning requirement is to be real, not just cosmetic, reasonable assurance a plan protects public health and safety cannot

be achieved through paperwork alone. It must be gained through

robust exercises and measurable outcomes for which operators are

held closely accountable.

We appreciate the testimony of all of our witnesses today, appreciate that they came to Washington to testify before this committee

as we continue our examination of terrorism and the protection of

critical infrastructure from new threats.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, the Chair would invite Mr. Kucinich,

the ranking member of this committee, to make a comment.

Mr. KUCINICH. Good afternoon. Welcome to our distinguished

witnesses. Glad you could be with the committee today.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your ongoing interest in

the security of this country’s nuclear power plants. It is certainly

one of America’s most critical homeland security priorities. The administration knows this. Indeed, in the 2002 State of the Union Address, the President warned that nuclear facilities could be attacked and with dire consequences. The President asserted that

U.S. forces found diagrams of American nuclear power plants, in

the caves of Afghanistan.

On December 12th of last year, the administration was supposed

to submit to Congress a report on the best way to efficiently and

safely provide potassium iodide to communities surrounding nuclear power plants in the event of an attack. Potassium iodide is

a very cheap, widely available tablet that can prevent fatal thyroid

illness caused by radiation exposure. We have seen no sign of the

report. We required the report, because prior to September 11,

there was no comprehensive plan to buy potassium iodide and distribute it to local communities.

Before September 11, the nuclear utility industry lobbied against

such measures because they feared people would become alarmed

about the dangers of nuclear power. After September 11, however,

it became clear that nuclear power facilities are indeed likely targets. After September 11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended that States consider including potassium iodide in their

emergency evacuation plans. The NRC offered to buy potassium iodide so States could cover a 10-mile radius surrounding nuclear

power plants.

Anyone with a knowledge of past incidents, such as Three Mile

Island and Chernobyl, would acknowledge that 10 miles is a very

modest step. Many of us in Congress believe the NRC did not go

far enough. For this reason, Congress expanded this to a 20-mile

radius as part of the bill we passed last June. We also gave local

government greater flexibility to obtain potassium iodide when

State governments failed to do so.

To ensure that the administration would purchase the potassium

iodide, distribute it and administer it in the most effective manner

possible, we also mandated the report I described, which was to be

conducted in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences

that was due in December. Here we are 3 months later and still

no report. Apparently no one in the administration even allocated

funding for this report until after it was due. It appears the administration hasn’t even contacted the National Academy of Sciences

to contract for the study. Eight months of inaction. Last week we

were told that someone in the administration finally wrote a memo

to the National Academy asking them to begin work, but they are

just now appointing the panelists who will begin to study this

issue.

How could the administration so completely ignore a directive of

Congress? More importantly, how could they ignore this critical

issue and the families living in neighborhoods where the nuclear

power plants are located? Perhaps it is because the homeland secuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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rity apparatus is in disarray? Clearly the new Department is not

yet operating coherently, and now that Governor Ridge has left the

White House, President Bush has failed to appoint a successor, so

nobody has assumed the responsibilities of cross-agency issues such

as this one.

Maybe this has just fallen through the cracks, or maybe it is because the administration’s focus is entirely on Iraq. Maybe this is

just one more example of tunnel vision diverting attention away

from severe threats here at home, or perhaps the administration is

relying on the industry to do the right thing as it has in many

other cases.

Industry officials have stated publicly they believe nuclear power

plants are overly defended, but an NRC review of force-on-force exercises demonstrates precisely the opposite. NRC officials found

significant weakness in armed responses in 37 of 81 mock attacks,

or 46 percent of the time. The NRC concluded that these mock

attackers would have been able to cause core damage, and in many

cases a probable radioactive release.

Whatever the reason for the inaction, the administration’s conduct is not acceptable. The administration promised to make homeland security a top priority. After September 11, we cannot leave

critical homeland security matters, such as the safety of our nuclear power plants, to the industry, and we cannot let these critical

items slip through the cracks or be ignored.

It is important that our Chair has called this meeting, and I

want to thank him for doing so. I think that we need to have action

taken, and to begin immediately. I want to thank the Chair.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank the gentleman.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time the gentleman would recognize the vice

chair of the committee, Mr. Michael Turner.

Mr. TURNER. No statement.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Janklow, do you have any comments?

Mr. JANKLOW. No, sir. I would rather hear the witnesses.

Mr. SHAYS. We will do that. Let me welcome and ask unanimous

consent that our colleague Sue Kelly be allowed to participate in

this hearing. She is a member of the Transportation Committee as

well as Financial Services, and is the vice chair of that committee.

We welcome you here.

She, like a number in the United States, has a plant in her district and has some expertise in this issue.

Would you like to make an opening statement, Mrs. Kelly?

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my

thanks to both you and Mr. Kucinich for holding their hearing

today. It addresses some issues that are on the minds of many

Americans as we confront the challenges that are associated with

the war on terror.

The hearing addresses some matters of particular significance to

many of my constituents because they live within the radius of the

Indian Point Nuclear Plant, which is in my district in Buchanan,

NY. So it is a good thing the hearing will include witnesses who

can speak directly to some of their concerns.

The hearing is also beneficial in providing a followup to a hearing that we held 2 weeks ago in the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which examined some of the problems with Indian

Point’s emergency plans and the Federal Government’s inadequate

attempts to resolve them.

I said 2 weeks ago and I will say again today that FEMA has

to respond to our local officials and to the issues that were recently

raised by the report released by the former FEMA Administrator,

James Lee Witt, which concluded that the current emergency plans

for Indian Point were inadequate to protect public safety.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. KELLY. Instead of browbeating our local officials into accepting emergency plans that they are clearly uncomfortable with,

FEMA needs to be addressing local officials and addressing their

concerns and reassessing the impact of terrorism that a dense population may have on an accident at Indian Point, and it may have

on the emergency plans that we need to formulate.

FEMA’s outdated approach to Indian Point’s emergency plans

has to change. At that hearing, FEMA was given by the committee,

at my request, a 30-day deadline to respond to those matters, and

I sincerely hope they are now using that time wisely and will be

able to provide answers which indicate that they are now finally

taking the concerns of local officials and the Witt report seriously.

Any further actions to intimidate the State and localities into rubber-stamping plans that they have already refused to certify is not

going to be tolerated.

Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today, and

I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Kucinich, for holding the hearing. I look forward to today’s testimony, and thank you for allowing

me to speak.

Mr. SHAYS. We are delighted to have your participation. Thank

you for being here.

Mr. Tierney, I am going to make a motion; then we will allow

you a chance to sit down a second.

I would ask unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening statement in the

record, and that the record remain open for 3 days. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask further unanimous consent that all Members be permitted

to include their written statement in the record. Without objection,

so ordered.

With that in mind, I would point out the following individuals

have submitted testimony for the record: Congresswoman Nita

Lowey from New York, Congressman Eliot Engel from New York,

Dr. Makhijani, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research,

Linda M. Lewis, Emergency Management Specialist, Columbia,

MD, and also a statement from the Project on Government Oversight, referred to as POGO.

[NOTE.—The Project on Government Oversight report entitled,

‘‘Nuclear Power Plant Security, Voices from Inside the Fences,’’

may be found in subcommittee files.]

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. At this time, I will call the witnesses’ names, I will

swear them in, and then, Mr. Tierney, if you would like to make

a statement, we will welcome that.

We have Mr. W. Craig Conklin, Director, Technological Services

Division, Office of National Preparedness, Emergency Preparedness

and Response Directorate, Department of Homeland Security. We

have Mr. Hubert Miller, Region 1 Administrator, Nuclear Regulatory Commission [NRC].

Gentlemen, I will swear you in, and then we will hear from Mr.

Tierney, and then we will go to you all. If you would please stand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record our witnesses have responded in

the affirmative.

As you know, gentlemen, we swear in all of our witnesses before

this committee.

Mr. Tierney, welcome. If you have any comments, love to hear

them.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having

this important hearing. Thanks to our witnesses that will be testifying soon.

I think we all are aware of the pending hostilities that potentially may erupt at any time. As a consequence, we have to be prepared for anything that might happen in this country, not the least

of which is preparedness with regard to safeguarding our nuclear

facilities and the materials at those power plants.

There are six communities in my district that fall within 10

miles of a nuclear power plant at Seabrook, NH, and even though

we are across the border of a State, we are not that far away from

any reaction that might occur. People in these communities are

concerned and fearful that we are not prepared.

I visited the Seabrook site and have gone through their processes

for testing and preparedness and was not all that impressed. I

think there is plenty of room for improvement there.

I think this administration needs to really focus its attention on

a myriad of issues, not the least of which is the security of these

facilities. I note that last March Secretary Abraham asked for a

substantially larger amount of money than the administration allocated toward these needs for protecting nuclear facilities.

I also note there was some discussion, Mr. Chairman, in some of

the hearings last year about increasing the radius through which

KI would be distributed, the potassium iodide would be distributed,

and I, amongst others, had recommended up to 50 miles. We eventually saw that the administration proposal for 20 miles carried the

day, but know that even at this point in time, we don’t have the

report that was supposed to be out in December for assuring us of

how that was to take place. I guess we can feel less than secure

that it is going to be done by the due date in June, that there is

going to be a plan in place for that.

So I think we have a lot of work to do. This is a well-timed hearing. I look forward to the testimony and hope that we can get the

answers and find out that we are embarking on some more secure

operations.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

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I just would tell our witnesses that we ask you to limit your

statement to 5 minutes, but we will allow you to go up to 10. Our

preference is that you finish closer to the 5, but what you have to

put in the record is more important than just 5 minutes.

So, we do the clock this way. It is a 5-minute clock, and then we

turn it on for another 5 minutes, and you never want to get up to

10, though. OK.

Mr. Conklin.

STATEMENTS OF W. CRAIG CONKLIN, TECHNOLOGICAL SERVICES DIVISION, OFFICE OF NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS,

EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE DIRECTORATE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY; AND HUBERT MILLER, NRC REGION 1 ADMINISTRATOR, NUCLEAR

REGULATORY COMMISSION, ACCOMPANIED BY LAWRENCE

CHANDLER, ASSOCIATE GENERAL COUNSEL FOR HEARINGS,

ENFORCEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION, NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Mr. CONKLIN. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and

members of the committee. I am Craig Conklin, Director of the

Technological Services Division of the Emergency Preparedness

and Response Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security.

My division administers FEMA’s Radiological Emergency Program

[REP]. I am pleased to be with you today to talk about the REP

program and the issues relating to offsite emergency preparedness

for nuclear power facilities.

I will discuss the establishment of the program, Federal, State

and local program responsibilities, program guidance and regulations, FEMA’s revised exercise evaluation methodology, the results

of the September 24 exercise, the status of the offsite plans around

Indian Point; and then I will talk about the two reports concerning

Indian Point and Millstone that were prepared by the New York

State contractor, and the July 2001 GAO report on Indian Point.

FEMA recognizes and respects the concerns of the people of New

York regarding the health and safety of those living and working

in the vicinity of the Indian Point Energy Center. The health and

safety of the public is our primary concern.

It is FEMA’s responsibility to assure that the emergency plans

in place provide a reasonable assurance that the health and safety

of the people around the plants can be protected. Exercises of the

plants are an important component of that process, as they allow

participants to identify strengths and weaknesses in the plans so

that corrective actions can be taken.

FEMA believes that the emergency response plans must be flexible and dynamic. We expect them to be continually updated based

on changing circumstances or improved procedures. For example,

the plans should be updated based on the 2000 census population

figures and the new evacuation time estimates that are currently

being developed.

In an Executive order dated December 7, 1979, President Carter

transferred the Federal lead role in offsite radiological emergency

planning and preparedness from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, now the

Emergency Response and Preparedness Directorate of the DepartVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ment of Homeland Security. In response to this new role, FEMA

established the REP program. It is important to note that the REP

program responsibilities encompass only offsite activities; that is,

State, tribal and local government emergency planning preparedness activities that take place beyond the physical boundaries of

the power plants. On-site activities continue to be the responsibility

of the NRC.

The REP program works closely with 450 State, tribal and local

governments to ensure that there is reasonable assurance that offsite response officials can protect their citizens in the event of a nuclear power plant accident.

FEMA’s responsibilities are to review and evaluate offsite response plans, evaluate the exercises conducted to determine whether such plans can be implemented, make findings on the adequacy

of those plans and exercises, and submit those to the NRC.

We also provide radiological emergency response training to first

responders and other officials, and at the national level we chair

the Federal Radiological Preparedness Coordinating Committee. At

the regional level, we chair the Regional Assistance Committee,

which has Federal agency membership in the nine FEMA regions

with power plants; respond to requests to the NRC; and of course

we provide regulatory oversight, rulemaking, and guidance as necessary for effective program implementation.

State, tribal and county responsibilities are to prepare plans and

procedures for responding to an accident at a nuclear power plant

and review and update them annually as necessary; conduct biennial exercises; ensure that first responders and State, local and

tribal officials are trained properly; and finally, to ensure that a response organization’s facilities, equipment and supplies are adequate for response to a radiological incident.

In 1980, we issued joint guidance between FEMA and NRC,

which establishes the basis for the REP program in a document

called Criteria for Preparation and Evaluation of Radiological

Emergency Plans and Preparedness in Support of Nuclear Power

Plants. This document contains the planning standards and related

criteria that we use in evaluating and reviewing offsite response organizations’ plans, as well as guidance for onsite aspects addressed

by the NRC.

In 1996, we published a Federal Register notice addressing a

strategic review of the REP program and requested comments on

the REP program. Based on comments received, one of the major

recommendations made to FEMA—made by FEMA was to streamline the program and eliminate the exercise checklist and

inconsistences among regions. As a result, a new exercise evaluation methodology was developed that is more results-oriented and

does not depend on a checklist.

The September 24, 2002, exercise conducted at Indian Point was

done to evaluate the offsite emergency response, and NRC evaluated the onsite emergency response. The purpose of the exercise

was to determine whether the offsite plans and procedures for responding to an emergency at Indian Point could be implemented to

protect the general public. Exercise participants included responders and emergency managers from Westchester, Rockland, Orange

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and Putnam Counties in New York; Bergen County, NJ; and the

State of New York.

The exercise scenario that was used to drive the players’ actions

involved a series of mechanical malfunctions that hypothetically resulted in the degradation of plant operating systems and within 4

hours a release of radioactive material from the plant that forced

the offsite response organizations to take actions to protect the

public.

The specifics of the scenario and the offsite extent of play were

developed and agreed upon by a scenario development team. This

team consisted of representatives from the licensee, State and local

governments, the NRC and FEMA. Although we recommended several times that the exercise contain a terrorism component, the

other members of the team decided that such a component should

not be incorporated into an exercise at this time, but should be considered for future exercises.

The State and local organizations participating in that exercise

demonstrated the satisfactory knowledge of the emergency response plans and procedures, their actions were implemented adequately, and there were no issues that arose to the level of a deficiency. However, evaluators did identify 13 areas requiring corrective action during this evaluation. None of these, though, were

raised to an issue that would have endangered the general public.

Historically we work closely with our State and tribal partners

to ensure the public health and safety remains the focal point of

the program. We will continue to do so for the future.

Specific to Indian Point, we have worked closely with them to

prepare for the exercise, as well as upgrade local plans and procedures. We have participated in or supported over 50 other activities, including meetings of out-of-sequence exercises, training opportunities, planning sessions, and other independent communications between the FEMA regional office and the State and counties.

In January 2002, we provided the State and counties an extensive matrix identifying plant information that we need in order to

conduct our review. However, we did not receive that information

until a few weeks before the September exercise, thus limiting our

ability to thoroughly evaluate these plans for consistency with our

regulations. In recognition of the constraints and limitations on the

State and local governments, we proceeded with the exercise with

the understanding that we would complete this review after the exercise.

In November 2002, we had such a meeting with the States and

established a May 2003 timeframe for completion of State and

county plan updates that would permit inclusion of the critical

evacuation time estimates into the process.

In February 2003, we provided the State and counties opportunities to submit the updated plans as previously agreed upon. If the

State and county submitted the information before this date,

FEMA will evaluate it and then decide if we can make a determination of reasonable assurance. This deadline provides FEMA

with an opportunity to review the final State report that is due

shortly and the State plans for distribution of KI that was submitted in February 28, 2003.

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The most significant remaining issues include the letters of

agreement, the updated evacuation time estimate, study of the

Joint News Center procedures; school district, preschool, day care

center plans for the children.

Two reports on Indian Point, the review of the emergency preparedness on Indian Point and Millstone, issued—that recently finalized, I believe that appendix came out today, validated our findings, especially those specifically identified in January 2002 and

December 3, 2002, and February 21 correspondence. Examples of

valid information contained in the report include an improved public outreach effort should be used to better educate all sectors of

the public on their role. FEMA should develop an outcome-based

exercise program for exercise evaluation, and we have developed

such an approach, and it was used in the exercise. However, the

report may contain information that will help us to better attain

this goal, and planning must account for the strong possibility of

spontaneous evacuation.

FEMA is committed to continuous improvement of the REP program, and will evaluate each recommendation in the report to determine its validity with regard to the level of emergency preparedness at Indian Point, or to its applicability programwide. FEMA is

looking forward to evaluating the final report that came out today.

The GAO report in 2000 was as a result of a steam generator or

tube rupture accident at Indian Point. The GAO report included

suggestions for improving the program, and concluded that some

improvements had been made to the lessons learned since the accident, but further improvement was needed.

The final report was published in 2001. There are several recommendations I would be pleased to discuss with you. The report

concluded overall that the Director of FEMA determine the reasons

why the four counties responsible for the response at the plant are

not knowledgeable about FEMA’s initiatives and, if necessary, reassess its current practices of communicating through the State during nonemergency situations. After completion of the report, FEMA

responded to the recommendations by communicating with the

counties and States simultaneously, and, as detailed in my written

testimony, greatly increased communications with the four risk

counties.

In conclusion, the REP program is committed to diligent support

of the efforts of the State and local governments to improve the

REP planning and exercise process.

Again, I would like to thank you, Chairman Shays and Representative Kucinich, for the opportunity to appear before you

today. And I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Conklin.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conklin follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Miller. You don’t have to read as fast.

Mr. MILLER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the

subcommittee. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss

NRC actions with respect to security and emergency preparedness

at nuclear power facilities.

Security and emergency preparedness are key elements of the defense in depth safety philosophy NRC has long employed in regulating nuclear power plants. This philosophy, which requires redundancy of safety systems to reduce the potential for accidents,

imposes high standards of quality on operations and construction

of plants, recognizes that accidents can still occur.

For this reason containment structures and other safety features

are required to minimize the potential for release of radioactivity

from a site. Through emergency planning, additional mechanisms

are put in place to protect the public in the unlikely event these

barriers fail.

Security of nuclear power plants has been given top priority at

NRC since the September 2001 terrorist attack. Within minutes of

the attack, NRC directed plants across the country to go to the

highest level of security. While for many years all nuclear power

plants have been required to have security programs sufficient to

defend against violent assaults by well-armed, well-trained

attackers, numerous additional steps have been taken since September 2001 to thwart terrorist acts.

Through formal orders NRC has required increased security

posts and patrols, substantial additional physical barriers, and

greater stand-off distances for vehicle bombs, stricter site access

controls, to name only a few of these measures.

Through inspections we have been able to confirm that required

security enhancements are being implemented at all plants. We

have recently begun enhanced force-on-force exercises; in fact, we

expect the Indian Point facility to be among the first involved in

this initiative.

Working with the Department of Homeland Security, other Federal agencies and the Intelligence Community, we have continued

comprehensive assessment of security programs, among other

things evaluating the current threat environment, and addressing

issues such as security guard fatigue and training which have

emerged since September 11.

For many years, NRC has made legislative proposals addressing

a wide spectrum of activities that would further enhance security

of NRC-licensed activities. We will continue to work with Congress

and look forward to favorable action on these proposals.

Let me now turn to emergency planning. Following the accident

at Three Mile Island, the NRC determined that improved emergency planning by Federal, State and local governments was needed. NRC issued planning standards which required, among other

things, the establishment of two emergency planning zones around

each nuclear plant site. The first is a zone covering an area of

about 10 miles in all directions from a plant, where the greatest

potential for radiological effects from a release exists. Plans must

address protective actions for members of the public in this zone,

which could involve evacuation or sheltering. A second extended

planning zone of about 50 miles is also established to deal with poVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00090 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tential lower-level, long-term risks associated principally with contamination of food and water that might occur.

Emergency planning is a dynamic process. Plans are tested in

frequent drills and periodic full-scale exercises that simulate serious reactor accidents. Having lead at the Federal level for reviewing offsite preparedness, FEMA periodically assesses these plans

and exercises. If at any time FEMA finds offsite preparedness is

not adequate, it will inform the Governor of the State and the

NRC. The NRC will then work with FEMA, the State, plant operator and other stakeholders to address and identify deficiencies.

While we are not at this point in the process regarding Indian

Point, we are, of course, familiar with the issues recently raised by

Mr. Witt’s report as well as other issues raised by FEMA, and we

will closely monitor steps being taken in the coming months by

FEMA, the State and counties to address those concerns.

One of the issues raised in the Witt report involved emergency

preparedness following a terrorist attack. Emergency plans are intentionally broad and flexible to assure a wide spectrum of events,

including those involving rapid large releases of radioactivity, can

be responded to effectively. Plan responses are not predicated on

the specific cause or probability of an event. Rather, emergency

planning assumes the improbable has occurred, and develops a response to address the consequences of potential releases. Whether

releases occur as a result of terrorist acts or equipment malfunctions, emergency plans provide an effective framework for decisionmaking and response.

Effective communications with stakeholders is an important element of all of our regulatory activities. For example, over the past

several years we have conducted numerous meetings near Indian

Point to inform the public and seek views on the heightened oversight we have been providing that facility. Addressing the desire of

local officials to more frequently and directly communicate with

NRC on emergency preparedness, as reflected in a GAO study on

Indian Point in 2001, we stepped up our interactions with county

emergency preparedness professionals. We have supported workshops, meetings and other activities addressing emergency planning issues such as potassium iodide use, dose assessment and the

like. We will continue these efforts, particularly in light of the current situation where important specific issues have been raised.

Mr. Chairman, I have discussed the many steps NRC has taken

to strengthen security and address emergency preparedness issues

which have emerged since the September 11 attacks, steps taken

to communicate with stakeholders on these important issues.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks, and I look forward to

answering any questions you may have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I am going to call on Mr. Turner to start us off and

then go to Mr. Tierney, and then to Mr. Janklow, and then to our

colleague Mrs. Kelly, and then I will have questions. I am just

going to tell you the two questions, Mr. Conklin, I want you to

think about. One is, what in the Witt report’s recommendations

validated FEMA’s emergency preparedness findings?

And I am also going to ask—this is more important to me—I am

taking this out of a letter addressed to me of February 12 from the

NRC. The question is: Does FEMA agree with the NRC that the

Witt report gives undue weight, to potential terrorist attacks?

I am going to ask your opinion about that after others have gone.

So at this time, Mr. Turner, you have the floor.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your presentation today and the information that

you are providing us. I think we all know the importance of the

issue of preparedness not only for the issue of emergency response,

but in advance in looking at the types of threats that these facilities may face.

One thing is for certain: In looking at the information that we

have received concerning possible terrorist threats to the United

States, we can’t say that we don’t know that nuclear power plants

may be a target. The information that we have indicates that, in

fact, they have been viewed as possible targets by terrorists. And

also knowing the issue of the occurrence of September 11, we know

that our need for preparedness is very high, because we can no

longer say that it won’t happen here.

In looking at the issues of your statements, one of the considerations that I would like to hear from Mr. Miller, when you are talking about issues of prevention, largely in your testimony I heard

statements about an attack that might occur, perhaps a paramilitary or guerilla-type terrorist attack. But I have not heard of

the type of security enhancements or issues are you looking at for

prevention that might include civil reengineering of facilities to

look at more catastrophic attacks like we saw on September 11.

Mr. MILLER. In the few days immediately following the September attacks, in addition to requiring that the security level at all

plants be raised to the highest level, the Commission chartered

studies to look at the potential effects of attacks on the plant. We

have conducted vulnerability assessments over these past several

years. These are assessments that take some time to complete.

In the assessments that have been done, I cannot provide details

here, we have not identified anything, beyond the steps that we

have ordered the plants to take, which are clearly needed to address extreme events. I think it is significant that we have issued

orders which have required significant increases in patrols and the

strengthening of the physical barriers at the plant where that is

needed. We continue this assessment working with the Department

of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense, Intelligence

Community. We continue our assessment of the threat environment. If at any time in these studies we determine that more is

needed beyond what we have already required, we will take steps.

Mr. TURNER. Well, I guess just in listening to your testimony,

and in testimony that we have heard in previous hearings before

this subcommittee, I think there are serious concerns about the

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vulnerability of plants, and I would hope that your process is not

one that you view as complete, but ongoing, and that if there are

issues that people are openly discussing that need to be addressed,

we would certainly hope that you would be looking to address

them.

In looking at your written testimony, I was also slightly concerned that you indicate that—just to read this paragraph. It says,

it is not likely that protective actions would need to be taken for

the entire 10-mile emergency planning zone, even for a significant

release. A radioactive plume from a nuclear plant does not move

in all directions at once, but travels in the general direction to

which the wind is blowing. As a result, only a small fraction of the

population in the emergency planning zone would be in the pathway of the plume.

I doubt that the population in the area of an emergency would

feel the same way as that paragraph is written, that their risk of

any need of evacuation is minimal. Could you comment on that in

your planning with respect to the fact that you are not likely to be

able to just evacuate slices of an overall pie?

Mr. MILLER. What we are speaking to in that part of the testimony is what is required. If you look at releases from the plant,

if you look at the weather conditions and the like, and the direction

of the travel of any radioactive plume, it is pretty clear that the

areas that must necessarily be evacuated are in a direction that

corresponds with the direction the wind is blowing. I recognize that

people outside of that zone might, on their own accord, choose to—

some may choose to evacuate, but what we are speaking to there

is just the physical reality that a plume will go in a certain direction. And the assessment that is done by the offsite officials is, in

fact, of what the weather conditions are, where are the areas that

are potentially exposed to radioactivity. It is those areas that are

targeted and given priority in any evacuation. And in most instances you will not need to evacuate a whole 10-mile area to protect the public.

Now, it is a normal process, if there is uncertainty, a standard

approach is to evacuate within 2 miles in all directions, and 5 miles

downwind. That is a default position if there is uncertainty. But

the point is that it is not necessary in all cases to evacuate the full

10 miles.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Miller, I would like to explore with you a little bit on the licensing and relicensing process here. I would like to understand it

a little bit better if I could.

In determining the level of the security that these establishments

need, my understanding is that first the Nuclear Regulatory Commission promulgates the design basis threat; is that right?

Mr. MILLER. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. As I understand it, the current design basis threat

requires protection against a small group of skilled or well-armed

outsiders aided by one insider, a single insider acting alone, and a

four-wheel-drive land vehicle bomb. Have I got that correct?

Mr. MILLER. Well, I won’t comment on the specific attributes of

the current design basis threat.

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Mr. TIERNEY. Because?

Mr. MILLER. It is sensitive information. But it does involve a violent attack by well-trained, well-armed attackers, and it does involve a vehicle bomb. But I need to hasten to point out that the

steps that we required be taken in the order that we issued raised

the level of security at these plants that goes well beyond the current pre-September 11 design basis threat.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me break it down. First of all, you said they

are sensitive. Are they classified?

Mr. MILLER. It is sensitive information that is not classified, but

it is what we call safeguards information—sensitive information,

the specific attributes, the broad definition of what the design basis

threat is, contained in our regulations, and it is what I have just

described.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, do me a favor. Give it to me again, because

it was, before September 11 at least, the way I described it; am I

right?

Mr. MILLER. The details I can’t confirm, but it is in concept, it

is this violent attack by well-trained, well-armed attackers.

Mr. TIERNEY. And one insider.

Mr. MILLER. And aided by an insider.

Mr. TIERNEY. Another aspect of that was a single insider acting

alone. You have provisions to deal with no outsiders, but someone

on the inside.

Mr. MILLER. Again, I want to be careful about the specifics, but

in concept it is an insider. And this is what—this is among the

things that I have talked about earlier, what we are examining and

what the Commission is right now engaged in looking at, in examining the current threat environment, along with, in concert with

the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense,

and the Intelligence Community, to determine what is the proper

current design basis threat.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess what I am trying to get at, Mr. Miller, is

where we are in this process? Have you formally changed it from

what it was before September 11, 2001; are you still in the exploratory stages and trying to determine what it is going to be?

Mr. MILLER. Within the next several months we expect to issue

new requirements in this respect.

Mr. TIERNEY. But there have been no new requirements issued

since September 11, 2001, up to this point in time?

Mr. MILLER. Well, what I am saying is that we have issued new

requirements. They are prospective requirements. We knew it

would take some time to work and coordinate with the Defense Department, the Intelligence Community and so on, to pin down precisely what the current threat is, but we knew we couldn’t wait.

That is why we raised the bar. That is why we stipulated or required that plants upgrade security to a level that is beyond, well

beyond, what existed under the old design basis threat prior to

September 11.

Mr. TIERNEY. When do those new provisions go into effect?

Mr. MILLER. They have been in effect. They were issued in an

order—the order was issued in February of last year.

Mr. TIERNEY. February 2002.

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Mr. MILLER. February 2002. That followed a series of threat

advisories that we issued on a very immediate basis to raise the

level of security at the plants.

Mr. TIERNEY. Every one of the plants across the country is now

required to meet these?

Mr. MILLER. All the plants were required to come into compliance with that. We have done inspections to determine that those

enhancements have been put in place.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, in the process that you used in determining

that new design basis threat, did you consider the likelihood of an

event or a potential severity; is that the process that you went

through?

Mr. MILLER. There was a very systematic review of the potential

vulnerabilities of the plants, and that order was developed, in fact,

considering the kinds of attacks that could be made on the plants

and the areas that needed to be strengthened. But it was already

at a very high level. It was strengthened following that order.

Mr. TIERNEY. In December of last year, the Commission indicated

in one of its decisions that it doesn’t consider the impacts of terrorism when making a licensing decision. Is that still the case?

Mr. MILLER. I am sorry. I can’t answer that question. I am not

an attorney, and I am not the specialist in this area. So what I

would prefer to do is to—if you will indulge me, provide an

answer——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me—the gentleman speaking to you was?

Mr. MILLER. This is Mr. Chandler. He is from our Office of General Counsel.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Please have a seat. It is my fault. I should have said

if anyone might respond, they should stand in the back and raise

their right hand.

Let me just have you give your full title, and if you would give

a card to the transcriber.

Mr. CHANDLER. I will. My name is Lawrence Chandler. I am Associate General Counsel for Hearings, Enforcement and Administration at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Feel free to respond to the question.

Mr. TIERNEY. Let me state it again. My question was that when

the NRC is issuing an order, or when it is making a decision about

licensing, do you take into consideration the impacts of terrorism

and the readiness of that particular facility to deal with terrorism?

Mr. CHANDLER. The Commission’s decisions last December focused on the issues that were presented by various parties in several different proceedings. The Commission’s decision basically concluded that it was not necessary, in the context of NEPA, National

Environmental Policy Act, to consider the acts of terrorism. It also

reiterated that acts of enemies of the United States were beyond

the scope of requirements under the Commission’s regulations.

Mr. TIERNEY. I understand the decision in December was more

along environmental issues than anything else. But it was a sweeping statement that was made in those decisions. So what I am getting from you is you are saying that the NRC does not feel that

in making licensing decisions, that it should take into consideration

a facility’s preparedness to deal with terrorist situations.

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Mr. CHANDLER. Beyond the scope of those requirements set out

in 10 CFR Part 73, which are the basic safeguards and physical

protection requirements. Again, it was the acts of enemies of the

United States that were raised in the context of the issues before

the Commission, as well as the specific context of consideration for

NEPA purposes that the Commission responded to.

Mr. TIERNEY. What exactly, in the area of terrorism, or preparedness to deal with terrorism, what, if anything, is considered by the

Commission when it deals with licensure?

Mr. CHANDLER. Well, I think if you look at terms that you were

describing again in your question of Mr. Miller a moment ago with

respect to the design basis threat, there are elements of that I

think you would fairly characterize as including aspects of terrorism.

Mr. TIERNEY. You must meet those and meet the ability to deal

with those?

Mr. CHANDLER. Again, that is part of the design basis threat.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

We will have a second pass at these witnesses.

Mr. Janklow. Governor.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

You know, as I read your testimony, gentlemen, I am a little bit

puzzled. As I have listened to and read Mr. Conklin’s testimony, it

appears that—and people are talking about Indian Point a lot. It

appears letters of agreement have been submitted, but they haven’t

been finalized. It appears that, as to evacuations, the plans don’t

yet incorporate data from the updated evacuation time estimate

studies that reflect the new demographics as well as the shadow

evacuation. It appears that the joint new conference procedures

really don’t work very well, but they are working on upgrading

them. It appears that the procedures for the schools in the county

are adequate, but that the individual school districts, preschool and

day care centers haven’t yet submitted for FEMA review for consistency and completeness.

Sir, what is the problem? What is holding it all up from being

done from your perspective, in just a couple of sentences. Whose

fault is it?

Mr. CONKLIN. Well, the responsibility for providing that information rests with the State and county folks working together to forward that information on to FEMA.

Mr. JANKLOW. Is this a turf battle of some type, or is it a legal

battle, or don’t they have the resources? Isn’t it important? Or

what is the reason it hasn’t been submitted?

Mr. CONKLIN. You would really have to talk to the State folks to

really get the reasons.

Mr. JANKLOW. Have you folks ever talked to them and asked

them?

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes.

Mr. JANKLOW. What do they tell you is the reason?

Mr. CONKLIN. Our instructions we have had, it has been a resource problem for them, because of the number of plants in the

State, the number of nuclear plants in the State, the amount of

preparedness activities that they do undertake in the areas around

those nuclear plants.

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Mr. JANKLOW. If they say it is a resource problem because of the

number of nuclear plants, how do we fix the problem? What do we

do to fix the problem? Or do we ask the terrorists to wait until we

can get more resources?

Mr. CONKLIN. The provision of resources would—could help the

problem. Historically in the REP program, I am speaking

programwide now, the resources that come to the county and local

officials and in some cases the States come from the licensee. They

help out with the offsite planning and actually fund some of the activities in those offsite areas.

Mr. JANKLOW. Mr. Miller, you talk about doing these mock exercises, and I realize you can’t really use much of an element of surprise when you are trying to surprise people that are armed. You

can run into problems. But, you know, on a chalk board, when you

put up Xs and Os, all plays score touchdowns, things work on the

board. In reality, how often have your mock exercises determined

that what it is that you were doing in terms of defensive preparedness, what percent of the time aren’t the defenses effective?

Mr. MILLER. I can’t give you a figure off the top of my head, but

I do want to comment on one thing. Folks talk about—or people

talk about failures. I think it is important to understand that these

are mock assaults that are commando-style attacks on the plant.

The attacking—the adversary team has intimate knowledge of the

vital equipment in the plant and the various features of the security program.

So it is—they are given a very strong advantage in these assaults. The purpose is to identify those areas of potential weakness,

areas where the plant can be strengthened. I think the notion that

these exercises, as they are performed, reveal a fundamental flaw

and a fundamental problem with the security program is, I think,

misleading. In all of these instances, immediate steps are taken to

address any areas or to strengthen the areas that are identified.

Mr. JANKLOW. How do you mock-exercise flying an airplane into

the facility?

Mr. MILLER. We don’t simulate that.

Mr. JANKLOW. How did you deal with it? Are these plants capable of dealing with that type of attack?

Mr. MILLER. As I mentioned earlier, we have been conducting

and are still conducting assessments of extreme events such as

that. And we have not completed those studies, but we are aware

of what the preliminary indications are, and they, as we said in our

testimony, indicate that the current planning basis is still intact—

I mean, that—the assumptions of emergency planning have not

been shown to be flawed or in need of change as a result of these

studies we have done.

Mr. JANKLOW. How many plants do we have in the United

States, sir?

Mr. MILLER. I believe there are 103.

Mr. JANKLOW. Of those, have you been able to determine yet

what number of those would be able to withstand the flight of an

airplane, a suicide mission into the plant?

Mr. MILLER. We are doing those reviews. I think that it is clear

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stand very extreme events, hurricanes, tornadoes, missiles that can

be thrown at a plant by a tornado, very extreme events. They are

not soft targets, they are hardened structures. It is our belief that

there is reasonable assurance.

Mr. JANKLOW. Let me ask you this, sir. If I had children or my

grandchildren live within 5 or 6 miles of a plant downwind on a

given day, how much reason would I have to be concerned that

something like a—forget an airliner, let’s say a G–4, G–5 Falcon

50-type aircraft would be deliberately flown into the facility at 500

or 600 miles an hour, head on, by a suicide mission? What——

Mr. MILLER. From what I understand about these studies, they

indicate that these facilities are hardened sufficiently to resist attacks of that sort. We are still looking at this. And as I said before,

we have not identified anything that would require us to change

our planning basis.

It doesn’t say anything about the prevention that exists with respect to making the skies more secure through FAA and the steps

that are being taken there.

Mr. JANKLOW. One more question, sir. Thank you. I appreciate

both being very responsive. Mr. Miller, and Mr. Conklin, how long

will it be until your assessments are done, Mr. Miller, and how

long will it be, Mr. Conklin, until you are satisfied that all of the

communities that need to submit their plans so that they can be

implemented if necessary will be done?

Mr. MILLER. Well, if you are talking about the assessments that

are being done right now in connection with the specific issues

raised by the Witt report and by FEMA, that is a process that

FEMA has the lead on and has engaged with the State, and our

role is to monitor that process. And if it comes to an impasse, if

it does come to an impasse, then it would come to the NRC.

But we have not—at this point we are still monitoring the process. At this point it is still FEMA’s lead.

Mr. SHAYS. I think I’d better move along here. Do you have a

quick answer, Mr. Conklin?

Mr. CONKLIN. I would just say right now it’s too difficult to tell.

We gave them a May 2 deadline to get the information, and when

they get it in we will review it and then move on from there based

on what is in the information.

Mr. SHAYS. Before I call on Mrs. Kelly, I will just make the observation that we have problems in some cases with the plans, but

the one challenge that I think a lot of people have is the people

who need to see these plans, the public, do not. They’re not aware

of these plans and they’re the ones ultimately that are impacted by

it.

Mrs. Kelly, you have the floor. Again, welcome.

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Conklin, you mentioned May 2. Two weeks ago I asked

FEMA—gave them a 30-day deadline to work with our local officials, and I’d like to know what FEMA has done to comply with the

request for a report by the end of this month on your Agency’s efforts to respond to the local concerns and work with the local officials. I gave you until the end of this month.

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes, ma’am, and we are hard at work on that. Joe

Picciano, who was at the last hearing, has written to the States

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and asked them—or the State of the New York, and asked for

meetings and activities to sit down with them and the local officials

to work through the information. We have drafted a reply to your

request and are working that through the system to get you a timely reply, but we are working very diligently with the State and

county folks right now to address these issues.

Mrs. KELLY. As you know, the Witt report was finalized last

week and the primary conclusions in the Witt report have not

changed since the draft was related in January. What have you

done specifically to address the additional comments that the Witt

report spoke about with the impact of a—that a terrorist attack

could have on your emergency plans?

Mr. CONKLIN. I have not had a chance myself to review that report. My understanding is they came on either Friday or today. It’s

about a 68-page addendum to the existing report. There were some

minor changes made to it, but I have not had a chance to look at

the overall report to see if there’s been any changes to the major

findings yet. So I’d like to get back to you, if I could, because right

now I haven’t seen the final report to evaluate it in detail.

Mrs. KELLY. So the answer is, so far as you know, nothing;

FEMA’s done nothing?

Mr. CONKLIN. Not with the final report. We have looked at the

draft report and incorporated that into our State exercise—and our

exercise report and cross-referenced the findings of the Witt report

in it with findings that we had developed through our plan reviews

and exercise reviews, and we’ve gone that far and we’re looking at

it from a national program perspective.

Mrs. KELLY. Have you done anything about the comment in the

Witt report that speaks of the fact that high-population areas have

different requirements on an evacuation plan than otherwise?

Mr. CONKLIN. I have asked the contractor to look at the literature and the science, the social sciences behind those kinds of

activities, to see what we could find in the literature that would

support those kinds of comments and what we would or should do

to take and address those in our plans and procedures and our

guidance.

Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Conklin, FEMA does a great job in many instances with natural disasters. The concern of my constituency,

and I’m sure that the chairman’s constituency, have the same problems, this could not perhaps be a natural disaster. I wonder if

you’d please detail the internal process that your Agency goes

through to determine that an emergency plan provides reasonable

assurance to those of us who live quite close to these plants that

our health and our safety are protected. It’s my understanding a

determination is made by the region and then is sent up to the

headquarters; is that accurate?

Mr. CONKLIN. That is accurate. There is a regional assistance

committee in our nine regions that have nuclear power plants, and

when these plans are reviewed they’re reviewed by more than just

FEMA. They’re reviewed by folks from the NRC; the Environmental Protection Agency; the U.S. Department of Agriculture;

Health and Human Services; and a number of other Federal departments and agencies. So we look at these plans and procedures

in great detail at the regional level, figuring that those folks on the

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regional assistance committee are closer to the State and locals

there, so that if they have questions, they could then go back and

talk with them about the plans and any issues they may identify.

Once they have finished their review, they generate a report, and

that comes to headquarters for us to then look at and ask any further questions. And then based on that, we come to a determination.

Mrs. KELLY. One of the things that you brought up in your testimony was a discussion about the communications that occur between the plant, the local officials, and the county—the surrounding county officials. I have some great concern about that because

that was pointed out to be a problem in the area of the Indian

Point and Millstone plants. Do you want to address anything?

Have you done anything within the framework that I’m requiring

of you; with the 30-day framework that I am requiring of you, have

you done anything to address that problem, the problems of communication between each other, these different areas?

Mr. CONKLIN. It’s my understanding that following the GAO report, which had a recommendation for improved communications

between the Federal officials and the county officials, that site

points of contacts were established in the region to deal specifically

with those county folks around those plants, and that since then,

the FEMA folks met with county folks, with the State folks. They

set up a—I don’t think it was a written agreement, but they set

up an agreement whereby they would work together and meet together as a group versus FEMA going to State, State to county,

and that kind of thing. So it’s my understanding—and this happened prior to me coming on board; so it’s my understanding that

they’ve worked out that issue and that communications have been

increased and improved.

Mrs. KELLY. They may have been improved, Mr. Conklin, but I

still understand from my first responders that their radio capability is that police can’t speak on the same frequency as the fire people. The fire people can’t speak on the same frequency as some of

the people at the county level, and I know that this is a problem

throughout the United States. It’s not just my nuclear plants; it’s

other nuclear plants.

Is FEMA addressing the problems that we are having with allowing these first responders to any emergency to be able to talk with

each other? I understand it’s so bad in some areas, and especially

with the World Trade Center, that some of the people down on the

ground trying to direct people up in the towers didn’t have the

right radio frequencies for those particular companies that were up

in the towers. That needs to be addressed. Are you doing something?

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes. There is—and I am not—I have not been involved in that process. There is an Interoperability Assessment

Board [IAB], I think that’s the right title for it, that is looking at

this issue nationwide not only for the power plants but for any responses, whether it’s hurricanes, tornadoes. It’s a nationwide effort,

and it’s been going on for about—years, if I remember properly.

Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Conklin, I would like you to include something

to address that question in the 30-day report. Thank you.

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes ma’am.

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Mrs. KELLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. The next round, I think we’ll probably

have to go a 10-minute round, and I apologize to the panels that

will follow. I’m doing a little wrestling here about getting—by the

NRC somehow making the assumption that if it’s a nuclear attack

on a plant, that the consequences are no different than any kind

of release. Mr. Miller, you’ve got to walk me through the logic

there.

Mr. MILLER. One of the things you said in your remarks——

Mr. SHAYS. A terrorist attack.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. Which I think is a very fair question

relates to the impact offsite of a terrorist attack. In our comments,

the comments that you referred to, we have been focusing on the

part that we’re responsible for, which is the safety of the reactor

and how the reactor would respond. We are focused on the securing

of the plant itself. I think it is a fair question to ask what impact

a terrorist attack would have on protective measures that may be

taken offsite. This is FEMA’s area, of course. It’s their lead. I

would expect that there would be discussion on this as these plans

are worked out not only in the Indian Point case but in other cases.

So we were not intending in our comments to speak really to this

offsite aspect.

Mr. SHAYS. But with all due respect, when we wrote NRC a letter in January expressing concern about the Witt report, in one

paragraph from the chairman of the NRC, he says, ‘‘While we appreciate and recognize the effort that went into the draft report, we

believe the draft report appears to give undue weight to the impact

of potential acts of terrorism on emergency planning preparedness.’’

And further down it says, ‘‘Necessary protective actions and offsite

response are not predicated’’—‘‘offsite response are not predicated

on the cause of events. Whether releases from the plant occur as

a result of terrorist attacks or equipment malfunction, emergency

plans guide decisionmakers and responders in the same way.’’ I

just think that’s blatantly untrue.

Mr. MILLER. That comment is based on the fact that no accident

is going to follow a script, and so emergency plans have to be broad

and flexible. They have to be designed to deal with a whole spectrum of things that can occur. It’s a performance-based

approach——

Mr. SHAYS. I understand what you’re saying——

Mr. MILLER. So that—that comment is——

Mr. SHAYS. Irrelevant?

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. Very much based on what we know has

been done to secure the plants.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Miller, do you believe it is relevant to say that

a terrorist attack has no different consequence than any other type

of attack? Do you think that implication makes sense to you?

Mr. MILLER. I think with respect to the plant itself, the thing

that we’re talking about, which is the potential for disruption of the

reactor and the reactor core, cooling of the core and release of radioactivity, our approach in emergency preparedness has always

been to be aggressive in the way emergency planning is done. So

we have always required there be large releases of radioactivity

that developed within a short time, and the plans have always

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been geared toward large releases. So in that sense we believe that

it doesn’t make a difference as far as what happens onsite.

Mr. SHAYS. I think the better answer would have been that there

obviously is a difference and we’re looking at it. To say anything

other than that scares the hell out of me, because you guys are in

charge, and we’ve had 4 years of hearings about what terrorists

can do and how they can do it, and frankly it defies my sense of

logic, your answer. I realize your chairman said it, and I’m putting

you in an awkward circumstance, but I would have loved

something——

Mr. MILLER. Well, may I say, Mr. Chairman—and I’ve been in

numerous meetings since we issued that letter, and what I sense

is that people understand the NRC to be downplaying somehow the

effects of terrorism or the potential for terrorism, and in fact——

Mr. SHAYS. Not just the potential, but a terrorist attack has a

different impact. It can result in things that we never anticipated

before, and for instance, even your reference to hardened sites,

what is a hardened site? What is in that hardened site that is protected?

Mr. MILLER. What we’re referring to is, first of all, the containment structure itself. These are structures that have to be designed

to withstand very significant external——

Mr. SHAYS. Right.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. Impacts, you know; hurricanes, tornadoes, if you will.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. What is in that site? It is basically the nuclear

operation, the fuel itself, and so on. It is a fact, terrorists know

this, the control panels aren’t necessarily inside. The ability to command structure is not necessarily in a hardened site throughout

the country; isn’t that true?

Mr. MILLER. Well, Mr. Chairman, this is why our requirements

have always been for the plants to be defended against violent attacks, and that’s all been strengthened——

Mr. SHAYS. First off——

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. Since the——

Mr. SHAYS. First off, I just need an answer to the question and

then you can tell me all the other things. The implication that

somehow the control panels and so on would be in hardened sites

is not accurate; is that true? They aren’t under hardened sites; is

that correct?

Mr. MILLER. They’re not hardened in the sense that they’re specifically designed for, you know, airplane crashes and the like.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. But having said that, I mean because of the necessity for these to be designed to withstand these many other phenomena, they’re not soft targets, and I think it’s important for the

public to recognize this, because I think without this understanding, there is a great deal of concern that can——

Mr. SHAYS. My time is up. We’re going to do 10 minutes the second time through. I’m just going to say to you, Mr. Miller, we’re

just scratching the surface here, but the way you’re answering the

questions, it gives me the feeling that we’re continuing to do something in this country that I deeply regret. The terrorists know how

vulnerable sites are, whether they’re chemical sites, or nuclear

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sites. They know. They know what to do. These are not people who

are just going to blithely walk up and try something. They plan it

out, they know where they’re vulnerable. So when we discuss these

issues, the only thing we’re keeping it from is the American people.

The terrorists already know. They already know that when you use

the term ‘‘hardened sites,’’ that’s the concept that we have really

protected the plant where the nuclear fuel is and so on. The terrorists know that the operations aren’t ‘‘hardened,’’ as you use that

term. We try to protect them, but they are clearly going to have

impact if they choose something different that’s under the cone. I

guess I just regret that we can’t have an open conversation here.

Mr. MILLER. Well, Mr. Chairman, I’m—and with all due respect—the reason why I’m pointing this out is I would not want the

public to believe this is business as usual since September 11.

Enormous steps have been taken to strengthen the security of

these plants.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s different, and that’s an honest answer. We are

making and taking a lot of steps, but they remain significantly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. That’s the reality. Maybe in a few

years they won’t, but right now they are, and that’s why our talking about an evacuation plan even has more significance. I just

would ask you, Mr. Miller, tell me the number of times the NRC

has basically suspended the operation of a plant because we

haven’t liked the evacuation plan.

Mr. MILLER. I don’t believe we’ve done that, but if the conditions

exist that is called for, we will.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, my logic, again, is there has had to have been

sometime during the course of our history where the plans weren’t

really that good and we probably should have temporarily suspended a plant and we didn’t, which makes me a little leery of our

oversight.

Mr. MILLER. I believe in the case of Turkey Point, several years

ago, after one of the hurricanes, there was a period where the plant

was shut down. The company chose to do it, but we felt it was important to take that step because there was a question about emergency preparedness.

Mr. SHAYS. We’re going to go back to Mr. Turner and then Mr.

Tierney for 10.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

join with you in your concern with the language that we’re hearing

today. Even being a new member of the committee and with the

limited number of hearings that we have heard on this issue, I can

tell you, Mr. Miller, that we have heard previous to your testimony

that the FAA rules may not be enough to prevent a second attack;

that the nuclear plants in this country may be structurally vulnerable. And what I hear from you—if I was asked when I leave here

by my constituents what your testimony was—is that we’re still

conducting a review, we’re still looking at this issue, but so far

we’ve not seen anything to change our planning.

And to look at your written testimony, the extent to which I

would characterize your planning is that you are totally evacuation

focused. You also referenced the FAA rules as being something that

might stop the occurrence of this type of an attack. It’s of a concern

to me because it sounds as if people who are testifying before this

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committee prior to your attendance today are recognizing a greater

need for action from your Agency than perhaps your Agency is recognizing. If indeed with what you see today, there is no change in

your planning process and it is totally focused on evacuation, I

would join the chairman in my concern that the public has probably significant concerns that your Agency needs to look at the obvious; which is, we know that we are vulnerable, that our plants

are vulnerable, and that there has to be some actions that can be

taken besides just looking at issues of how do we get the public out

of the way.

Mr. MILLER. I’m not going to sit here, and nobody can sit here

and give you absolute assurances that there’s no risk. I mean I’m

not saying that. But if I were a member of the public, I would be

concerned if it were couched the way you phrased it, which is——

Mr. TURNER. That’s how I heard it at the——

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. Of we’re not doing any planning. I have

to repeat myself. There are the numerous steps that have been

taken: the strengthening of the security forces, the kinds of weapons that are employed, the incredible increase in the—the site access requirements at the plants, numerous other things I can go

into. Prudently, we continue to look at this. We continue to assess

the vulnerabilities in concert with the Department of Homeland Security and others. And if at any time we identify that there is a

vulnerability that needs to be addressed——

Mr. TURNER. But you’re saying that so far you’ve not seen anything to indicate to you that needs to occur? That’s what I wrote

down——

Mr. MILLER. Beyond the numerous things that we’ve already

done, and I will give you an example. As things that have emerged,

such as in the aftermath of September 11, as the security forces

have had to work increased overtime, we’ve seen issues of fatigue,

and we’re about to address that. There have been issues with respect to the training of security officers, and we’re about to address

that. So we have taken numerous steps. We continue to look at it

as we identify issues and as issues emerge. We’re not standing still.

We’re acting.

Mr. TURNER. From what this committee has heard, I hope that

your Agency’s position is not that you are finished, as to the extent

that your language would leave us with that impression.

Mr. MILLER. That’s correct. As I said in my oral remarks and my

testimony, we continue to examine this in concert with the Department of Homeland Security and others.

Mr. TURNER. The other issue that I would like to hear Mr.

Conklin speak on is when we’ve looked at the issue of the evacuation and the risk assessment, obviously there are long-term issues

with respect to areas that have been evacuated, and I’m unfamiliar

with the extent to which your planning goes past the issue of attempting to protect the public by their evacuation and goes into the

issue of the emergency response in an area once a release has occurred. If the public is evacuated and your plans work, how far

down the path does your plan go in addressing the area that’s been

impacted?

Mr. CONKLIN. The current plans for those areas, there’s a couple

plans that come into play. One is the Federal Radiological EmerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gency Response Plan. That is then supported by the Federal Response Plan and all of the infrastructure that goes along with it.

If we were to get to a point where we actually evacuated people

and had contamination in an area, we would fall back on and utilize the Federal Response Plan to put together a response that

could address whatever contamination is present, develop plans

and procedures for removing that decontamination, cleaning the

area up, and, as soon as reasonable, returning people back to the

area.

Obviously the amount of time that would take would depend on

the amount of contamination present, what kind of isotopes are

there, what were the kinds of areas that were affected and those—

and a lot of site-unique characteristics that would have to take into

effect—but we would fall back and use the Federal Response Plan

as a responding plan.

Mr. TURNER. Assuming there’s an area where there are individuals that cannot return, have you done modeling as to what would

be necessary to support a population that has been dislocated?

Mr. CONKLIN. Not specifically to Indian Point. Several years ago

I know the EPA did some modeling to determine what it would

take to evacuate people, support them, house them, feed them; economic impacts and things like that. But we didn’t do it for any particular site.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. Tierney, thank you for your patience.

Mr. TIERNEY. Mr. Miller, you talked about the hardened sites

and I understand that to be generally steel-lined reinforced concrete-type structures?

Mr. MILLER. The containment structures which house the reactor

itself, much of the critical equipment is within such a structure.

Mr. TIERNEY. But in many instances the spent fuel is actually

kept outside of that in cooling pools; am I right?

Mr. MILLER. Outside containment, yes. But the structure itself,

the wall of those pools are in fact structures of the sort you’ve described; very thick concrete walls, reinforced concrete.

Mr. TIERNEY. What I’m getting at is whether the susceptibility

to access them is easier than the main structure itself, and I guess

they would be a little less secure?

Mr. MILLER. All of the spent fuel storage pools are within the

protected area in what we call the vital areas of the plant, and so

they get the same protection that other vital equipment associated

with the reactor itself gets.

Mr. TIERNEY. They’re not in a hardened site, though? They’re in

a site that has concrete walls but not necessarily within the hardened site that we talked about for the reactor itself?

Mr. MILLER. The closures are not hardened like the containment

building is hardened.

Mr. TIERNEY. Getting back to what we talked about a little earlier about the design basis threat—and you didn’t apparently want

to be too specific about what your new requirements are—but let

me ask you, do they take into account the use of a shoulder-mounted missile? Would they be able to withstand that?

108

Mr. MILLER. I don’t believe I can answer that question. They do

look at what is available to terrorists today. Looking at the kinds

of armaments, the numbers of attackers, those are all the things

that the Commission right now has under consideration, working

with the intelligence community, with the Department of Homeland Defense and others.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, I guess——

Mr. MILLER. Specific attributes I cannot address.

Mr. TIERNEY. We’re going to find out one way or the other, so you

can give it to us in classified session or——

Mr. MILLER. It would have to be in a session like that.

Mr. TIERNEY. And we have to know and I want to see that, but

you keep moving the line on me here a little bit here, I don’t think

purposely however, but you talked about things that are under consideration, and I’m looking to find out things that are actually implemented as opposed to things you still consider. So when I say

something like the shoulder-mounted missile or the 50-caliber sniper rifles that can go right through armor or things of that nature,

whatever like that, I’d be interested in knowing whether these specific types of threats are accounted for and what you now require

these facilities to be prepared to deal with.

Mr. MILLER. Yeah. That’s going to get me into what I don’t—or

I cannot go into.

Mr. TIERNEY. No. No, but that’s where I want to go eventually,

and I want to know whether or not you have actually put those requirements into place or whether you still just have them under

consideration.

Mr. MILLER. I can’t talk about what the threat is and the specific

attributes.

Mr. TIERNEY. So backing off of the specifics, let me ask you this:

Have you got new requirements in place or are they just under consideration? I thought they had that clarified——

Mr. MILLER. No. As far as the design basis threat, that’s the

thing that is being evaluated. But I want to reemphasize something I said earlier, and that is that we have not waited for the

design basis threat to be redefined. We have put in place numerous

measures that enhance the security of the plant; that raise the

level of security way beyond what existed under the old design

basis—rather, the current design basis threat—the one that existed

prior to September 11.

Mr. TIERNEY. And does a plant’s ability to live up to those standards or not affect its continuation of licensure or licensure?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, we issued the enhanced requirements through

an order.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, I’m a little concerned, as I mentioned in my

opening remarks about the Bush administration’s apparent failure

so far to provide for us a report on the potassium iodide that was

required, concerning the distribution of that. Can you bring us up

to date on where we stand with that?

Mr. MILLER. I understand we’ve—that the National Academy of

Science has been asked to look at this, but I don’t know the details.

We’d be happy to provide that information to the subcommittee if

that’s acceptable.

109

Mr. TIERNEY. All right. Well, the whole report was due December

12. That clearly didn’t happen, and my understanding was they

weren’t even asked for the—the Academy of Science wasn’t even

asked by them for the report, right—or to start the report?

Mr. MILLER. I’m looking for somebody who can answer that question. I can’t answer that question.

Mr. TIERNEY. Somebody in the back seems to know the answer.

We apparently cleaned out your entire office to join us here today.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me ask, is there anyone else I need to swear in?

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Would you state your name and your position, please.

Ms. MILLIGAN. My name is Patricia——

Mr. SHAYS. A little louder. Please put the mic up.

Ms. MILLIGAN. My name is Patricia Milligan and I’m a Senior

Emergency Preparedness Specialist with the NRC. I’m also a certified health physicist.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for being here, and if you’d leave your

card with the transcriber, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Ms. MILLIGAN. Would you restate your question, please, sir?

Mr. TIERNEY. If I can at this stage, though they should actually

stand and be sworn in again.

The report was supposed to be given to Congress by December

12. My understanding is that the National Academy of Sciences

hadn’t even been requested to start the report by that date.

Ms. MILLIGAN. The National Academy was aware of the reports—

was aware the bioterrorism legislation had been discussed. They

had received the funding or the authorization for the funding within the past week or two. I’m not sure if the money has actually

transferred hands yet at this point, but they plan to start the study

at the end of May or early June. NRC has been contacted to be a

part of the testimony to be presented to the National Academy.

Mr. TIERNEY. So they’re going to start working on the report

around the time that they were supposed to deliver to us the report; June, essentially.

Ms. MILLIGAN. As I understand it, that is what has happened.

Mr. TIERNEY. I’d just be curious to know who in the Bush administration was in charge of that miss? Whose responsibility was it?

Is it Mr. Ridge?

Ms. MILLIGAN. I don’t know who in the administration was responsible.

Mr. TIERNEY. My understanding was when Governor Ridge was

first appointed by the White House, he was the one who was

going—that was going to coordinate across all the various agencies

all the things that were going on, to prevent things like this from

happening. At least that’s the impression we got. Now we got

moved to a new Department. We’re still waiting for his replacement at the White House. So does anybody know why the President hasn’t appointed that replacement yet? Is there any problem

within the Department?

I think it’s important to get that report and to find out how it

is we’re going to distribute the KI beyond the 10-mile radius. There

are people in my communities where those potassium pills were

put out in drugstores and they were gone in a day. It’s important

to people that they have some comfort and security knowing that

110

they’re going to have the ability to access that potassium, and I’d

like to have tabs—if you could nail down a time plan on that as

to when it’s going to be started and when the anticipated date is

going to be and share that with us, I’d really appreciate it.

Mr. MILLER. Congressman, we understand the question and we’ll

work to get you an answer.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Now, Mr. Miller, I understand that emergency exercises are

sometimes conducted at nuclear power facilities; right?

Mr. MILLER. Yes. Yes, sir.

Mr. TIERNEY. And have you ever required the facilities to conduct

those emergency exercises involving a terrorist attack?

Mr. MILLER. We have not required it. If what you’re referring to

are the emergency preparedness exercises——

Mr. TIERNEY. Exactly.

Mr. MILLER [continuing]. We have not required it. We performed

one recently at a plant in California, but we have not required it.

Mr. TIERNEY. How might an emergency exercise in incorporated

terrorism differ from the other exercises that you generally do?

Mr. MILLER. I’m not certain; every scenario is different; FEMA

working with the help of NRC and others define scenarios. I’d say

that we’ve not required terrorist-related emergency exercises. We

have had over the years exercises that involve sabotage and the

like. It involves sabotage of a pump or an electrical power supply

and the like that contributes to a sequence of events which results

in a release, a large release from the plant, and then the test is

how well onsite decisionmakers and offsite decisionmakers deal

with that sequence.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess what I was thinking was it would be a little

different if it was a terrorist attack, because the people might have

to respond to all those things while they were still under fire or

still under some sort of an attack; so you might be dealing with a

release that was more exacerbated or happening faster in that instance.

Mr. MILLER. I think that brings us back to the earlier conversation about potential for offsite ramifications of a terrorist attack.

That’s a fair question.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do all of the plants that you know of, do they have

an emergency plan in place that incorporates your local first responders, your SWAT teams, or whatever might be necessary to respond to that kind of an incident?

Mr. MILLER. I can’t speak to that, but I can say that in our order

on security, we required all companies to look at their emergency

plans as they needed to be adjusted to have links established with

offsite officials, the local law enforcement and the like. So in our

order, we did look for all of our licensees to examine their—and upgrade their emergency plans to deal with that sort of issue. But

your question is a broader one.

Mr. TIERNEY. Can I have Mr. Conklin just respond?

Mr. CONKLIN. As far as integrating the offsite first responders,

all of these plans do that. We work closely with the medical communities, for example, the hospitals and the first responders

around these facilities, the fire departments; and in a lot of cases

there are memorandums of agreement or understanding between,

111

for example, the nearest fire station to help provide fire support onsite. So we do work closely to ensure that those things are integrated.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you have the plans to—force-on-force sort of exercises incorporating all of that?

Mr. MILLER. In my remarks I talked about the force-on-force exercises that we are initiating. We’ve got a pilot program. Some four

plants across the country will engage in this pilot program. The intent of this is to perfect the methods and then to conduct such exercises on an every 3-year basis at all plants across the country.

Mr. TIERNEY. Every 3 years?

Mr. MILLER. Every 3 years.

Mr. TIERNEY. Do you think that will be sufficient?

Mr. MILLER. These are very significant efforts. It’s a large undertaking. They’re very challenging, tough exams, and that’s more frequent than what we had done prior to September 11.

Mr. TIERNEY. What is the turnover rate of security personnel

within those plants, though?

Mr. MILLER. I can’t speak to that. It varies from plant to plant,

but I must say beyond those mock attacks, those force-on-force exercises, we will continue to do our inspections of security at the

plants; so it isn’t as if there will be no inspection during that period

of time.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. My time is apparently up. Thank you

for your answers.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Janklow.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Conklin, when Congresswoman Kelly asked you if you would include in your report somewhat of an analysis on the communication

problem, could I ask you if you would expand on that, please? Let’s

just take four plants in the country. The one in San Onofre, Monticello in Minnesota, the Public Power district one in Nebraska and

Indian Point, and if you would prepare for this committee—because

I think it would be terribly enlightening for everybody to run an

analysis of what are the communications that all of the various

government entities utilize. I’m aware some are on high band and

some are on low band; some are on UHF, some are on VHF; some

are on AM, some are on FM. Some are on low band, some are 150,

450, 700, 800, 900.

My point is, I think we’re going to find that sheriffs and police

departments, city street departments, State highway departments,

State highway patrols or State police, depending on what they’re

called, local ambulance services, or ambulance services and hospitals, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the ATF, the FBI, we’re going

to find everybody’s almost on a different system and different frequencies. I think, as you know, that in a true disaster we can have

mobbing—we can have mobbing exercises with a plant, but you

can’t with the public. The public, when they get called upon, it’s

going to be their first time, and it may be for real and without the

ability for everybody to be able to communicate together. All the

planning in the world is going to be irrelevant. You are going to

have mothers looking for their children. One’s in a school and another one’s in a day care center someplace, the parents at work. No

one’s going to follow some orderly evacuation process.

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And I’m not saying this in a critical way, but communication becomes absolutely crucial to the success of a mission. And it would

be very helpful, I think, to this committee and to decisionmakers,

if you could prepare as part of the analysis response to Congresswoman Kelly, all four of those plans. It won’t be difficult. It’s not

your fault or problem. We understand that. The FCC has all of

these frequencies allocated, and busting it loose from them—it’s

easier to get something out of the Soviet Union sometimes than it

is the FCC. So it’s not a problem with you folks, but you could help

enlighten all of us so that we could maybe get involved in the decisionmaking process between the legislative and executive branches.

Would you do that, sir?

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes, sir. Could you just mention the third plant

you mentioned?

Mr. JANKLOW. San Onofre in California, Monticello in Minnesota—I can’t think of where the one’s located in Nebraska—and

Indian Point. The only reason I did that is those were four dispersed geographical areas, so I think it would highlight it.

Mr. SHAYS. If the gentleman would suspend, if you would just

make sure the committee got that, and we will make sure it gets

to Mr. Janklow and others.

Mr. JANKLOW. And then, Mr. Miller, maybe my questioning

hasn’t been fair to you. I asked you about terrorist incidences and

you keep responding how the designs have been to earthquakes

and hurricanes and things of that nature. And I think it’s fair to

say back when these plants were designed, no one ever anticipated

that there would be suicide missions to fly into them, for example.

People were far more concerned about a ground assault or stealth

of some kind to get inside of them.

Is this part of the problem that you have, sir, that the chairman

really was asking questions around that area—you know very well

that terrorists know the vulnerabilities. If we have people that are

prepared to die and we have people that have huge amounts of

force, it’s probably fair to say, isn’t it, these plants may withstand

it under certain circumstances, but this isn’t what they were designed to deal with; is that correct?

Mr. MILLER. Well, they are the two parts. There’s the part that

involves the——

Mr. JANKLOW. Could you move closer to the mic, sir?

Mr. MILLER. Yes. There are two parts. There’s the part that involves the attack on the plant, and I hope that the terrorists, if

they are studying the situation, will see that if they were to attempt to attack a plant, they’re dealing with a very menacing situation with a very heavily armed security force at those plants, with

very significant external barriers, including detection systems and

the like. The security was strong prior to September 11 and it’s

stronger now.

The other part has to do with cataclysmic or extreme events such

as airplanes and the like, and as I’ve said, we have been doing

studies. The results of those are not completed at this point, but

it’s in that regard that I talked about these plants being designed

not specifically for a current-day, modern—a modern jetliner, but

they are designed for these other phenomena. And that leads to an

inherent very strong set of structures, and so the public shouldn’t

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have the view that these are facilities that are soft targets, easily

impacted by—you know, by extreme events such as that.

Mr. JANKLOW. Understand. But I think we can all appreciate the

difference between a hurricane or a tornado and a sizable aircraft

flying into them as opposed to a Cessna 172 or a Piper Archer or

something——

Mr. MILLER. The studies that have been done to this point have

indicated that the existing planning basis, emergency planning

basis, needs not to change at this point because it already requires

the ability to deal with very large rapidly developing releases from

a nuclear power plant. It’s a testament really to the strength of the

emergency planning basis that was in place prior to September 11

that we make that comment. It is not intended to downplay the potential for these attacks, and so it’s in that respect that we make

the comments we make.

Mr. JANKLOW. One last question. And I’d like to ask you both in

your personal opinion, is the jurisdiction that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to deal with these types of situations and

the jurisdiction that FEMA has to deal with them, recognizing the

new Homeland Security—does each of your responsibilities lie in

the correct area of the government? Is FEMA the right place to

deal with it outside the facility and the NRC inside the facility?

And I’m frankly more concerned with outside than inside. I think

the safety within these facilities has been exhibited to show is very,

very significant, other than a cataclysmic type of explosive attack,

if I can put it that way, or impact attack; but in terms of FEMA’s

responsibility, which is awesome, to deal with perceived panic, concern, orderly evacuation, caring for people, is FEMA the right agency, Mr. Conklin, to have this, in your personal opinion?

Mr. CONKLIN. Yes.

Mr. JANKLOW. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Mrs. Kelly.

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Miller, I’m going to

ask you two questions and I want a yes or a no answer on the two

questions, and then I have a followup. Were there any out-of-sequence activities or crediting used during the last exercise at Indian Point?

Mr. MILLER. I believe there were.

Mrs. KELLY. Do you know if it was crediting or out of sequence?

Mr. MILLER. I’m not sure I understand the distinction. And if

you’re referring to offsite, I would respectfully ask that FEMA answer that question. Perhaps Mr. Conklin may not know the details,

but——

Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Conklin.

Mr. CONKLIN. There were out-of-sequence exercises conducted as

part of the review and evaluation of the Indian Point plans and

procedures.

Mrs. KELLY. Will you give me a yes/no answer to this question?

Were the reception center activities done in real time or out of sequence?

Mr. CONKLIN. I believe they were done out of sequence.

Mrs. KELLY. I have in my hand an internal memo. It’s an older

memo from FEMA. This states, ‘‘The root causes identified in the

Indian Point II accident for failure and emergency preparedness

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were unrealistic drills and artificialities in the practice of new or

existing procedures. The result was that in this real incident, the

State and locals could not respond to the continuous flow of information nor could they integrate their response as needed. This

could affect our assumptions about out-of-sequence demonstrations

and the impact of granting credits and exempting exercise demonstration and evaluations.’’

I’m reading this into the record because this memo came from

FEMA. I think it’s very important that we focus on what exactly

is being done to face this realistically instead of putting in—taking

in credits or doing something out of sequence. When was the last

time that an unannounced exercise took place at Indian Point, Mr.

Conklin?

Mr. CONKLIN. I don’t know.

Mrs. KELLY. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. There have been a number of unannounced——

Mrs. KELLY. No. I just want when the last time was.

Mr. MILLER. I don’t know. On site there have been a number of

those, but offsite I’m not aware.

Mrs. KELLY. When was the last onsite unannounced?

Mr. MILLER. I can’t recall. There are various drills that are done

to, in fact, among other things, assure that people can respond

within required times. Those are done periodically.

Mrs. KELLY. Within the framework of those people that have already been sworn in, is there anyone sitting in the audience that

can answer that question? So you don’t know if there was ever—

is that a safe assumption—you don’t know if there was ever an unannounced exercise?

Mr. MILLER. Are you referring to an exercise that involves all of

the offsite responders, local officials and the like?

Mrs. KELLY. Well, you gave me a choice. So let’s take both.

Mr. MILLER. Yeah——

Mrs. KELLY. Internal and external.

Mr. MILLER. Off-site emergency exercises, because they require

numerous people who have other jobs beyond just emergency preparedness, are planned well in advance of the time that those are

conducted. What I was referring to was onsite. There are periodic

drills in power plants to look at the ability for people to respond

in short time. Individual drills. I just can’t give you the exact times

that those were done. I know that they have been done over the

past several years at Indian Point.

Mrs. KELLY. Can you get back to me on the answers to these

questions?

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mrs. KELLY. I have another question. And that is, Mr. Conklin,

is it correct that FEMA is going to soon be taking public opinion

on the proposed changes to the REP program? You can just answer

yes or no.

Mr. CONKLIN. We don’t have it in our plans at this moment.

Mrs. KELLY. So the answer is no, you’re not going to take public

comment?

Mr. CONKLIN. No. Not through a formal process, no. We have not

set that up.

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Yield back.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. We will get to the next panel very shortly

here.

As I’ve listened to the response, I’m kind of wrestling with why

we’re not making much progress, at least as far as I can see, and

I don’t really understand much more than when I started this

hearing. I know that 50 percent of the electric generation is coal

and 20 percent is nuclear, and I know it’s huge, and I know that

we have to be concerned about global warming and I know we need

energy and I know we’ve got to be careful that we don’t foolishly

shut down plants and cause a crisis in energy. I know all of those

things.

But what I find eerie is that I would get a letter from the chairman of the NRC that basically doesn’t feel that there is any significance to a terrorist attack other than any other kind of crisis at

a nuclear generating plant. And I am concerned with the concept

in this letter that the Witt report had undue weight to the impact

to potential acts of terrorism. And then I’m trying to reconcile, Mr.

Miller, your comment to when Mr. Tierney said, ‘‘I would assume

that during an accident release, everyone at the facility would be

working together to stop a potential release in a terrorist incident;

however, wouldn’t you assume a faster radiological release, since

the operators may be trying to apply compensatory measures under

gunfire and explosions?’’ And you say yes. So in that sense, you see

it, and yet you don’t relate it to the bigger picture. And I just find

this kind of like there’s no connection.

I would be much more comfortable if you just said, obviously

there are going to be differences and we’re working on it. That

would make me feel a lot better. It doesn’t make me feel good that

we have never, ever found a need to look at an evacuation plan and

say maybe the plant needs to be shut down.

And, Mr. Conklin, I want to ask you, does FEMA agree with the

NRC that the Witt report gives undue weight to potential terrorist

attacks? Do you believe the Witt report gives undue weight to the

potential terrorist attacks?

Mr. CONKLIN. We believe that all potential accident scenarios

need to be considered and looked at when developing emergency response plans around these facilities or other facilities, whether

they’re chemical, nuclear, or anything else in which a release of

hazardous materials or radioactive materials can cause an offsite

impact.

Mr. SHAYS. You answered a question I didn’t ask, but now answer the question I asked.

Mr. CONKLIN. I believe to ignore is to ignore the elephant in the

room; that it’s a big issue there, and we need to address it and take

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a look at it from the standpoint of the guidance that we currently

have in place and how we conduct our exercise. I don’t believe it

gives undue weight. No, I don’t.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Conklin.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, may I try——

Mr. SHAYS. No, not yet. Not yet. You got it to the end and the

question is you do not believe what?

Mr. CONKLIN. I do not believe it gives undue weight. I believe it’s

an issue that needs to be looked at and needs to be looked at seriously, and I believe with the new formation of the Department of

Homeland Security and FEMA’s incorporation into the Emergency

Preparedness and Response Directorate, positions us well to take

advantage of a lot of activities across the government that can help

us look at this issue in a much broader, more detailed view.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, context is everything here. And that

comment that we made was made recognizing that, as Mr. Witt

himself or the Witt group acknowledged, it wasn’t within their

charter to look at security in detail. They didn’t have the time to

look at security in detail. The report recognized that. The Commission issued that letter to make clear that many steps were taken,

that the Witt report and the Witt committee—the Witt study was

not able to examine. So it was in that context we said we thought

it appeared as if undue weight may have been given, that not

enough was recognized regarding the kinds of steps that I had

talked about earlier.

So it was not in any way downplaying terrorism and the potential impacts that it could have. And as far as differences are concerned, certainly a scenario involving terrorism would be different

than, you know, sequences that might involve a pump or a power

supply and the like. But what we have always required is that the

emergency plan be able to deal with a whole spectrum of things,

things we can’t even think about today. And it’s in that respect, it’s

in the result, it’s in the outcome, that we have talked about how

the current emergency plans, we feel, address and encompass the

kinds of things that can occur as a result of a terrorist attack.

We’re talking about the potential for releases from the plant. We

have always required that large, fast developing releases be addressed through emergency planning.

Mr. SHAYS. I feel like you’re giving me old theology, and I feel

that it is not pertinent to what we are dealing with now, and so

we’re going to have just a difference of opinion. You obviously are

telling me what you believe, and it scares the heck out of me that

you believe that. It gives me no confidence. And I didn’t intend to

come to the hearing—and I thought this panel would be quick in

and quick out, and I thought we’d spend a lot more time on the

third panel. So it’s just probably been one of the most unsatisfying

panels in my 4 years that I’ve ever listened to, because I feel like

we aren’t being honest with the American people. That’s the way

I feel.

Mr. MILLER. Well, we continue to look at vulnerabilities. I’ve said

that. We have not stopped looking at the potential vulnerabilities

associated with terrorism, and hopefully you don’t take away from

this that we have stopped, and all the actions that we think, you

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know, will ever need to be taken have been taken. We’re continuing

to examine that. So in that sense we’ve not closed out our consideration of what the potential effects of terrorism would be.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m just going to read this paragraph—I got it from

the chairman—and then we’re going to go to the next panel: ‘‘while

we appreciate and recognize the effort that went into the draft report, we believe the draft report appears to give undue weight to

the impact of potential acts of terrorism on emergency planning

and preparedness.’’ And continuing, and in context with the rest of

what’s said, ‘‘Emergency preparedness programs are designed to

cope with a spectrum of accidents including those involving rapid

large release of radioactivity. Emergency preparedness exercises invariably included large releases of radioactivity that occurs’’ slightly—‘‘shortly after the initiation of events. Necessary protective actions and offsite response are not predicated on the cause of events.

Whether releases from the plant occur as a result of terrorist acts

or equipment malfunctions, emergency plans guide decisionmakers

and responders in the same way. Preliminary results from our vulnerability studies do not indicate an increased source term or

quicker release from terrorist-initiated events than is already addressed by the emergency planning basis required by the NRC regulations and in place at Indian Point.’’

I believe that’s old theology. That’s what I believe. It is my practice to allow the last word on the part of the panelists, so you have

the last word, and then we’ll get to the next panel.

Mr. Conklin is there anything you wanted us to ask that you

were prepared to say that you need to put on the record?

Mr. CONKLIN. I would just like to say that the REP program is

committed to supporting the efforts of State and local governments

to improve the planning and exercise process, and thank you for

the opportunity to be here before you today. And what we will do

is continue to work with the folks on Indian Point and all the other

nuclear sites to improve their programs and plans.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, NRC has taken strong steps to assure that security is appropriate for this post-September 11 environment, and we continue to examine the threat environment,

working closely with the Department of Homeland Security and

other appropriate Federal agencies. And we will also continue to

work with stakeholders at all plants and, in particular, the Indian

Point plant, as the State, FEMA, and others work to address the

issues that have come up in that case. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, gentlemrn.

Our second panel is the honorable Richard Blumenthal, attorney

general, State of Connecticut; Mr. John Wiltse, director, Office of

Emergency Management, State of Connecticut; and the honorable

Richard Bond, first selectman, Town of New Canaan, which is also

in the State of Connecticut.

A little bias toward Connecticut on this panel here.

Gentlemen, if you could just remain standing, I will swear you

in before you sit down. Thank you.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much. Please be seated.

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Just change those names around; we have you in reverse here,

but we’ll just switch those around. Would you change the names?

That goes over one.

Gentlemen, sorry to keep you waiting. Your testimony will be

part of the record. You can read from your testimony. You can summarize it and make comments to comments you’ve already heard.

You have the time and it’s yours.

And I think we are going to start out with you, Mr. Blumenthal.

Is that correct? And then we will go to Mr. Wiltse and then we will

end up with the first selectman of New Canaan.

STATEMENTS OF RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, ATTORNEY GENERAL, STATE OF CONNECTICUT; JOHN T. WILTSE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, STATE OF

CONNECTICUT; AND RICHARD BOND, FIRST SELECTMAN,

TOWN OF NEW CANAAN

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And

may I thank you and Congressman Kucinich for your leadership in

having this hearing. And to Congresswoman Kelly for her leadership as well; you and other Congressmen in the New York area,

such as Congresswoman Lowey and Congressman Engel, all have

been involved. And this issue really has been one that has united

Connecticut and New York in a common cause simply to protect

our citizens.

And I want to particularly thank you for having this hearing because one of the illuminating aspects of what we just heard is that

these agencies do not plan to have any formal public comment. And

so really, you in Congress are filling that vacuum and it is a vital

task that you are performing by giving citizens and their representatives an opportunity to comment and trying to make this process

more transparent, enable people to be more informed so that the

level of fear can be diminished somewhat and it is in many respects that fear that we have to fear more than anything else. And

so I really want to thank you genuinely for the enormous educational function that you are performing.

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman just suspend a second? I want

to point out that Mr. Tierney has really been very—leading a very

strong effort in this area and has kind of taken over for Mr.

Kucinich.

Mr. TIERNEY. He’s just afraid I’ll ruin Kucinich’s reputation, so

he wants to make it clear.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I express my thanks to Congressman Tierney,

as well, first, may I say that I submit my testimony for the record

and I will just very briefly restate it, but also react to some of what

we have heard so far.

When you commented, Mr. Chairman, that we were hearing the

old theology, I would go even further back. I think we are in the

Stone Age of planning for security against terrorist attack on our

nuclear facilities; and in a sense, Indian Point is just a poster child

for the lack of planning and safeguarding of these facilities across

the country.

These facilities really are dirty bombs waiting to be detonated.

They are vulnerable to attack and they are improperly and inadequately safeguarded from that kind of attack, which we cannot anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00127 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ticipate in detail. But we do know, Mr. Chairman, as you stated so

well, that the terrorists know more than the people, and part of

what we need to do is make this system more transparent.

The Witt report says, and we all know, that the current planning

is inadequate in part because—largely because it fails to address

the possibility of nuclear—the terrorist attack on these nuclear facilities. And, in fact, it says, and I am quoting, the plans do not

consider the possible additional ramifications of a terrorist-caused

release.

FEMA has accepted the fact that the current plans inadequate,

but it has ducked its responsibility by kicking back the issue to officials in New York. In my view, the plant should be shut down

until we have adequate planning, including safeguarding against

terrorist attack.

And it’s more than my opinion that counts. I believe that is also

the law. The law indeed requires that there be an adequate plan.

Connecticut has petitioned FEMA. We will side with environmental groups that have petitioned the NRC. We will go to court

if necessary. But I believe that this Congress has a unique obligation, as well as an opportunity, to send a profoundly important

message to the industry and the Federal regulators that it will not

tolerate this kind of buck-passing.

Congressman Janklow asked the question, who is at fault, whose

fault is it that we have inadequate planning? And the simple answer is, we don’t know. No one can say, given the current state of

the law and given the current buck-passing that has happened and

is ongoing.

There are obviously needs for legal accountability and, more important, public policy accountability here that is simply not happening. And in my view, the regulatory agencies have dismissed

and disregarded the very real threat of terrorist attack in the public pronouncements that you have cited, Mr. Chairman, and that

people simply will not accept.

What we need to do is, on Indian Point, shut it down until there

is adequate planning. There may be objections that the power has

to be made available from other sources. There are other sources,

they are affordable, and they are achievable and must be achieved,

because the safety and security of citizens who live in that area are

at stake.

Let me just close very briefly by saying that the Witt report finds

that this plan is inadequate not only because it fails to guard

against or plan for terrorist attack, but any sort of release would

trigger an emergency that there simply have not been plans for.

In terms of evacuation, Connecticut’s roads would be involved.

One-third of our population, including many of our major cities like

Bridgeport and Norwalk, Stamford, Waterbury, Danbury, all would

be at risk within the 50-mile area. Our food and water supplies

would be jeopardized. And the plan really is inadequate because it

fails to consider common sense, as well as science—that parents,

for example, will not evacuate separately from their children. You

don’t need to do another study to know the answer to that question.

And so I think that I just want to thank this committee for its

contribution, thank the members of this panel who have helped to

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lead it and say that as State officials, we need Federal help. We

need their resources. We need the science that Federal officials can

make available to us. We need it now. And we also need, again, accountability.

This committee has asked the right question. Who’s fault is it?

And someone has to answer, it’s mine, it’s ours; and right now, that

isn’t happening. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Blumenthal.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Blumenthal follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Wiltse.

Mr. WILTSE. Mr. Chairman, distinguished subcommittee members, it is a privilege to appear before you today.

The central question for emergency managers is not whether nuclear plants should or should not be shut down. The central question is, how can we advance existing readiness?

One of the basic first steps in emergency planning is to accurately define the threat. On February 25 of this year, before this

very committee, Dr. John J. Hamre of the Center for Strategic and

International Studies, following an 8-month analysis of likely terrorism threats, testified that chemical and liquefied natural gas facilities were among the most vulnerable industrial facilities in our

Nation. In analyzing the security of nuclear facilities, the Center

found them to be extremely secure from nearly all types of potential acts.

It is this type of independent analysis that can correctly help direct emergency planning resources. The Federal Government

should initiate its own comprehensive vulnerability assessment of

nuclear and another industrial facilities. Actions such as requiring

the hardening of any critical soft structures or implementing tighter FAA flight restrictions should be considered, if determined necessary.

With all the attention on nuclear readiness since September 11,

one would assume that there have been some new Federal resources for municipalities to advance preparedness. Unfortunately,

that is not the case. The fact is that there is no Federal agency currently providing direct nuclear preparedness funding to any State

or municipality. Yet there is a tremendous demand for new emergency management technology and communication systems at the

local level, as highlighted in New York State’s James Lee Witt report. For fiscal year 2003, Congress has provided $165 million to fund

every State and local emergency management requirement in the

United States, including nuclear readiness. Contrast this figure

with $200 million in special earmarks for Homeland Security academic-type programs. If nuclear safety is a priority, then let’s fund

it accordingly.

Generally, the past technical and staff assistance provided by

FEMA has been solid. The FEMA radiological program developed

over the last 20 years could be used to help prepare another industry for terrorism. However, there is much more that needs to be

done.

Overall, nuclear preparedness responsibilities should be given to

the new Department of Homeland Security with a redefined relationship between FEMA and the NRC. The Department of Homeland Security with the NRC and the best scientific minds in the

country should take the lead in updating what is known as

NUREG 0654, or the nuclear planners’ bible, last revised in 1987.

And new exercises emphasizing fast-moving events such as terrorist attacks should be developed for use by States and held more frequently.

A central issue for nuclear emergency planners today is the validity of current plans’ bases or standards that determine public

protective actions. It is appropriate to ask post-September 11, are

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we using valid planning standards? This question can only be answered at the Federal level.

Here is some of what we do know: First, a joint NRC-EPA task

force of technical experts established the current 10 and 50-mile

planning zones and their corresponding protective actions in 1980,

based on a worst-case scenario that is a massive quick release of

radioactivity.

NUREG 0654 makes no distinction between causes of a nuclear

incident. It calls for planners to develop appropriate responses regardless of the cause and to expand or contract protective actions

as required. And we are aware of no new studies or scientific evidence to indicate that the existing planning standards regarding

the reach of potential radiation contamination are invalid.

Nevertheless, the Department of Homeland Security and the

NRC should immediately reevaluate and recertify these current

planning standards. Meanwhile, the Federal Government should

work with States to design appropriate, new public precautionary

measures to address the common-sense reality of spontaneous evacuation and the need for better public information.

As a congested State and a neighbor to New York, we are concerned about the issue of evacuation planning for all hazards, not

just nuclear incidents. What we would like to see is the development of flexible regional traffic management plans that can address any hazard requiring a large relocation of citizens.

Progress can be made by working together. Utilities and local

governments have implemented a series of new NRC security orders since September 11. In Connecticut, we have sent additional

State and local assets to Millstone, organized regular meetings to

improve coordination, developed and conducted new security exercises and established a State quick-reaction force to respond to any

security need.

Although nuclear site security is good, the NRC should expeditiously complete its review of the existing design bases threat for

which nuclear facilities must plan and consider providing dedicated

Federal funding or security forces to supplement existing plant security measures.

In conclusion, emergency management professionals around the

United States have done and will do a formidable job of planning

for all threats to our homeland. However, to be successful, two key

items are necessary: clear and coordinated guidance from Federal

regulatory agencies and the tools to get the job done.

I’d be happy to address any questions you may have and thank

you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much, Mr. Wiltse.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wiltse follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Bond.

Mr. BOND. My name is Richard Bond. I am the first selectman

from New Canaan, CT. New Canaan is a town of approximately

20,000 people, 22 square miles in size, 1 hour from New York, 1

hour from Hartford and 3 hours from Boston. We are approximately 25 air miles—excuse me, from Indian Point Nuclear Plant.

At the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on February 18, 2003, the

following resolution was adopted and forwarded to the Town Council for their adoption at their meeting on March 12, this Wednesday. I will read parts of it: ‘‘resolved, that the Nuclear Regulatory

Commission conduct a full review of the deficiencies identified in

the independent review of the Indian Point Energy Center’s emergency preparedness plan. Such independent review was conducted

by James Witt Associates at the request of New York Governor

George Pataki to improve understanding of the neighboring areas’

ability to respond to a radiological event and to assist efforts to

strengthen emergency preparedness.’’

The latter part is, further: ‘‘resolved, that in light of the significant problems identified by the Witt report, operations at the Indian Point facility be temporarily shut down until the issues raised

by the report are fully resolved.’’

I think we’re all saying the same thing. When you read the executive summary of the Witt report, the two things that stand out

to me, the plan—third item. The plans do not consider the possible

additional ramifications of a terrorist-caused release. The plans do

not consider the reality of an impact of spontaneous evacuation.

And I would like to read also from the Indian Point 2 Nuclear

Power Plant exercise report. Although as noted above, no exercise

finding rose to the level of deficiency as defined under 44 CFR part

350 at this time, FEMA, in the absence of fully corrected and updated plans for the counties and States, cannot provide, ‘‘reasonable assurance,’’ that appropriate measures can be taken in the

event of a radiological emergency.

One more thing, then I’ll——

Mr. SHAYS. Take your time.

Mr. BOND. Excuse me.

Mr. SHAYS. Take your time.

Mr. BOND. In my testimony, at the end it says, of particular concern to the residents of New Canaan is the subject of evacuation.

We continue to view as the most critical challenge to our emergency plan and planner a scenario involving an incident which

prompts large numbers of evacuees into and out of the New Canaan area. We are aware that this concern is shared with both our

neighboring communities and with the Connecticut Emergency

Management Office. As a result of the complexity of this issue,

combined with inadequate direction from the State and Federal authorities, we have not been able to develop a practical and viable

plan of evacuation.

The issues which inhibit a plan’s development are many: location

in the most densely populated corridor of the country, proportionate lack of limited roadways, rail and water infrastructure situated in the path of major urban escape routes and egress directions, limited by the physical obstacles of Long Island Sound and

New York City are a few of the most obvious.

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Further, we need to factor into our planning those assets which

will be committed from State and Federal Government sources. As

of yet, we have not been made aware of the level of guidance and

support we may expect to receive.

We are perfectly capable of evacuating execution within the borders of New Canaan or larger-scale movements of town residents

to nearby areas in response to local incidents. However, the evacuation response to regional or even broader emergencies must be developed within the scope of regional, State and Federal planning.

Thank you, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bond follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I’ll start out the questions and just ask, just preface

my comments by saying that Ms. Kelly’s—her constituents are directly impacted. They’re in the 10-mile radius, and she’s already

begun this process and had a hearing in the Department of Transportation and so on.

We felt that the value of this hearing was to then look at what

happens to those folks who are just kind of outside that boundary

of 10 miles, but within the 50-mile radius, and also to look at what

impact one State has over another.

For instance, this was the—the Witt report was requested by the

Governor of New York logically. It’s overseen by the Governor of

New York. We have Millstone 1, 2 and 3, big concerns there as

well, so this report, this hearing is not just about Indian Point. It’s

to appreciate, help this committee appreciate how a community

looks at the issue in general.

For instance, Mr. Bond, I’m curious—but happy to have others

respond. I’m curious as to when a plan is devised, let’s just say

there’s been a plan for Indian Point for years. Were you made

aware of the plan? Were you told how New Canaan fit into this

plan?

Mr. BOND. No.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. That’s it?

Mr. BOND. That’s it.

Mr. SHAYS. So we have a plan—we’re going to get through this

panel real quick with answers like that, but——

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. He’s a lawyer’s dream.

Mr. SHAYS. You think he’s a lawyer’s dream, Dick. You wait until

you get him on the stand; you’ll regret it.

But the bottom line to it is, you’re not aware of that plan?

Mr. BOND. No, I’m not.

Mr. SHAYS. And so we have a plan.

Maybe, Mr. Wiltse, you could answer me, are you aware of that

plan? I mean, you’re in charge of emergency preparedness and so

on. Would you be made aware of a plan? Not the last plan, but you

know, in general?

Mr. WILTSE. We, of course, are aware of New York State’s plan

and the county’s plan, and in the event of an incident at Indian

Point, we would be working with them.

Our responsibility, of course, is to do the planning in accordance

with the Federal requirements and guidance for those communities

in Connecticut that are within the 50-mile zone. So that is where

our planning, if you will, begins and our responsibilities begin.

Mr. SHAYS. So is it your responsibility to make sure that the first

selectman of New Canaan has an awareness of the plan? Is that

your responsibility?

Mr. WILTSE. That would be our responsibility to ensure that he

knows the standards that are currently set for the 50-mile—what’s

known as the 50-mile ingestion pathway procedures and plan.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And we are not just talking about a superficial

presentation to the first selectman saying, you know, they have a

plan and they will be coming over to your territory. Are you required to develop a plan that exceeds the 10-mile radius and are

you supposed to help design an evacuation for residents of the New

Canaan? Who does that?

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Mr. WILTSE. Based on current Federal standards, sir, there is no

requirement for evacuation plans for a nuclear incident beyond 10

miles, so there are no requirements or planning standards there.

What Mr. Bond referred to, and I also referred to in my testimony, we do see a need to develop, if you will, all-hazards regional

plans, especially in congested areas like we have in southwest Connecticut, that could be put in place and utilized for whatever the

hazard is that might affect multiple towns; and that is clearly

something that needs to be worked out through all levels of government working together.

Mr. SHAYS. And before I call on you, Mr. Blumenthal, kind of

give me a sense of what I’m asking, how you respond to what I’m

asking and what you’re hearing. Try to give me a sense of what

this means to you in terms of the 10-mile versus the 50, in terms

of one State versus another, in terms of a local community really

not quite knowing what their requirement is and what they should

do, the fact that we don’t even have, it appears, a plan outside that

10 miles.

I mean, there are two ways you get impacted: One is, you get

people from within the 10 miles coming in and interacting with

your constituents, you know, using your roads and so on; the other

issue is the need for evacuation from New Canaan. Should New

Canaan have an evacuation plan?

So, Mr. Blumenthal, I’m going to ask you to kind of walk me

through some of this.

Mr. BOND. Just one comment.

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. BOND. As of this point in time, there are roughly 445,000

people coming into Fairfield County from outside Fairfield County.

Mr. SHAYS. Right now, just in terms of the work traffic?

Mr. BOND. Work traffic.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Let me respond, if I may.

I think there is a need for planning at the local as well as the

State level, and the two have to be interrelated. In a sense, the

local communities are now planning even with an inadequate plan

on the part of the plant itself—New Canaan, for example, Westport, a number of the communities who are aware of the effect on

them.

One of the problems is that many Connecticut communities are

not sufficiently aware of the dangers that are posted. But the impact on Connecticut will be real and immediate and, in fact, the

impact on New York will be very sizable as well, because the flight

from New York will be to Connecticut. And Connecticut’s roads on

a good day, at certain times, are parking lots, they are gridlocked.

So the evacuation plans involving New York have to be contingent

on State and local planning in Connecticut.

Likewise, our food and water supplies, many of them, come from

New York. They would be contaminated. We would face the same

problems as New York, whether we were in the 10 or 20 or the 50-

mile radius.

But I think one of the key aspects that you have raised is that

a terrorist attack will not involve simply, if there is one, God forbid, a strike against the facility itself; presumably it would also inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00156 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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volve some effort to cause disruption and damage elsewhere—for

example, the Tappan Zee Bridge—which would again force evacuation into Connecticut.

And I guess, you know, to put it in legal terms that are applicable to both Connecticut and New York, there is a requirement that

these facilities have plans that take into account all these ramifications in order to continue operating. Their license is contingent on

adequate emergency preparedness plans, and our point is that—

and we’ll bring it to the courts if necessary—they have an obligation to comply with that law.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. You don’t have questions?

Mr. TIERNEY. No, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Mrs. Kelly, do you have any questions you want to

ask?

Mrs. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have no questions, except that I am delighted that you have a

panel here of people from our neighboring State of Connecticut, because you are absolutely right, Mr. Blumenthal, if we don’t work

together, the people who live within the 50-mile radius of this plant

could conceivably be in jeopardy.

Given the fact that the prevailing wind usually runs from west

to east, but also looking at the number of nor’easters we’ve had this

year, dumping snow all over us, there are factors like that we all

need to think about, given our tortuous road system in many instances, so I’m delighted you’re here.

And I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the hearing that so

that we can work together like this.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m just interested, I don’t think any other Members

have questions. You don’t?

OK. I would be interested in just understanding your concept of

the legal requirements. You said, it’s just not my opinion; you said

‘‘the legal requirements.’’

Speak to me about the legal requirements. And what legal rights

does Connecticut have?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. We have submitted a petition to FEMA under

44 CFR 350. And the petition essentially is to compel FEMA to follow its own regulations and insist on an emergency preparedness

plan as a condition for the plant continuing to operate.

As you know, FEMA has found the current plan to be inadequate. It has asked a number of questions of New York officials,

Governor Pataki and the four county executives, who have declined

to certify that plan. In our view, FEMA has an independent responsibility to take action. I think that the deadline—the earlier deadline given by Congresswoman Kelly, than the 75 or 150 days that

FEMA wants to take, is much more desirable.

But the point is that the NRC, also under its regulations in our

view, has responsibility. There has been a petition to the NRC—

similar to the one that we brought to FEMA—to compel it to suspend the license of the plant so long as there is no adequate emergency plan, again pursuant to Federal law. And that action, I believe, also has been, and can be, taken to Federal court.

But all of what we have been describing for this committee are

potential damages that give us the standing, the right and the opportunity to be in court, challenging the current plan and holding

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accountable the Federal agencies that thus far have declined, as

was evident in the letter from the chairman to you, to recognize

their responsibility.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Now let me just be clear just for the record.

The plan, the legal—you have the right to challenge the plan

that has not been acceptable, that doesn’t meet legal requirements.

It doesn’t do the job. But that is just simply a plan that has to deal

with the 10-mile radius.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. In our view, no. It relates to the 50-mile radius and possibly beyond, because we are within the 50-mile radius

and the emergency preparedness plan includes that area.

Mr. BOND. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Yes, Mr. Bond.

Mr. BOND. Going back to 44–350, in the absence of fully corrected and updated plans for the counties and States that cannot

provide reasonable assurance that appropriate measures can be

taken in the event of a radiological emergency, it seems to me the

plans have to be rewritten, not just say ‘‘meet them.’’ I don’t disagree with that. But I think they need to be rewritten to what the

world is like today.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. And they need to be brought from the Stone

Age into the post-September 11 era, where terrorist attack is an

urgent and immediate and realistic fear.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Wiltse, how many people do you have on your

staff?

Mr. WILTSE. Currently, sir, I have 27.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Is 27 enough people for you to be able to work

with all the communities that potentially you have to deal with Indian Point and Millstone 1, 2 and 3? I mean, it seems to me like

you don’t have the resources to be able to do this job.

Mr. WILTSE. That would be a very fair statement, Mr. Chairman.

As I mentioned in the testimony, our nuclear planning staff—and

I think it’s similar in most States—are fully funded by the utility.

There is no fenced or dedicated funding from the Federal Government for nuclear planning.

But even more so, our issues at the State level, I think we really

have to focus at the municipal level.

One of the key parts, if I could mention, of any plan and a key

component when you’re looking at the evacuation of the 10-mile

plan is the importance of host communities. Host communities,

based again on the Federal guidance, are where evacuees are directed to go to get a variety of very important things, everything

from KI to monitoring to shelter and food if they need it.

All of those communities use their own resources except what

they might receive from the special State utility funds, again funded by the utilities. There’s a great burden on those municipalities,

and quite frankly, it’s just because they’re professional and they

know that there’s a need that they step up, they step up to the

challenge.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask what you suspect when we ask—and

I’m going to be asking the next panel if the general public knows

about—if they’re within 50 miles of a nuclear plant, if they know

that one, there is a plan; two, if they know what that plan is; and

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three, if they know what they’re supposed to do to implement that

plan.

What do you think the response would be around the country?

Do you think that we’re just a little behind others, or do you think

that it’s probably typical in a lot of parts of the country?

Mr. WILTSE. I’d say, Mr. Chairman—I think it’s typical in all

parts of the country. Anyone living within a nuclear zone, one of

the great needs and again something that requires, obviously, a lot

of resources is public information and education not only, also, for

the public, but for first selectmen and those officials who need to,

if you will, have the most immediate information available.

There’s a great deal—as Mr. Witt and his staff pointed out in the

study, for new ways to—technological ways to communicate directly with municipalities so that they can communicate with their

people. There is not a good network of communications systems,

computer-based information systems throughout the Nation. And

that’s definitely something that we need to work at.

But simply the area of public information, reaching out to the

public, only by investing there are we going to be able to address

the issue of spontaneous evacuation.

I think Mr. Witt, in—if you will, the—his final comments that he

just released really hit on it and made a very good clarification. He

was not saying that plans are—should be disregarded, the current

plans, and that they need to be thrown out; the point that he made

is that they need to be improved.

We do have some basic plans. They’re certainly better than not

having any plans, as I mentioned, as in the case of some other industries. But that means we need to invest and put the investment

in to make the plans what they need to be.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Is there anything that we need to put on the record, Mr. Bond?

I mean, your concise ‘‘no’’ is probably the most important answer

that we’ve received during the whole hearing.

Mr. BOND. I think, in all due respect, Connecticut has done some

interesting things. As of probably this week, they’ve—the health—

Dr. Garcia has put in a system with every health director in every

town, and New Canaan has a Nextel. With one number ring, they

can contact all the health directors in the whole State. That’s one

thing.

And then they are making available to every police department,

ambulance corps and fire department an 800-megawatt radio.

So we are making some progress, but we need some guidance

and we need some—from the State and more so than this, particularly on the evacuation concern. And also we think that—again,

that it would be preferable to correct the errors now and not wait

for 6 months or a year. I think it’d be helpful.

I think the feeling of the community would be so much—greatly

improved by the fact not to shut it down for good, make it right

then come on back.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Blumenthal, anything that you would like to put on the

record before we get to the next panel?

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Once again, my thanks for helping to raise

awareness in Connecticut about this problem because, in answer to

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your question, Connecticut is less aware than it should be. In many

parts of Connecticut, if you ask that question about where is Indian

Point and should we be preparing for a possible emergency, they

would say: Indian Point? It’s not on their radar screen, and it

should be.

And there should be—and I would just conclude with this

thought. There should be better planning and coordination between

the two States in communication, evacuation, medical and food and

other supplies; and right now there is virtually none.

Just as the answer to your question about New Canaan was ‘‘no,’’

the answer to the same question, if asked, is there ongoing planning for Indian Point as a possible disaster area between the two

States, the answer would be ‘‘no.’’ That is really an irony, because

one of the findings of the Witt report is that the news of a disaster,

whether it is a terrorist attack or any other kind of disaster, will

spread instantaneously. And the current plans are inadequate because they assume that the government will be disseminating this

information in the way that it wants to. Rather the public will be

using cell phones and all the technology that are really not taken

into account by the current plan. So, again, my thanks to you for

increasing public education which we need to increase even more.

Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank you. I’ll use my old theology just before concluding here to say that I suspect that the view used to be, and

still is, unfortunately, that if we tell people about a evacuation plan

and what they have to do, they will start raising questions about

why do they need to know this. And then, unfortunately, it might

call into question whether we need nuclear energy at all, which I

happen to believe has a role to play in this country.

And so I think the industry probably tries to downplay it. But

if we’re going to be honest with the American people if we have

this type of energy—and we do; we get 20 percent of it for electricity throughout the United States—we’d better know how to respond to it and how to protect ourselves.

But in one sense this is kind of a surreal conversation, though

isn’t it because if we had to evacuate, there’s the question, would

you ever get to come home, which is a little unsettling?

I thank you all very much. I appreciate your waiting so long and

this is very helpful to us. Thank you so much, gentlemen.

Mr. SHAYS. We’re going to do our panel three, which is Mr. Jim

Wells, Director, Natural Resources and the Environment, U.S. General Accounting Office; Mr. Michael Slobodien—if I’m saying that

correctly; I’m probably not—director of Emergency Programs,

Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.; Mr. William Renz, director, Nuclear Protection Services and Emergency Preparedness, Dominion

Resources Services, Inc.; Ms. Angelina Howard, executive vice

president, Nuclear Energy Institute; Mr. Alex Matthiessen, executive director, Riverkeeper; and Mr. David Lochbaum, nuclear safety

engineer, Union of Concerned Scientists. Big panel, but a very important panel. We appreciate your being here.

Thank you for staying—standing, and I will swear you in now.

Is there a likelihood that you would be calling on someone else to

be able to respond? We’ll get another chair if we need it.

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Is there anyone else that might? If you are, I’d appreciate your

standing up, and we’ll swear everyone in; and if we call on you,

we’ll just know that you were sworn in.

Raising your right hands, thank you, gentlemen and ladies.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record everyone has responded in the affirmative. Please be seated. Do we have enough chairs?

Mr. Renz, I’m going to have you slide a little to your right just

a speck, I guess, and then slide over a little bit.

Yes, that’s good. OK. Have we left anyone out?

I may have not pronounced your name correctly, sir.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Slobodien.

Mr. SHAYS. Slobodien?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t pronounce it correctly.

It’s wonderful to have you here. I’m sorry you had to wait so

long. I suspect you probably figured that might happen.

But what I would appreciate is that you recognize that this is a

very important panel; we’re looking forward to some of the interaction that will take place between you. I would be more inclined

to want to hear—have you speak for 5 minutes rather than 10,

given the size of this panel. And I think we all will have questions

for you.

So we’ll start, I guess the way you’re seated, OK? And that’s the

way we’ll do it.

Mr. Wells.

STATEMENTS OF JIM WELLS, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MICHAEL J. SLOBODIEN, DIRECTOR,

EMERGENCY PROGRAMS, ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS,

INC.; WILLIAM F. RENZ, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR PROTECTION

SERVICES AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, DOMINION

RESOURCES SERVICES, INC.; ANGELINA S. HOWARD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE; ALEX

MATTHIESSEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RIVERKEEPER; AND

DAVID LOCHBAUM, NUCLEAR SAFETY ENGINEER, UNION OF

CONCERNED SCIENTISTS

Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are pleased to be here

today to discuss emergency preparedness at commercial and nuclear power plants.

Twenty-four years ago, March 1979, the accident at Three Mile

Island challenged emergency planning. The residents at Indian

Point Nuclear Power Plant awoke in February 2000 to similar concerns. Following the September 11 terrorist attack, nuclear power

plants have once again received a high level of focus and concern.

Almost 2 years later, we’re sitting here today learning that we still

have to get our act together, and we still have a ways to go on

emergency planning.

You have already heard testimony from NRC, FEMA and others

on the events at Indian Point. Clearly, no one is going to take

emergency preparedness lightly. But as you can see today, Mr.

Chairman, getting facts to questions is like asking auditing quesVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00161 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions, that it is sometimes difficult to get the answers; and we

share your pain.

At the time we looked at Indian Point, NRC had identified a

number of emergency preparedness weaknesses that had gone

largely uncorrected. I think it would be fair to say that over the

years, Consolidated Edison’s efforts to improve were not completely

successful. And it’s fair to say from our perspective that the NRC

and its IGs had maintained a strong regulatory posture in finding

problems. They identified problems, but didn’t necessarily always

have the solutions.

For example, 1996, 1998, 1999, NRC identified communication

weaknesses. These included delays as simple as just notifying and

getting the pagers to work so that people could be told of an emergency. The IG also issued a strong report. The plant has, and is,

taking corrective actions to address these problems. According to a

2001 NRC inspection report, these actions, when they went in and

looked, were not fully effective. Although NRC is finding problems—although of a minor nature, it expressed the view that the

existing program could protect the public.

The four New York communities surrounding the facilities also

had their problems and made improvements over time. But we continue to hear a common theme that suggests that better communication among NRC, FEMA, State and local entities is clearly

needed.

For example, the classic case of confusion occurred when the

plant reported that a release had occurred, but posed no threat to

the public; yet, the county officials reported that no release had occurred. This contradictory information has led to credibility problems with the media and the public, and it continues to do so.

We also reported the concern, and the main message of our GAO

report was that the NRC and the FEMA communication was oriented toward the State officials and less with local officials. Both

NRC and FEMA continually told us that they had limited resources

that forced them to rely on the States to work more closely with

the counties.

Effective communication, over and over again, has been pointed

out as being extremely critical to respond to a radiological emergency. You’ve heard it today.

We recommended that NRC and FEMA reassess these policies

for communicating primarily with the State and in those instances

where the local communities are clearly the first to have to respond

to this emergency.

Mr. Conklin today, Homeland Security, used the terminology,

‘‘working closely with the local communities.’’ Mr. Miller, NRC,

used the words ‘‘closely monitoring all the existing reports’’ that

were coming up and used the terminology ‘‘stepped up meetings.’’

I guess it depends on your definition of ‘‘closely,’’ because we called

the local officials as we got ready for this hearing and we asked

questions about how had communications improved. And I think it

would be a general, valid statement to say that the answers we

were getting back from many of the local officials was that not

much has changed.

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So I guess your definition of ‘‘closely’’ may depend on whether it’s

minuscule or some, but that was what we were able to find in a

few days before coming to the table here today.

You also asked us our opinion about the latest review that had

been done at Indian Point, the draft Witt report. Clearly, the Witt

report was more technical than our 2000 report, but they both addressed difficulties in communications and in planning inadequacy.

The Witt report implied that the current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to protect the public from an

unacceptable dose of radiation.

We are aware, Mr. Chairman, that FEMA has disagreed with

some of the issues raised, but they also admit that the report does

highlight several issues that are worth considering in order to improve emergency preparedness not only at Indian Point, but perhaps more importantly, nationwide.

And at the risk, Mr. Chairman, of raising your ire, we also saw

where NRC had commented that the report gives undue weight to

the impact of terrorism. But the point, regardless of these quick positions, is that if the Witt findings are true, these findings may

have merit across the board at all the nuclear power plants, and

clearly more needs to be done.

Mr. Chairman, in summary, let me just say that the post-September 11 environment clearly raises new challenges for NRC and

FEMA. NRC and the nuclear industry, some of which are here on

the panel today, they deserve a lot of credit for taking action quickly to strengthen their security as a result of a changing world.

However, let me just make two quick points.

First, at Indian Point, there’s been a lot of ink in the press.

There’ve been a lot of audit reports in GAO, from the NRC IG and

even the new Witt study questioning the weaknesses in emergency

preparedness. We, today, are still concerned that, as revealed in

the hearings today, problems in emergency preparedness are still

commonplace.

Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement you used the terminology, ‘‘deficiencies can linger for years;’’ that is unfortunately too

true. Even minor problems can cause concern.

As to what happened at Indian Point, senior management officials must clearly pay attention to emergency preparedness. These

plans have not received, as they should, greater visibility—sometimes minimal direction and inadequate resource allocation. We

heard 27 people in the State of Connecticut, for instance.

Second, the point I want to make is the old saying, ‘‘What gets

watched gets done,’’ is particularly appropriate here. Hearings like

this today that continue to focus on the NRC mission to provide

quality oversight—I’m not sure we heard quality oversight today,

but clearly our goal is to assist you, Mr. Chairman, and your committee in sorting through where do we go from here as a nation.

And I agree 100 percent that the public has a right to know.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll conclude my remarks.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Wells.

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I just would thank you for being here and say to you that I appreciate that the GAO is willing to be on panels with others that

makes it more interesting rather than a separate panel. But it

speaks well for your organization and we thank you for that.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wells follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Slobodien. Did I get it right this time? Almost.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. You did, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. Good. It’s a good name.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Thank you, sir.

Chairman Shays, distinguished members, I am Michael

Slobodien, director of emergency programs for Entergy Nuclear,

Northeast. I’m honored to appear here before you today, and appreciate the opportunity to provide you with this testimony.

I am a board certified health physicist with 33 years of professional experience in radiation safety, industrial hygiene, environmental programs and emergency planning. I have responsibility for

the overall program management of Entergy’s emergency response

activities for the Indian Point Energy Center, the James A.

Fitzpatrick Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plants.

My offices are in White Plains, NY, and I report to the president

of Entergy Nuclear in the Northeast.

Entergy is the second largest operator of nuclear power plants in

the United States with 10 operating reactors and it is the largest

provider of nuclear power industry license renewal and decommissioning services.

We managed the planning and early implementation of the decommissioning strategy for the Millstone 1 reactor in Waterford,

CT, and currently manage the decommissioning of the Maine Yankee reactor in Wiscasset, ME.

Today, I would like to make several points regarding the Indian

Point Energy Center and the implications it has for the health and

safety of the citizens of New York and the adjacent States of Connecticut and New Jersey. In these remarks, I rely on established

science.

A most significant point is that an accident at the Indian Point

Plant involving the release of large amounts of radioactivity is extremely unlikely. Even in the event of a terrorist attack of the

types we have even on civilian and military targets worldwide—

this includes the intentional crash of a large aircraft into our hardened facilities—the design of the Indian Point Nuclear Plant incorporates extensive safety-feature redundancy and physical protection to ensure that the reactors and spent fuel facilities can withstand a wide sphere of accidents, whether caused by human error,

mechanical failure, natural disasters, or acts of terrorism.

The plants are in no way dirty bombs. In fact, a nuclear power

plant cannot undergo a nuclear explosion. It’s a physical impossibility. According to James Kalstrom, former Director of the New York

city office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who, at the request of Governor George Pataki, performed an exhaustive security

study of Indian Point in the wake of the September 2001 terror attacks on this Nation, Indian Point is, ‘‘an extremely safe place,’’

and is among the best protected and most secure civilian facilities

in the country.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has frequently said that Indian Point is the best defended reactor in the country. While it is

possible, although extremely unlikely, that there could be a circumstance that could lead to a release of radioactivity to the environment, the distances from Indian Point to New York City, Connecticut, and New Jersey are such that radiation doses would be

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lower than levels that could cause acute injury or illness. Any longterm effects would be indistinguishable from normal background

levels.

In short, the citizens of Connecticut and New Jersey are not at

risk from an accident at Indian Point, including an event that

could be caused by terrorists. In the same way, the citizens of New

York are not at risk from the three Millstone nuclear reactors in

Waterford, CT. These statements that I make are based on extensive worldwide experience in radiation effects gathered since the

earliest use of radiation as x-rays discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen

in 1895. Since that time, no environmental agent has been studied

more extensively than radiation.

Our understanding of radiation’s transport in the environment,

resulting doses, and consequent health effects is documented in

many reputable sources, including the National Academy of

Science’s Committee on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation; the

United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation; the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, which has studied and continues to follow the population in Japan in its response

to the radiation exposure since 1945; the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer, just to

mention a few.

I’ve attached in my written statement a bibliography of reports

and Internet Web sites that may be beneficial to this committee.

A second key point is the analysis related to accidents and their

consequences for Indian Point plants do take into consideration a

wide spectrum of causes, as I mentioned before—human error, mechanical failure, natural disasters and indeed terrorism. None of

the factors noted above, including a terrorist attack, would lead to

a release of radioactivity different from what is already analyzed.

And I think it’s important that I explain why, because the amount

of radioactivity in the nuclear power plant is fixed.

There’s a certain inventory. It’s unchanging. A terrorist event

neither adds to it nor subtracts. But no worse can happen as a result of that. In fact, our emergency plans and those of government

are designed to deal with the challenges that might be caused by

a terrorist attack and are not dependent on the cause of an accident.

The plans are symptom-based; much as a physician treats a patient who comes into the hospital, based on symptoms, so do we,

as emergency planners and responders, deal with symptoms. And

our plans are designed to work regardless of the circumstances that

could cause release of radioactivity to others.

A third key point is that a release of radioactivity to the environment, regardless of the cause, would move into the air in a plume

whose size and shape would be determined by prevailing weather.

Plumes tend to be narrow, their concentration decreases rapidly

with downwind distance and the effects diminish proportionately to

the increase in downwind distance.

Plumes are functions of nature; they are predictable and they are

monitored easily. We know that plumes that could come from Indian Point would tend to remain in the Hudson Valley despite the

fact that prevailing winds are from east to west. The structure of

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the valley itself keeps winds moving generally north to south or

south to north in the river valley.

Our knowledge of plumes, coupled with our extensive knowledge

of radiation effects, enables experts such as Richard Codell and

Sarbeswar Acharaya of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conclude that New York City, Connecticut, and New Jersey residents

are not at risk from a serious accident at the Indian Point Energy

Center.

While it is possible to find nuclear power plant accident analyses

that predict dire consequences, such analyses have employed grossly unrealistic or impossible assumptions.

Last, I’d like to take a few moments to speak to the report on

emergency preparedness at Indian Point and Millstone issued by

James Lee Witt Associates. Entergy noted that the report contains

useful insights and recommendations, many of which we had under

way prior to the start of the Witt report study.

Two of the areas noted for improvement in this Witt report are

public education and outreach. We heartily agree. We believe that

all of us here today share in the responsibility to improve the level

of education about nuclear power and radiation safety. This is essential to counter the fears inspired by certain advocacy groups,

noted by Mr. Witt, that said, ‘‘In pursuit of their agenda to close

Indian Point, they have misused NRC data presumably to frighten

and alarm the public. Misuse of information can lead to behavior

that may endanger the public health and safety close.’’

The fears of the public about nuclear power are largely a result

of use of misinformation. This is not limited to Indian Point. This,

indeed, as has already been discussed, is a national issue.

We disagree with a number of points in Mr. Witt’s report and do

not find support for the conclusion that present radiological emergency plans are not adequate to protect public health and safety.

But we believe that those plans are capable and have been demonstrated to protect public health and safety in the extremely unlikely event of a serious accident at the Indian Point Energy Center.

They need to be improved, there’s no doubt. And we are conscientiously working with the local government and the State of New

York to improve those plans.

Entergy is committed to operating all of our nuclear plants with

safety as the foremost objective. With that in mind, we engaged a

panel of experts, including some of the most respected scientists

and engineers in the areas of nuclear engineering reactor safety,

risk assessment, health physics, counterterrorism, social psychology, emergency communications, and traffic engineering to advise

us as we moved forward with our emergency planning improvement efforts. This panel also provided comments to Mr. Witt on his

draft report, and brief curriculum vitae of these experts is attached

to the written statement.

Entergy is pleased to provide this testimony, and we are prepared to work with Congress as you work toward improving the

Nation’s security and emergency preparedness. We invite the members of this committee to visit the Indian Point Energy Center in

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Buchanan, NY, to see for yourselves the nature of security and

emergency preparedness.

That concludes my remarks. Thank you, gentlemen and Congresswoman Kelly.

Mr. TURNER [presiding]. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Slobodien follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Renz.

Mr. RENZ. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. My name is William Renz and I am the director of nuclear protection services and emergency preparedness for Dominion. Dominion is one of the largest electric and gas companies in

the United States with a diversified and integrated energy portfolio. In addition to Millstone, we own and operate two other nuclear plants.

Dominion appreciates the opportunity to provide testimony today

regarding nuclear security and emergency preparedness. I will

summarize my prefiled testimony and also address your specific

question about what, if any, progress has been made by FEMA and

NRC with respect to the emergency preparedness and security of

nuclear power stations.

To better understand the current regulatory oversight of these

functions, it is important to remember just how much of an impact

the 1979 Three Mile Island accident had on the scope and breadth

of nuclear emergency planning. There were many lessons learned

and the requirements for nuclear emergency planning were expanded dramatically in the early 1980’s.

For more than 20 years, State authorities and local governments

within 10 miles of a nuclear power station have worked together

with licensees to provide assurance of the health and safety of the

general public. For many years, it has been widely recognized that

the level of emergency preparedness in communities in and around

nuclear power stations is superior to that of other localities.

One of the many changes to the emergency planning requirements was the establishment of a 10-mile emergency planning

zone. Planning for implementing protective actions within this 10-

mile zone include the ability for offsite response organizations to

perform a wide variety of emergency functions, such as an independent accident assessment, radiological monitoring, sample collection, and analysis, capability to promptly notify and communicate to the public, traffic control strategies and provisions for reception centers and congregate care facilities.

Purely from a technical standpoint, a much-improved understanding of how nuclear fuel is affected during a severe accident,

generally referred to as the ‘‘alternate source term,’’ indicates that

the same bases used to determine the size of the 10-mile emergency planning zone would today support a significantly smaller

size emergency planning zone. Nonetheless, we do not think that

now would be the time to reduce at all the level of emergency planning around nuclear plants.

With respect to security at nuclear facilities before September 11,

licensees maintained a very high level of security in that portion

of the plant site called the ‘‘protected area.’’ The protected area includes the nuclear reactors, safety systems, the power production

facilities, and it is isolated from the rest of the overall plant site

by means, such as concrete, vehicle barriers, double razor wire

fences, defensive positions at various locations internal to or along

the perimeter of the protected area, and a highly secured entry

point for vehicles and employees who enter the protected area.

The protected area also includes state-of-the-art technology used

to detect and assess any attempted the unauthorized entry.

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Trained and armed responders are positioned to ensure that areas

vital to nuclear safety will remain secure.

After the attacks of September 11, this very high level of security

within the protected area was further heightened. Additionally, security was expanded to provide an armed responder presence and

surveillance capability throughout the overall plant site.

Now, to give you an idea of the impact of this type of expansion,

the protected area for Millstone is approximately 53 acres.

The overall plant site is approximately 542 acres, or about 10

times the size of the protected area.

The NRC has issued a series of orders requiring significant increases in the requirements for security. These new NRC requirements are intended not only to fortify a plant site but also to ensure that plans are in place to respond to a terrorist attack.

A great amount of time has been spent on table-topping terrorist

attack scenarios and how law enforcement resources would be integrated into such a response. These changes, taken in total, are

quite far-reaching and comprehensive.

The attacks of September 11 have also forced licensees to considerably strengthen their relationships with intelligence communities, install countersurveillance measures and work toward the

common protection of this critical infrastructure. Examples of these

new and forming public private partnerships are provided in my

prefiled testimony.

With respect to FEMA and NRC oversight, the existing emergency planning regulatory framework serves as a solid foundation

for an increasing level of emergency preparedness due to a higher

level of integration with law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community.

While emergency planning regulations have not been directly

changed, the regulatory oversight for nuclear emergency preparedness programs certainly has been increased since September 11. It

was mentioned earlier that communications with stakeholders do

not appear to be significantly improved since September 11. I put

to you that we are dealing with a different set of stakeholders.

In the area of nuclear security, NRC continues to raise the level

of regulatory oversight. In addition to NRC issuing a series of orders to increase requirements, the Commission is currently considering a significant expansion of the existing design basis threat as

discussed earlier.

With respect to the Witt Report, it is unclear to what degree this

review took into consideration the new efforts being taken by the

industry and all levels of government in the charge of better securing the country’s nuclear power stations. Nevertheless, we are in

the progress of working with our stakeholders to improve the level

of offsite emergency preparedness based on the recommendations

provided within the report.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, the existing emergency preparedness

regulatory framework and our public-private partnerships in Connecticut provide reasonable assurance of public health and safety.

The increased coordination with law enforcement agencies and the

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intelligence community has substantially strengthened emergency

preparedness programs throughout the industry.

Again, I thank you for this opportunity to address this subcommittee.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Renz follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Ms. Howard.

Ms. HOWARD. Thank you. Chairman Shays, members of the committee, thank you. My name is Angelina Howard. I am the executive vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Congressman Shays, Mrs. Kelly, Mr. Turner, Mr. Tierney, thank

you for letting us be here this afternoon.

The focus of my statement is twofold. First, I will address the

proven security of our Nation’s nuclear power plants. Our industry’s security was second to none in the industrial sector prior to

September 11, 2001; and our facilities are even safer and more secure today.

Second, I will discuss the industry’s emergency preparedness programs, which are really the gold standard worldwide. They have

been tested and proven in scores of nonnuclear emergencies for

more than 20 years.

Today, we can discuss nuclear power plant security and emergency preparedness plans, because this industry has had these

plans in effect since its inception. Although the industry’s commitment to these two facets of our business spans more than 2 decades, our vigilance is even more important today to ensure the

safety of our work force, the public, and the security of the 103 reactors that provide electricity for one of every five homes and businesses in our country.

Clearly, nuclear power plants are major contributors to regional

electricity supplies. Indian Point, for example, produces nearly

2,000 megawatts of electricity, about 20 percent of the electricity

that is used in the New York City area.

Critics have said the plants are not needed and closing the

plants would raise consumers’ electricity bills a marginal amount,

$50 to $100. We can debate whether the price and how the price

could change, but just looking historically at the past 2 years, when

on-peak power prices in the New York City area hub have increased substantially, when just one Indian Point reactor was shut

down, from 43 percent it went up to 50 percent in the following

summer. Shutting down both reactors would have an even greater

effect on prices, and it is not likely to be minimal.

Nuclear plant safety and security is based on the philosophy of

defense in depth. This includes plant design, construction and operating, as well as exacting Federal security requirements that are

met and must be met by all of our nuclear plants in this country.

After September 11, the industry and the NRC conducted independent reviews of how best to improve our already high levels of

security. Since then, as Mr. Renz and others have testified, the industry has increased the security force by one-third, to more than

7,000 highly trained, well-armed officers. We have expanded and

fortified the perimeter security zones, increased patrols within

those zones. We have tightened access to tour plants and strengthened vehicle barriers. Overall, the industry has spent nearly $400

million on security improvements.

We have conducted in-depth studies of the aircraft analysis and

looked at the impact of aircraft on both the containment buildings,

spent fuel pools and dry cask storage facilities at these plant sites.

We would be pleased to give you a separate briefing on the results

of those analyses.

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We have also enhanced our frequency and coordination with local

and State law enforcement, the intelligence community and the

military.

A recently released White House report recommends conducting

comprehensive vulnerability and risk assessments of the Nation’s

critical infrastructure so that resources may be applied to those

areas that represent the greatest risk. The nuclear energy industry

supports such a recommendation and encourages the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to coordinate its review of nuclear plant security with the Department of Homeland Security.

Daily operation of nuclear energy facilities is based on an integrated approach to protect public health and safety. This includes

programs to respond to any emergency, whether an operational

event or the response to a potential terrorist attack. As with security, the plant safety begins with its design. Safety features are

built into the plant. Several separate steel and concrete barriers

protect the reactor. Highly trained, federally licensed reactor operators are responsible for safe operations on a daily basis, and they

are an integral part of the facility’s emergency response plan.

Emergency exercises and drills test emergency response capabilities, both at the plant and in nearby towns. The industry, State,

and local governments participate in these exercises, which are

evaluated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Federal

Emergency Management Agency.

We know that the emergency response programs work, because

they have been used to evacuate residents both during natural disasters like hurricanes and floods or in other nonnuclear industrial

accidents.

You asked for comments on the Witt Report. The Witt Report on

Indian Point and Millstone’s emergency preparedness is now final.

While we still would take issue with the overall conclusions in the

report, I note the report acknowledges that the two plants’ emergency plans comply with Federal requirements. The report just

takes issue with those requirements.

So if Federal agencies pursue additional review of emergency

preparedness of nuclear facilities as part of a national infrastructure protection, this industry will willingly and gladly participate

in that review. The nuclear industry is constantly reviewing, drilling, and improving its emergency preparedness plans; and we will,

as a matter of course, consider further improvements as our efforts

in this area continue.

In conclusion, security and emergency preparedness, just like

safe operation, are fundamental components of a thriving nuclear

energy industry; and in all three areas we have an exemplary

record. As America’s consideration of energy security and national

security grow more and more urgent, we must continue to rely on

reliable, affordable, clean energy, generated at our Nation’s 103 nuclear power plants in Connecticut, Ohio, and across the Nation.

Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Howard follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Matthiessen.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Tierney and

honorable members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the 20 million people in the New York metropolitan area who live and work

in the shadow of Indian Point, I thank you for the opportunity to

provide testimony on this crucial public health and safety issue.

Mr. Chairman, I am especially indebted to you for hosting this

hearing and providing leadership in the State of Connecticut. I am

also glad to see Congresswoman Kelly, our Representative in Westchester, here today, who also held a hearing. We appreciate that

very much, and also appreciate the tough questions that you have

asked of both NRC and FEMA. These are questions that need to

be asked of these agencies, and we appreciate your leadership in

this area.

You, like we, recognize that the public does have a right to know

what the issues are surrounding these nuclear power plants and

the emergency plans.

I am Alex Matthiessen, executive director of Riverkeeper, a notfor-profit environmental organization with over 5,000 members.

Riverkeeper’s mission is to protect the Hudson River and safeguard

the watersheds that make up New York City’s and Westchester’s

drinking water supply. Riverkeeper is not an antinuclear organization. However, given Indian Point’s inappropriate proximity to New

York City and the consequences a major radiological release would

have on the area’s residents, national security and the U.S. economy, we regard Indian Point in this post-September 11 world as a

unique case that deserves special attention.

Located only 30 miles from the world’s financial capital, Indian

Point is arguably one of the country’s most attractive terrorist targets. No facility, if successfully attacked, has the potential to wreak

more economic and psychological damage and impose more loss of

human life and health than Indian Point.

In this heightened risk environment, we need at least two things

in order to justify the continued operation of Indian Point—plant

security sufficient to repel a sophisticated terrorist attack and an

emergency plan that actually works. Unfortunately, at Indian

Point, we have neither.

In this post-September 11 threat environment, the NRC and

FEMA are scrambling. Unfortunately, they are scrambling to protect the status quo and not public safety. It is troubling that these

agencies are not using language that suggests that they are asking

the more basic question here: Are these emergency plans fundamentally adequate? And, if not, what do we need to do about

that? And should we be considering shutting down Indian Point,

considering its close proximity to New York City and a dense population?

I ask the NRC, if not Indian Point, then what circumstances

would compel the NRC to issue a shutdown order? I, too, am

alarmed that never in its history has it ordered a shutdown of a

nuclear reactor. There has to be instances where it made sense to

do so.

In January 2002, Entergy commissioned an internal review of security at Units 2 and 3. The review, known as the Logan Report,

revealed that only 19 percent of the guards believe they can repel

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a conventional sabotage event, let alone a September 11-type attack.

Guards admitted they are underqualified and undertrained with

respect to gun handling, physical fitness and training. Guards report that qualifying exams for carrying weapons are often rigged.

Security drills are carefully staged to ensure mock intruders fail.

Yet one security guard was able to place mock explosives throughout the spent fuel pool buildings three times, all in less than 1

minute.

In addition to weak ground forces, Indian Point is virtually unprotected from either a water-based or aerial attack. There is no

regular Coast Guard presence. The only other protection is a structureless security zone enforced by a buoy tender and an old Whaler

piloted by two day Reservists.

The NRC admits that the only way to protect nuclear plants

from air attacks is by improving national airport security. However, in response to a 2.206 petition filed by Riverkeeper, the NRC

acknowledged that there was a gap between security at Indian

Point and at our Nation’s airports.

In December, the NRC took the astonishing step of issuing a decision declaring the risk of terrorism will not be considered in

issuing or reviewing plant licenses. The NRC claims, ‘‘they have no

way to calculate the probability proportion of the equation, except

in such general terms as to nearly be meaningless.’’ In other words,

because you can’t accurately measure the threat of terrorism, it is

OK to ignore it in determining whether nuclear plants are safely

sited and protected. That may be the most bizarre and dangerous

rationale for inaction I have ever heard coming from a Federal

agency.

The NRC earlier testified that they are not responsible and the

plant owners are not responsible for protecting against enemies of

the United States. Well, I would ask the question: If that is the

case, who is responsible, and which agency of the government, if

not Entergy, is responsible for protecting Indian Point?

The New York Observer did an article last year where they

asked all of the—they polled all of the Federal agencies—the Defense Department, FBI, CIA, and others—and Entergy—who was

responsible ultimately for aerial protection? And they all pointed

fingers at each other, and none could say definitively that they

were responsible.

On Friday, James Lee Witt Associates issued the final draft of

its State commissioned report, in which it criticizes virtually every

aspect of Indian Point’s emergency plan. The report concludes that,

‘‘the current radiological response system and capabilities are not

adequate to overcome their combined weight and protect the people

from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release

from Indian Point, especially if the release is faster or larger than

the typical REP exercise scenario.’’

Last month, in an attempt to dismiss Witt’s devastating conclusions, FEMA issued its own report, first claiming that Witt has

raised nothing new, then trying, without success, to rebut Witt’s

findings. Without ever substantiating its criticism of Witt’s arguments, FEMA somehow reaches the conclusion that there is not a

single deficiency in Indian Point’s emergency plan. Astonishingly,

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FEMA insists that there is no difference in responding to a radiological release caused by an operational failure and one caused by

a terrorist attack.

However, Witt has a distinctly different view. He cites as examples terrorists simultaneously targeting roads and bridges to impede evacuation, attacks on responders and spontaneous and shadow evacuations spurred by public panic.

To be clear, the NRC recognizes the possibility of a radiological

release with or without terrorism in as little as 1 to 2 hours. Yet,

while FEMA claims that it takes fast-breaking scenarios into consideration, it fails to plan or drill for such scenarios.

FEMA sidesteps those flaws that Witt identifies as particularly

serious: the congested road network and population densities

around Indian Point, both of which are fixed givens that cannot be

altered. FEMA all but ignores emergency scenarios involving a

spent fuel pool disaster. FEMA overlooks Witt’s contention that a

radioactive plume may travel well beyond the 10-mile EPZ.

FEMA fails to comprehend the significance of the fact that many

first responders, having little faith in the emergency plan, have admitted that, rather than fulfilling their official duties, they will

seek to protect their own families.

Probably the most damning statement of all in FEMA’s report is

the Agency’s acknowledgment that studies associated with NUREG

0654 clearly indicate that, for all but a very limited set of conditions, evacuation, even evacuating under a plume, is much more effective than sheltering in place. Clearly, if you can’t shelter, if you

can’t evacuate, you can’t protect the people.

So what has FEMA’s response been to the overwhelming evidence that Indian Point’s plan cannot meet our current needs? Finger pointing, bullying and indecision. When counties declare that

they could not, in good conscience, certify the plans were up to

date, FEMA wrote a letter to the State instructing them to ignore

the counties and certify the plans over county objections.

When finally realizing it could not provide reasonable assurance

that the plan works, FEMA arbitrarily tacked on a 75-day grace

period to the 120 days the State is normally given to comply with

certification requirements. We worry that all of the buck passing

and delays are being used by FEMA to give them time to figure

out how to certify a patently unworkable plan.

We agree with Mr. Witt that the plan should be improved. Certainly, if you make the improvements that he recommends in his

report, that will help to address a minor accident at the plant. But

we also agree that plans cannot be fixed to deal with the post-September 11 world.

Chairman Shays, in conclusion, I urge you and the rest of the

committee to pay close attention to FEMA and the NRC as this

process unfolds. If I may, I would like to briefly make several specific recommendations to the committee.

Regarding emergency planning, instruct FEMA to start delaying

and immediately withdraw its approval of Indian Point’s emergency plan in light of overwhelming evidence and unanimous recognition by independent experts, elected officials and the public

that the major deficiencies in the plan cannot be repaired.

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In case the committee is not aware, and I think that FEMA

made reference to it earlier, or the NRC, FEMA has been faced

with this issue in the past and acted appropriately. In the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, FEMA not only temporarily

withdrew its approval of Turkey Point’s emergency plan but ordered the Florida nuclear plant to shut down until reasonable assurances could be made that the plant would actually work.

Given the terrorist threats and clear deficiencies with Indian

Point’s emergency plan, the situation in New York is clearly more

serious.

Congresswoman Kelly, I would encourage you—recently, a theory

was proposed in Congresswoman Lowey and Congressman Engel’s

hearing last week that it might be the case that FEMA and the

local counties, in reorganizing the emergency plan, actually have

essentially quarantined Westchester, whereas the evacuation

routes used to go north into Putnam and east into Connecticut and

so forth, all of the routes go south and away from the plant but

are contained within Westchester. Who knows what that means?

But it is interesting that, rather than sending people away to

less populated areas, they are actually sending you down to more

populated areas and, in fact, where the winds are typically blowing.

Regarding Indian Point’s security, introduce legislation that

would require——

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Matthiessen, if you can conclude.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN [continuing]. That Entergy finance hardening

of onsite storage and casks for irradiated spent fuel.

Introduce legislation that would require Entergy finance federalization of military forces at Indian Point and require that the

force-on-force test will be conducted at Indian Point to test the actual ability to repel a sophisticated terrorist attack.

And, finally, recognize that perhaps Indian Point is a unique

case, and the plant should be shut down.

In 1979, in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident, Robert

Ryan, NRC’s director of the Office of State Programs stated, I think

it is insane to have a three-unit reactor on the Hudson River in

Westchester County.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Matthiessen, your time has expired.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,

members of the committee.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Matthiessen follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. Good afternoon. On behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, it is my pleasure to appear before this subcommittee. My name is David Lochbaum. I have been UCS’s nuclear safety engineer for the past 6 years. UCS has worked on nuclear plant safety issues for nearly 30 years.

Nuclear plant security has been one of my top three focus areas

since 1999. Our attention was drawn to this topic after the NRC

discontinued its security tests in July 1998. The security tests featured simulated attacks by mock intruders, sometime just a single

person, against the facilities.

The NRC began testing security in 1991. Approximately half of

the tests conducted through July 1998 revealed serious problems.

Public outcry forced the NRC to reinstate the testing later in 1998.

From reinstatement through September 2001, when the NRC once

again discontinued the tests, approximately half of the tests revealed serious problems.

While identified and fixed security problems are better than unidentified and uncorrected problems, we would prefer a declining

failure rate, indicating that the nuclear industry was taking security seriously and not waiting for the NRC to point out its shortfalls.

On September 10, 2001, the NRC planned to test security at 14

nuclear plants in the upcoming year. All tests were canceled after

September 11. The NRC is just now reinstating a modified testing

program at four plant sites. Since September 11, the NRC has

issued a series of orders requiring security upgrades. For example,

access control requirements have been tightened. The NRC now

wants to background checks to be completed before workers roam

freely inside nuclear power plants. That didn’t use to be the case.

The NRC plans two other orders. One proposed order covers security guard working hours. Nuclear plant owners responded to the

security orders differently. Some orders—some owners hired more

guards. Others owners added few guards and just worked their existing guards longer hours.

The Project on Government Oversight reported last September

that some security guards are routinely working six 12-hour shifts

in a row. When the NRC sampled security guard working hours

last fall after that report, they found guards at seven plants working excessive hours. The proposed order will protect against human

performance problems caused by fatigue by limiting the number of

working hours.

The NRC’s other proposed order deals with training standards

for security personnel. The proposed order will reportedly require

security guards to demonstrate proficiency with their weapons

more frequently and under more realistic conditions.

These orders are essentially links in the security chain. Some orders strengthened existing links. Others added links to the chain.

But any chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The testing

program remains the best measure of that weakest link. The test

looked for weak links and challenged them. The only thing worse

than finding a weak link is not finding it. NRC-administered security tests, conducted at least once every 3 years, provide Americans

with their greatest protection against nuclear plant terrorism.

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Until all nuclear plants have been tested, no one can claim that the

terrorism threat is being adequately managed. Until then, we

merely have good intentions.

The NRC not only stopped security testing after September 11,

it also stopped meeting with public stakeholders on security matters. UCS and other public stakeholders fully accept that September 11 forced rethinking of the information that can be openly discussed.

But as today’s hearing clearly demonstrates, there can be responsible public discussions of nuclear plant security issues. The NRC

refuses to accept this reality. UCS has proposed a series of ways

for the NRC to reengage with public stakeholders in the post-September 11 world. The NRC’s repeated refusals to interface with

UCS and other public stakeholders is particularly troubling because the NRC does interface with other public stakeholders like

the American Nuclear Society.

It is abundantly clear that the NRC is hiding behind lame excuses only to avoid meeting with public stakeholders who might express criticisms, like our group. This is unfair and unacceptable.

UCS would greatly appreciate it if this subcommittee would encourage, induce or otherwise force the NRC to reengage public

stakeholders on security matters.

The NRC’s dismissal of contentions about security or about terrorism and sabotage from its licensing proceedings is based in part

on its promises to upgrade security. The net effect of the agency’s

actions are to exclude the public from intervening on security

issues in specific licensing cases and also to exclude the public from

participating in generic safety discussions.

As a minimum, the NRC must listen to security concerns from

all interested public stakeholders so that the agency has the benefit of broad perspectives while they are making policy decisions.

On behalf of UCS, I wish to thank the subcommittee for conducting this hearing on nuclear plant security and for considering our

views on the matter. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lochbaum follows:]

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Mr. TURNER. I would like to thank each of the panelists for participating in this.

Due to the large number of participants in this panel, our first

round of questions will be for 10 minutes for each of the members

of the subcommittee.

I want to thank our chairman, Chairman Shays, for his efforts

in putting this together. Obviously, taking into context with previous hearings that our chairman has had on the issue of the vulnerability of our nuclear facilities, the information that we have

today is certainly very helpful in determining whether or not the

threat assessment is actually being translated into action by the

appropriate parties.

Mr. Slobodien, my first question is to you. In looking at your testimony in the written portion, you say the most significant point

is that an accident at Indian Point plants involving the release of

large amounts of radioactivity is extremely unlikely, even in the

event of a terrorist attack of the types we have seen on civilian and

military targets worldwide. You then go on to talk about the reactor core itself and its protection.

I know you are well aware that the testimony that this committee has received previously and even the statements of our chairman today have indicated that some of the areas of vulnerability

that have been identified for each plant is not necessarily related

to the core, and yet you continue to dismiss, in your statement any

vulnerability or any likelihood of vulnerability of the facility.

That raises a concern on my part, obviously. Because when we

look at the NRC or yourselves as operators, we would want a

heightened level of concern and activity, not a dismissive level of

interest. Can you please describe why you have come to the conclusion that it is unlikely to have the impact that obviously others

that have come before this committee describe as significant and

real?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I think that latter point is indeed the most important point. What I am saying here is that the nature of the radioactivity at a nuclear power plant, Indian Point and all other nuclear power plants, is well understood. It is finite. You can’t add

more to it than what is already there.

An event that has a severe impact is one which releases substantial quantities of that radioactivity. From the nuclear core, we talk

about an accident that melts the core. From a fuel pool, we talk

about an accident that involves a fuel pool fire. The nature of those

accidents is not different whether they are initiated by a mechanical problem or a terrorist, because the radioactivity, the issue at

concern, is the same.

The response to those kind of events is a symptom-based response. That is, emergency planners measure the amount of radioactivity, and they take action accordingly to decide on protective action.

So when I say that events are not differentiated based on the initiating event, that is what I mean.

Mr. TURNER. So, in other words, if I can rephrase it, your emphasis is on a large release, not on the fact that a release would be

likely; and your testimony doesn’t really give us any information as

to what you would find not to be a large release.

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Mr. SLOBODIEN. Of concern to emergency planners and of concern

to public health are large releases. Small releases are not consequential to public health and safety. It takes a very large release

of substantial quantities of radioactivity to have a major impact on

public health and safety.

Mr. TURNER. OK. Well, major impact.

Now, again, this is an area I am unfamiliar with, but it would

seem to me that, since your response planning is evacuation, that

the concern level would be one of a release that rises to the level

of causing an evacuation.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Our response plans deal from all of the way

from very minor to very major. In the most serious accident, evacuation may be an appropriate and probably is an appropriate response. Sheltering may also be an appropriate response. So we do

not disregard in any way that may be happening.

And, in fact, our plans, as you heard from NRC, do take into consideration those kinds of events, ones in which there is a very large

release of very massive quantities of radioactivity. That kind of

event necessitates actions which may include evacuation, sheltering, movement of people.

Mr. TURNER. Let me get back to what my point is. It seems to

me that the whole point of doing the evaluation of the possibility

of a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility, what actions need to be

taken and the ability of looking at the safety of the public, is to

try to avoid its consequences.

Your statement is that at this time it is unlikely that a terrorist

attack to a facility would result in a release that would even result

in an evacuation.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Yes. Because in order for a terrorist event to be

successful, it would have to do the kind of damage that either

melts the nuclear core or, similarly, the fuel in the spent fuel pool.

To accomplish that is extremely difficult, even for a well-armed, sophisticated terrorist group. For example——

Mr. TURNER. Wait a minute. Well-armed. But your statement

says the type of attacks that we have seen on civilian targets,

which includes, of course, the World Trade Center attack. And,

again, there are people before you who have testified that, in fact,

there is that risk.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I don’t dismiss it, sir. An airplane, for example,

the type that was used at the World Trade Center, if it were used

as a terrorist weapon, and it is the type which we have seen in the

past, so I don’t dismiss it, if it were to crash into the reactor containment building, studies have shown that the structure would resist that kind of crash.

In the case of Indian Point, the fuel pools are similar structures

with the exception of their roofs, but they are also largely below

ground. So they are well protected as well by adjacent buildings

and other structures as well as their position from those kind of attacks, the airplane attack.

So I don’t dismiss it. In fact, we do indeed consider it.

Mr. TURNER. Well, your statement does appear to dismiss it. It

seems, again, that your level of concern is even less than the level

of our chairman; and I would hope that, if you had some greater

sense of urgency, perhaps then we could look to you for recVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:42 Oct 02, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00304 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\89075.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ommendations or look to your organization’s recommendations as

to what might need to be done to better prepare or to better protect

the public.

Ms. Howard, in your statement, similarly in the written portion,

it says, the Witt Report is fundamentally flawed. You cite in that

two bases for its flaws, the first being that—an assertion that a

terrorist-caused attack might be worse in magnitude than that of

merely an accident; and the second being that the issue of emergency management processes would be impacted by the consequences of a terrorist-caused event.

Both of those, as you have heard in the testimony today, are

issues where, if there is a terrorist attack, there is an assumption

of intent on the part of the perpetrators that is different than the

level that you would expect in an accident. That intent would be

to cause the maximum amount of release, an accident having no

intent, and also that perpetrators might have an ability or a plan

to impact the processes by which you have your orderly, planned

and public evacuation. But yet you dismiss those. Why?

Ms. HOWARD. For the same reasons that we have heard testimony earlier. From the absolute radioactive inventory, the cause of

the event does not create an additional release of radioactivity. We

look into the massive release of radioactivity from an accident, regardless of cause.

As Mr. Slobodien has testified, you look at what is the impact

and then plan for that impact, as we have continued to review

what we need to be doing to protect our national infrastructure and

the critical infrastructures. If we should look and decide that we

should look at resultant or subsequent impacts of some type of terrorist activity, that needs to be a combined effort between the Department of Homeland Security to look at how we protect our Nation against enemies of the state.

Mr. TURNER. Thank you.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Howard, I want to ask you about some of the advertisements

that—we are going to ask somebody to display them for us—some

of the advertisements that your organization ran in 2002. In the

early part of 2002, they were in Roll Call and the Hill and the

Washington Post down here.

In those advertisements, they stated, and you will see in a moment, that the guards were highly committed, well-trained, wellcompensated professionals. Is that the industry’s position?

Ms. HOWARD. Yes, it is.

Mr. TIERNEY. What about Mr. Lochbaum’s testimony a little

while ago and others that we have heard from that tell us that

many of these guards are forced to work 72 hours a week? Is that

what the industry means by highly committed?

Ms. HOWARD. No. In those particular advertisements we are talking about the individuals themselves and their training. And the

training is very clear. As we have attempted to understand what

the specific requirements are, in the past, there has been some excessive overtime in some individual facilities. That is being corrected.

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The other aspect is that, as you have hired additional guards

coming into the industry, we are in the process of training them

to meet the competencies of the individuals that you see in these

ads. So the individuals that are protecting our Nation’s nuclear

plants are well trained and well compensated.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, just the power plant that is near where I live

in my district, there is quite a substantial amount of people working significant overtime on that. You are not trying to minimize

and say that just a few of the 103 plants have people working 72

hours or other excessive amounts of overtime, are you?

Ms. HOWARD. As additional guards are trained and put on the

shift, that overtime will be coming down.

Mr. TIERNEY. What do we say about the fact that only one in four

plants—the guards at one in four plants think that they can adequately protect their facility? That still seems to be the case from

the people that I have talked to.

Ms. HOWARD. Well, with all respect, I believe that is an interview

of some particular individuals. There are some who have been

hired who have not received all of the training. They have received

training adequate for the positions they have been assigned but

may understandably want additional training.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, Mr. Lochbaum, your group, POGO, interviewed over 150 guards at about half of the plants. Was it accurate

to say that the information that you got from those interviews was

that most of them were—a significant number of them didn’t think

that they were adequately prepared to protect their plant?

Mr. LOCHBAUM. That was the Project on Government Oversight

that did those surveys. As I understand it, that was their finding.

I think our view on that is—I am not discounting those surveys

and those results, but it is hard for an individual to guage all of

the things that go together to form security. That is why we would

like to see the testing resumed as quickly as possible, because that

is really the proof in the pudding. If you pass the test, it doesn’t

really matter what the survey results were—high, low or indifferent. You are demonstrating an adequate level. So we think that the

security test is the key to having adequate security.

Mr. TIERNEY. Fair enough.

Mr. Slobodien or Mr. Renz, Ms. Howard, from any of you, I would

be curious to know, we have reports that the guards, rather than

being well compensated, are oftentimes not very well compensated,

in fact, sometimes paid as much as $4 an hour less than

custodians. What is being done about that situation, or do you dispute that?

Mr. RENZ. I have no knowledge of that specific example. We believe that they are well compensated. We have seen, in recent

weeks, an increased demand in this type of individual that would

work that position, whether it is in other fields of security or law

enforcement or what have you.

With respect to—just a point of clarification from earlier. The

overtime worked—you had a wave, a bow wave, if you will, after

September 11. You essentially went into a—protecting the entire

site. You staffed high numbers of additional positions. You secured

the overall site, not just the protected area, as I mentioned earlier.

You then had NRC establishing new thresholds, new requirements.

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You then recognized you needed to be supplementing your guard

force, because you were working them too much overtime. You then

started a hiring process. You then started a training process. And

I believe that, at this point in time, that the numbers that were

reflective last September of the overtime rates are not reflective

today.

Mr. TIERNEY. You know, it is interesting what you are saying.

On those advertisements they indicate that we were ready or we

were prepared before September 11, and we are prepared now. But

what you are telling me is that you weren’t prepared before September 11, because you have had to add on all of these additional

precautions.

Mr. RENZ. Well, I am telling you that we were prepared for a different standard before September 11.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, do you think that standard before September

11 included events of the nature of terrorism or the events that

happened on September 11?

Mr. RENZ. It did. Absolutely.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you don’t believe that any of these extra precautions by the NRC are necessary?

Mr. RENZ. I believe they are incredibly necessary. That is not

what I am trying to communicate at all.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess I am confused. If you thought that you

were well protected before September 11——

Mr. RENZ. We live in a different environment.

Mr. TIERNEY. Why do you still think that you need to have all

these additional standards done?

Mr. RENZ. Before September 11, we met the existing design basis

threat.

Mr. TIERNEY. I understand that. But I just asked you whether

or not you thought that was adequate to encompass the terrorism

activities, such as the nature of September 11. I thought I heard

you say you thought they were.

Mr. RENZ. As we know them today, no.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. If I might address the matter of Indian Point on

the question of compensation of security guards. I believe they are

very well compensated. In fact, our guards are members of the

Teamsters Union. And I am sure you could ask the Teamsters, they

bargain well. They are well compensated.

Mr. TIERNEY. As they should.

Ms. Howard, what is your understanding industrywide? What

would you say is the standard of pay throughout the industry, the

101 plants?

Ms. HOWARD. The standard of pay, I think, is quite well compensated for this type of work. They are highly trained, and the

compensation is added to that. These individuals, many of them

are retired military. They have come out of the military and gone

to work at our facilities, and therefore pay is commensurate with

military pay and the type of work that they are doing.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. Those advertisements also show us individuals

in flak jackets and semiautomatic weapons. When those ads were

run back in the early part of 2002, how many of the plants required those items?

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Ms. HOWARD. I can’t give you the specifics, but Mr. Renz who is

in charge of security may.

Mr. RENZ. For Dominion, just for a point of clarification, actually,

we were approached by the staff shortly after September 11 to see

if we would consider getting vests, light body armor, if you will.

And the company agreed to it, and we provided that. I want to say

I ordered it within a couple of weeks, I believe, and provided it as

soon as it came in with a number of several—in several weeks.

Mr. TIERNEY. OK. But, Ms. Howard, you can’t tell us industrywide on that?

Ms. HOWARD. It varies. It certainly varies industrywide. But we

believe those ads were certainly representative at the time and certainly representative now.

Mr. TIERNEY. My time, I am told, is up, but I am going to call

on the good spirits of my chairman here to ask one more question,

because I do have to leave.

Mr. Matthiessen, you made a point. You talked about who is responsible for defending against the enemies of the United States

when they might attack a nuclear reactor. I would like to just hear

from left to right here who do we think should share—should have

that burden of defending those particular sites, and then who

should bear the financial burden of that?

Mr. Wells.

Mr. WELLS. Well, clearly, as I understand it, the Federal Government has a responsibility to define what the threat is going to be

in terms of what is going to be thrown at these plants; and then,

in turn, the private industry and the licensees have to develop a

strategy to figure out a way to counter that threat and hopefully

to deliver something that allows them to win. So it is certainly

going to be a partnership.

Mr. TIERNEY. But your partnership encompasses the U.S. Government setting the regulations, or the standards, and the industry

bearing the burden of meeting them?

Mr. WELLS. That is correct. That is the way we understand it.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Slobodien.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. We clearly have the burden to deal with the

kind of threats which have been assigned to us by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and which will continue to be assigned to us,

but threats that are national threats by large armies using sophisticated weapons in large numbers are what we call enemies of the

state. That is the responsibility of the Federal Government for defense of the Nation.

Mr. TIERNEY. Where do you put terrorism in that equation?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Terrorism, there is obviously a point at which

we have to defend, and we do defend against terrorist attacks of

armed personnel in numbers that are smaller than an army and

actually is defined for us. It is not something that we can talk

about in a public session.

However, a large military force with many weapons is something

that is defined for us as an enemy of the state and is the responsibility of the Federal Government for defense of the Nation.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, there seems to be a lot that the NRC and the

industry don’t want to talk about in a public forum. Is there some

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premise that the public knowing about this is going to create a

problem here?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. We live by a standard called safeguards. It is in

the regulations. So there are certain things about which we are not

authorized to speak in public session. I think there is a willingness

to talk about it in the appropriate forum, but in a public session

we are prohibited from making such discussions of the details of

our security programs.

Mr. TIERNEY. These are requirements worked out with the NRC

and the industry?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. The NRC establishes what safeguards means.

You heard Mr. Miller talk about sensitive information, and then he

used the term safeguards. That is the term in the civilian sector

that we use for our classified information.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Renz.

Mr. RENZ. Specifically with respect to enemy of the state, I think

there is overlap in responsibility in repelling the design basis

threat and responding or defending against an enemy of the state.

Clearly, 10 CFR stipulates that is a Federal responsibility. I look

forward to seeing how the Federal Government will evolve to respond or position themselves to take on that responsibility.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Ms. Howard.

Ms. HOWARD. Yes. Again, it has to be a partnership between the

industry and the responsible entities of government, be it local as

well as the Federal Government. Certainly, for the enemy of the

state, that should be a Federal responsibility.

We look forward to working with the Department of Homeland

Defense as they assess vulnerabilities of all of the critical infrastructure and at some point use the standards that have been established in security as well as emergency preparedness in the nuclear industry over the past 20 years to start programs and other

critical infrastructure.

Mr. TIERNEY. I just want to state—when you talk about enemies

of the state, where do you put the terrorism factor into that?

Ms. HOWARD. I certainly would put terrorism at the extent that

we saw on September 11 into an enemy of the state, as our President has.

Mr. TIERNEY. So you would think that there would not be the

final burden of the industry to have to protect its plant against

that type of an assault?

Ms. HOWARD. It is the financial responsibility of the industry to

meet the Federal requirements of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the design basis threat.

Mr. TIERNEY. If the NRC then decided to raise the standards to

mean that you had to meet threats of that nature, then you would

expect that the industry would have to live up to that and to meet

those?

Ms. HOWARD. That is correct.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Matthiessen.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. I would say that to suggest or to consider federalizing security at our Nation’s nuclear power plants would be a

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good step in the right direction. It would be a recognition that the

current security forces and measures at these plants, and in particular plants like Indian Point where there are high population

densities, that would be a good start.

I, too, agree, though, that not only should you federalize these

forces, but I do think that the industry should pay at least some

portion of the cost of doing that. That should be included in the

cost of doing business.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you.

Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. For attacks about the design basis threat level,

that is the Federal Government’s responsibility. I guess we view

the government’s insurance of that responsibility by having the Department of Homeland Security run periodic exercises similar to

the way that FEMA conducts exercises in the emergency planning

arena to make sure that the local, State and Federal authorities

are working together. Because the Federal response in Kansas is

going to be different than the one at Seabrook, obviously, because

of the presence of Coast Guard and Navy, which the Wolf Creek

plant in Kansas wouldn’t be involved.

Mr. TIERNEY. I guess my comments have been designed to say

that design threat basis, I would assume, would be high enough so

that the industry would realize that a possible threat would be

something of the nature of terrorism, that they would be responsible to then deal with that. But I hear some people here suggesting that perhaps taxpayers ought to take the financial burden of

that, or some aspect of it, even though these are profitable private

entities.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. Well, up to the design basis, even if it is a terrorist threat, smaller people than the design basis threat level, we

think that the plant owner needs to be able to repel that, because

they are not going to take a survey saying are you a terrorist group

or just a domestic, disgruntled person? They need to be able to defend against that.

Above that, their force is going to be there to be protecting

against it, but the government needs to be responsible for protecting above that level.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, thank you all very much for your testimony

today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your kindness in letting me

exceed my limits.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

I thank all of you for waiting so long and participating in this

hearing.

I want to ask one or two questions. You may say this is kind of

stupid, but—maybe I will agree with you at the end—but I want

to size up a sense of where this panel is coming from.

I am going to ask each of you this question. I will start with you,

Mr. Lochbaum. Should we shut down all of our nuclear plants?

Mr. LOCHBAUM. We don’t believe so. We will lose some UCS

members, but we don’t believe so, not for security reasons.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. No. As I said before, Riverkeeper is not an

antinuclear group, and nor do we believe that every nuclear power

plant in this country should be shut down. We do think that those

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in particularly high population density areas should be given special scrutiny.

Ms. HOWARD. No.

Mr. RENZ. No, not at all.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. No.

Mr. WELLS. Mr. Chairman, we wouldn’t have done a body of

work to support that.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. So the bottom line is, this isn’t an issue about

how we are going to shut down all of our plants.

The next question is, with the sites that we have, we have 104

commercial nuclear power plants operating, 64 sites in 32 States.

Of those, are there any that you would shut down, and if so, how

many? Mr. Lochbaum.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. I guess our—the way we would see it is, if you

run the security test and don’t do well on it, then the failure or the

bad performance on the security test would warrant a shutdown

until that security problem is fixed.

Mr. SHAYS. So one test would be the security test doesn’t measure up, and your point to us is they haven’t been doing these security tests.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. Right. Nobody knows one way or the other

whether the security is adequate or not.

Mr. SHAYS. That was pretty surprising to me, Mr. Lochbaum, because I would think that after September 11 we would have done

a lot more, rather than none or very few.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. It was a good idea in peacetime. We would have

thought in a heightened threat level it would have been a great

idea, but it didn’t happen.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Matthiessen, of these 104 plants and 64 sites,

how many do you think need to be closed?

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. I would personally argue only one, only because I don’t know any of the details about any of the other plants.

I only know about Indian Point.

I would say, though, that where you have an evacuation plan

that just can’t work, the Federal regulators have no choice but to

shut down the plant. You need to have an operable evacuation

plan.

Mr. SHAYS. You would probably suggest that—you mentioned

urban areas. So have you done any studies on any other areas?

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. No. Again, we are a local group. We haven’t.

But I would imagine that Indian Point isn’t the only plant located

in a densely populated area. I know that there are some around

Chicago and other cities.

Mr. SHAYS. Without going through any—just asking each of the

four of you, is there any plant that you think in the United States

needs to be shut down?

Ms. HOWARD. No, sir.

Mr. RENZ. No.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. When the plans meet the standard in the Federal regulations, their license conditions, and demonstrates so, then

the answer is no.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Wells.

Mr. WELLS. We have taken no position.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

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Mr. Slobodien, as it relates to Indian Point, you would agree that

the evacuation plan is wanting somewhat or not?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. No, sir. I think it is—well, all plans, regardless

of where they are, merit improvement.

One of the things that is being done in the case of Indian Point

is to substantially improve the information in that evacuation planning. So I agree with you that the plans need improvement, and

indeed they are being improved.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Matthiessen was making the point that in densely populated areas you need to pay closer attention than perhaps

not and not have a nuclear power plant there. Is there logic to his

argument as you see it, Mr. Slobodien and Mr. Renz and Ms. Howard?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. There are a number of studies by experts, including people such as Dr. Dennis Mallett of the University of Colorado, Dr. John Sorrenson of Oak Ridge Associated Universities,

who talk about these kinds of issues; and they point out some

things that may be indeed counterintuitive. For example, in high

population zones, there are typically a greater extent of infrastructure and response capability. They also look at actual responses in

such kind of environments.

I think, therefore, that when one looks at the scientific literature

on these questions that you are posing you see that indeed it is

possible to effect an evacuation, even in an area such as those

around Indian Point.

Mr. SHAYS. I am going to come back and I am going to ask you

why you think that Indian Point represents a particular challenge.

I tell you why I think it does. I would be curious to know. Mr.

Renz.

Mr. RENZ. I was just going to mention that. I believe it is a siteby-site evaluation, as, actually, Mr. Slobodien just said, that you

tend to have a higher level of public safety infrastructure for a

higher level of populus. It has been my experience, at least.

Mr. SHAYS. Ms. Howard.

Ms. HOWARD. I think it is also important to note that plants are

built in areas of high concentration in order to supply the electric

load. From our planning and over the years of our planning and

actual exercising and then in using these plans in response to nonnuclear emergencies, we have seen that they can be effective. So

I don’t think that the high population density area is of a concern

based on that, as well as what has previously been said about the

infrastructure, transportation highway infrastructure, in high population areas.

Mr. SHAYS. I would say, Mr. Slobodien, you used the word

‘‘counterintuitive,’’ which is a good way to say it would really strike

me as counterintuitive. It has almost put me at a loss of words

here, because it is so counterintuitive that it is hard to believe.

Mr. Matthiessen and Mr. Lochbaum, let me ask you this question, and I will have the others respond to it as well. First off, I

am not aware of any nuclear plant that has been built in the last

20 or 30 years. What is the last one? How many years ago? Can

someone tell me?

Mr. RENZ. There are those built and started in the last 20 years.

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Ms. HOWARD. None have actually started construction. The last

came on line in the early 1990’s.

Mr. SHAYS. But, theoretically, we could still have one built. There

is no absolute prohibition. It is just cost and other factors and all

of the requirements and regulations make it unlikely, correct?

Ms. HOWARD. Well, yes. There is much interest in building new

nuclear plants, both on the part of companies to supply additional

electricity going forward as well as on the part of the government

in order to assure an adequate supply of nonemitting generation in

this country and for energy security and energy diversity. So there

are plans for—that we are putting together today.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me ask you this, Ms. Howard, first. Given

the current NRC siting guidelines, would the NRC license a plant

to operate in a densely populated area?

Ms. HOWARD. I think you would have to look at the existing site,

the extensive siting guidelines. But I think that certainly that is

taken into account. The population density is taken into account.

Mr. SHAYS. As a plus or a minus?

Ms. HOWARD. It is part of a number.

Mr. SHAYS. By the NRC. Not being counterintuitive.

Ms. HOWARD. It is part of a number of factors that are taken into

account.

Mr. SHAYS. As a plus or a minus?

Ms. HOWARD. I don’t consider it a minus.

Mr. SHAYS. I didn’t ask you what you consider. But does the

NRC consider it as something that they consider as a plus to have

it in a densely populated area, or do they consider it not a place

they would recommend?

Ms. HOWARD. I would say a densely populated area is not an

area that would be looked favorably for siting of new plants.

Mr. SHAYS. OK.

Mr. Matthiessen, Mr. Lochbaum, do you want to jump in on any

of this?

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. Well, yeah. I would just say there is a reason

why the NRC’s new guidelines would never allow it to site a plant

in Westchester County, is precisely because of the population densities around the plant. And do I find it also counterintuitive to

suggest that the more sophisticated or larger metropolitan areas

that the evacuation planning or safety emergency plan is going to

be better. That might be in fact the case, but it doesn’t take away

from the fact that you also have more congested roads and much

more dense populations.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. I don’t know anything in the NRC’s regulations

that would prohibit siting a plant in a densely populated area from

a pure regulation standpoint.

I think, to its credit, the NRC’s regulations ensure that all people, even if they live in Kansas—or my sister lives close to a plant

in the South. Even though it is not a very heavily populated area,

I want to make sure that she is protected just as well.

In the NRC’s rules, they don’t distinguish, they don’t say there

is not enough of you for us to be concerned about around this plant;

and that would be applied no matter where anybody wanted to site

a plant in the United States. They would want to make sure that

the plant met the appropriate regulations.

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I think the focus of this hearing is appropriate. Is FEMA and the

NRC applying the right standards to ensure that protective activities could take place if they were needed? That is—if that answer

is yes, and we have reasonable assurances that answer is yes, then

it doesn’t really matter where you site the plant. If we don’t know

the answer to that question with any certainty, then we need to

put the plant out in the boonies somewhere where we are harming

as few people as possible.

So I guess that would be my long-winded answer to that question.

Mr. SHAYS. I was just thinking if I lived near this plant, and I

wanted an evacuation plan, I could probably go to my wife and finally justify why I should buy an expensive boat. It would probably

be the best way, just go upriver.

I just want to—I will come to a conclusion here, Mr. Slobodien,

but tell me what—be the person who’s going to be candid about the

challenges dealing with an evacuation plan about Indian Point in

particular, since that happens to be the closest to where my constituents live. I’ll start you out. If you’re on the east side of the

Hudson, you either have to go up to the Tapanzee—I mean, get to

the Tapanzee bridge, go to the other bridge north of that, I guess,

or head east. The problem if you head east is what?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. The concern of course, is understanding where

you might be affected, and let me point out that the predominant

windflow directions that are around Indian Point are in the Hudson River Valley, because the topography of the valley, 95 percent

of the time the winds flow in the Hudson Valley regardless of the

incident wind direction. So people from the east—people on the

east and people on the west are at substantially less risk than you

might think because of the prevailing weather conditions. The——

Mr. SHAYS. But most of the population is east of the Hudson, correct?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. That is correct.

Mr. SHAYS. And they’re not going to likely go west. They’re going

to have to all go east, correct?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Correct.

Mr. SHAYS. Isn’t one of the challenges that people will be tripping over each other in their effort to get out?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I think the presumption perhaps that we’re operating under is that—and you should tell me—is that all people

in the area would have to evacuate. We believe, based on the physics of plumes, that the people who would be affected are really very

few because of the nature of the plumes. And if one understands

plumes, and this gets back to my point earlier made in my testimony about the need for education and public outreach, when that

is clearly understood, when you realize that a plume is like the

smoke from a smokestack, it’s not different in terms of its shape

and size, you may have some confidence about the actions that you

can take. It’s only when you believe that the whole area is going

to be instantaneously or very rapidly affected that you believe that

you have to evacuate those large areas. Such is not the case.

So for us, for me in particular, education is critical in this matter. When we understand the hazard, when we understand the nature of the risk, we’re better able to deal with it. And I think that

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in—so in the example that you point, people living to the east, it’s

very unlikely that they would have to move at all to avoid the risk.

They might choose to move because they would be concerned, but

they would not have to.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Wells, in your highlights you point out in 2001

GAO reported that over the years NRC had identified a number of

emergency preparedness weaknesses at Indian Point II that had

gone largely uncorrected, and then in the next paragraph it says,

‘‘Since GAO’s 2001 report, NRC has found that emergency preparedness weaknesses have continued.’’ So what am I to conclude

from those two statements?

Mr. WELLS. You have to have a lot of patience because these

problems have been identified many times as early as 1996.

They’re still being corrected. Some of them are falling off; some of

them are being fixed. Some new problems are being found, which

is probably a good thing, but of concern is the continuing problems

that have been identified over and over again that still seem to

don’t have a total fix yet. That’s of concern.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to end with this. I’m going to end with Mr.

Bond’s answer no; that had he seen the plan, did he know what

he and his constituency was supposed to do, and the answer was

no. Now, I want each of you to react to that and tell me what that

means. Mr. Wells, we’ll start with you.

Mr. WELLS. Is there advantage to going first?

Mr. SHAYS. Were you surprised?

Mr. WELLS. No. One would not be surprised. However, I think,

as I point out in my statement, finding problems is probably a good

thing because it forces attention to be paid to fix things and get

things moving toward a more positive direction.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Slobodien.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Given where he lives in New Canaan, CT, I’m

not surprised. He is far from the Indian Point plant. He’s far from

the Millstone plants, which are in Connecticut. His risk, therefore,

is extremely low and while in the case of Indian Point he lives

within 50 miles, that emergency planning zone is not sized for the

purpose of dealing with acute threats.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to react it to what you just said, since I

happen to be very familiar with the area. It’s 24 miles away, and

the plan is directing people right through his community.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I’m not—the plan for Indian Point?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I’m not aware that’s the case. I think it’s directed in—to the southeast.

Mr. SHAYS. Southeast. How much further southeast can you go?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Is he in New Canaan, CT?

Mr. SHAYS. Correct.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. So I think the plan is actually directing people

to the south of him, south and east of him, not into Connecticut.

Mr. SHAYS. Not into Connecticut at all?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. The Indian Point—the plans established by—in

this case it’s Westchester County and Putnam County, would have

people moving to—out into eastern Putnam County and southeastern Westchester County.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. And then where do they go?

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Mr. SLOBODIEN. At that—then they go where they choose.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Slobodien, you had me. I’m thinking you’re a

sharp guy, but all of a sudden I’m beginning to wonder. I mean,

good grief, where do they go after that?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Well, sir, they don’t have to go beyond that point

to be out of harm’s way.

Mr. SHAYS. And you really believe that they’re going to just say,

oh, the experts have told me that if I’m 30 miles away, I’m just

fine? Do you really believe that? Do you really believe that’s what’s

going to happen?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. If I do my job correctly and get information to

the public, and if the NRC and FEMA and others do the same,

then the public will have a better understanding of what the hazard is and will act appropriately. Today they may be frightened

and act inappropriately.

Mr. SHAYS. So it’s your testimony before this committee under

oath that no one in Connecticut needs to leave anywhere?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. From——

Mr. SHAYS. From any—a serious destruction of Indian Point does

not require anyone from Connecticut to leave?

Mr. SLOBODIEN. I think it would be exceedingly unlikely that

anyone living in Connecticut would have to take an action as a result of an accident at Indian Point to avoid acute health risk.

Mr. SHAYS. I was so ready to leave this panel and get on with

life here, but is that your view, Mr. Renz?

Mr. RENZ. I think you’re asking a science-specific question with

respect to Indian Point that I’m not familiar with.

Mr. SHAYS. But I’m asking—it’s a community 24 miles away from

a major nuclear power plant.

Mr. RENZ. Sure.

Mr. SHAYS. And I just described to you a scenario that this plant

has been destroyed, and I’m hearing an expert say folks in Connecticut 24 miles away don’t need to be concerned.

Mr. RENZ. I think everybody needs to be concerned. I don’t know

that based on your definition of destroyed, your worst-case design

basis accidents would not have you have any concern at 24 miles

from an acute exposure standpoint. There would be, if I understand

it, no need for protective actions——

Mr. SHAYS. It’s very important for you both to put this on the

record because this will be—we’ll probably have another hearing

just on this whole issue because this fascinates me.

Ms. Howard.

And this may be what you believe, and you may be right. You’re

the experts, right? But my view is from everything I’ve learned, it’s

hard for me to put what you’re saying in the context of what you’re

saying.

Ms. Howard.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. May I offer a suggestion?

Mr. SHAYS. Sure.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. There are documents that describe some of these

consequences. Scientific documents such as NUREG 0396, which

describes the consequences from a very large release of a very serious accident at a nuclear power plant, and it talks about the radiation exposures and the dose consequences and the health effects,

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and it was, in fact, one of the documents that was used to define

the size of the emergency planning zone.

Mr. SHAYS. So when I think of something like Chernobyl, I’m just

thinking of something totally unrealistic, nothing like that, whatever, that’s going to be your view.

Ms. Howard, and I’m going to get down to the other gentlemen.

Yes.

Ms. HOWARD. Well, certainly let me comment on your comment

on Chernobyl.

Mr. SHAYS. No, not yet. Do the other one first, and then we’ll do

Chernobyl.

Ms. HOWARD. Again, as Mr. Slobodien just mentioned, there’s a

scientific basis for the inventory that could be released. The emergency planning area where evacuation or some type of protective

action should take place is deemed less than 10 miles. We’ve kept

it at the 10 miles. The 50 miles is from a standpoint of looking at

over time and monitoring of any disposition of radioactive isotopes

from the standpoint of food or water supply.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you agree with what Mr. Renz and Mr. Slobodien

have said?

Ms. HOWARD. Yes, I do.

Mr. SHAYS. That basically the only thing you have to be concerned is what’s in the 10 miles, and 24 miles away you don’t have

a problem? I don’t want to put any words in anyone’s mouth here

because this is heavy stuff.

Mr. RENZ. Point of clarification. One of the assumptions that lays

the basis for the 10 miles is that if you plan out to 10 miles, you

have an established infrastructure that you can expand upon

should the need arise on an ad hoc basis. So the planning—the assumptions do not——

Mr. SHAYS. But Mr. Bond doesn’t need to know about that because he is 24 miles away.

Mr. RENZ. You would be advised on an ad hoc basis at the time.

I mean, it is so unlikely that you would have protective action outside of—anywhere outside of 10 miles.

Mr. SHAYS. And it’s so unlikely that people from that area

wouldn’t come to New Canaan, which I’m being facetious now.

Mr. RENZ. That’s a function of public information, public

education——

Mr. SHAYS. It’s a function of public reaction to a disaster.

Mr. RENZ. Exactly.

Mr. SHAYS. And you and I know that the public is not going to

sit by because two experts came to a panel and said you don’t need

to be afraid. And if you—if we should be saying to people they don’t

need to be concerned unless you’re 10 miles or in, I just want to

make sure that I’m not practicing bad medicine.

Mr. Matthiessen.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. Yeah. I think it’s important to note that a few

of the other panelists have made reference a couple times to acute

exposure, and I know that Mr. Slobodien in the newspaper around

our area in Westchester was quoted as admitting that the evacuation plans for Indian Point really are designed to protect against

acute illness; i.e., shorter-term illnesses and then perhaps death

within a couple days or a couple weeks. And, in fact, the NRC’s

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own study as recently as a year or 2 ago cited the effect of a radiation dispersion event as a result of a spent fuel fire, and they said

that you would have potentially tens of thousands of long-term cancer-related deaths as far away as 500 miles—up to 500 miles away

from a nuclear power plant. So I think that does fly in the face of

what these folks are telling us.

Also just to mention about the wind direction, I think that Mr.

Slobodien is right that at the lower altitudes the wind does tend

to go north or south up and down the Hudson Valley, but the higher altitudes it tends to go west to east, and, therefore, in most

cases headed toward Connecticut, sometimes a little north, sometimes a little south.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr Lochbaum.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. I guess I’m a little skeptical, particularly at——

Mr. SHAYS. Skeptical of what?

Mr. LOCHBAUM. The Entergy claim that only people living within

10 miles would have to take any action for their protection. I think

if that were—if there were a strong basis in fact for that, the industry and the NRC wouldn’t be before the Congress asking for renewal of the Price-Anderson Act.

You know, until the industry is willing to back up its words with

its money instead of my money, I’m going to remain a little bit

skeptical of such claims.

Mr. SHAYS. Refresh me, Price-Anderson Act being?

Mr. LOCHBAUM. Price-Anderson provides Federal liability protection in case of a nuclear power plant accident outside the fences.

Mr. SHAYS. But you know that sometimes people sue even when

they don’t have a right to, so you understand that in deference

to——

Mr. LOCHBAUM. The only thing about Price-Anderson is you don’t

have to establish fault, you just have to show damage. So it alleviates some of the high burden of lawsuits.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, now, why don’t you tell me about Chernobyl.

I was in Norway and meeting with scientists telling me that they

were actually getting particles, radioactive particles, that were the

result of Chernobyl. So tell me about that.

Ms. HOWARD. Well, sir, the design of the Chernobyl facility did

not have containment. It also was a graphite moderated core, and,

therefore, because of the heat that occurred there, it caught fire,

and you had an aerosol effect without any containment, just——

Mr. SHAYS. I understand that part of it. In other words——

Ms. HOWARD. And——

Mr. SHAYS. But it wasn’t 10 miles.

Ms. HOWARD. Well, again, you would not have those types of reactors anywhere outside of the former Soviet Union, and they have

been changed significantly.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. But I’m really out of my territory here, but we

are putting something on the record, and what I want to be clear

about is is it your testimony that because of the type of fuel we

use, that we only have to be concerned 10 miles; or is it your testimony that because of the way we isolate the fuel, that we only

have to be concerned 10 miles?

Ms. HOWARD. It’s a combination of the type of design of the facility, the use of containment. So there were many factors that led to

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that being an inherently unsafe situation along with the tests that

caused the reactor—so that overrode safety systems, and so there

are multitudes of differences, and you would never have the type

of reactor that the Chernobyl type of reactor is licensed in the

Western part of the world.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me—Mr. Chairman, if I could just put on the

record my view of what I’ve heard and say that I know we will followup. I am surprised that we have never—it’s appeared we’ve

never temporarily shut down a plant because of a question about

an evacuation plan. It would strike me in the history of our experience with nuclear energy and with the various sites around the

country, that there would have been some plan that wasn’t adequate that would have required us to temporarily shut down. So

that’s one thing that surprised me.

Another thing that surprised me is that with the experts today

from the NRC, that they would basically think that because they

tried to anticipate any type of disaster, that even though they

didn’t anticipate September 11 and what terrorists could do, that

if it’s a shutdown, it doesn’t matter if it’s a terrorist—if there’s a

breakdown, it doesn’t matter if it’s a terrorist or not. It’s the same

thing, and I’m struck by the fact that’s absurd.

I am surprised by the industry’s suggesting that, one, that we

only have to be concerned 10 miles, and that may be true, but that

I believe that if you’re anywhere near that plant, you’re leaving.

And I will tell you this: If I had a child, or my wife and I were

from New Canaan and there was a problem at that plant, I’d be

leaving New Canaan faster than you could imagine, and I wouldn’t

depend on the three of your testimony to make me feel good about

it. And maybe that’s a weakness on my part, but if I would do that,

I bet there are a lot of other people who would, and for Mr. Bond

not to be told about a plan and for us in the State of Connecticut

not to have a contingency plan to me is pretty alarming.

So I have a lot more questions than I have answers, but, you

know, I guess questions are a good way to start this dialog. I have

supported nuclear energy. I do support it. I do think, though, we

need to have some light-year improvement on how we protect these

facilities. I am concerned not what’s under the hardened area, the

reactor. I’m concerned with the brains, and the brains aren’t under

the hardened area, and it strikes me that if the brains mean something, if they’re not working right, bad things happen.

And so this will be something that we’re going to pursue, and I

do appreciate the patience of all of you. You’re experts, and I don’t

pretend to be, but there’s just something that tells me there’s something wrong here, and I’d like to get a handle on it.

Mr. Wells—and I’m going to allow each of you to close up here.

Mr. Wells, any closing comment?

Mr. WELLS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The Congress passed the Government Performance Results——

Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me. With your permission, Mr. Chairman.

I’ve taken over.

Mr. TURNER. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m in the wrong chair to do this. Mr. Chairman,

would it be all right if the gentlemen just closed up? Thank you.

Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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The Congress passed the Government Performance Results Act,

which had challenged the Federal agencies to establish goals in

which they could be measured against for performance. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission—one of the Federal agencies—has

four goals. One of those four goals is public confidence. As demonstrated today in this hearing and all the audit work that’s been

done over time. We look forward to working with the Congress to

help the NRC increase and improve its public confidence.

Mr. SLOBODIEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As we’ve heard today, this is obviously a very difficult topic, and

that leads me to believe that among the two most important things

that we in this Nation can do are improve the education and base

it on sound science, and I think that those are missions for all of

us to take on. We at Entergy certainly intend and are doing that

wholeheartedly. Thank you, sir.

Mr. RENZ. I, too, would like to thank you. With respect to public

information, the nuclear industry, in my opinion, for 20 years, for

over 20 years, has been an open book trying to provide public education in differing venues, and I think you saw it here today, difficulty with sharing information due to restricted information concerns, sensitive information, safeguard information. I think we do

have a challenge before us, and that is to be able to effectively educate and inform the public moving forward and maintaining a high

level of security at the stations.

I would add one point of clarification to one of the remarks you

made, and that was with respect to NRC never shutting down a

plant temporarily due to emergency planning. I think Turkey Point

was the example raised earlier today, and I do know a number, at

least two sites, that were delayed in their initial licensing due to

questions regarding the effectiveness of the emergency response

plans, and I thank you very much for this opportunity.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you for putting that on the record.

Ms. HOWARD. Again, I thank the committee and look forward to

a continuing dialog, because, just as we’ve all said, the communication with the public needs to be two-way, and we need to continue

to foster a good open sharing of information, and we look forward

to coming back to the committee to do that.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just say

in summary that I’m concerned that everything that seems so obvious in terms of the problems of security and evacuation planning

at Indian Point are not apparently as obvious to FEMA and the

NRC. There are over 270 elected officials in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey who very much want to see this plant close

as well as the majority of the local residents in the surrounding

area. I do again see Indian Point as a special case, and if there’s

ever a case for the NRC for the first time in its 30-year history or

40-year history to initiate the shutdown of a nuclear reactor, I

think that this is certainty it. And I appreciate very much your

support on this issue, and I encourage this committee and others

in Congress to continue to scrutinize the NRC and FEMA as we go

forward in this Indian Point process.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just state I’ve asked for a temporary suspension until a plan is adopted.

Mr. MATTHIESSEN. I understand that, and we appreciate that.

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. LOCHBAUM. I’d like to thank this subcommittee also for holding this hearing and inviting us to participate. It’s my understanding at the Turkey Point event, that it was FEMA that kept the

plant shut down. The NRC thought that it was OK to restart without the emergency plan. So Turkey Point was the plant, but NRC

wasn’t the white hat on that. It was FEMA, at least in my understanding of that event. Thank you.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for pursuing

this issue. Obviously this is one that goes to the issue of public confidence, and I think there are some serious issues that are raised

that need to continue to be fleshed out so we don’t have the possibility of important issues being dismissed and so that we look at

real ways to address them. So I want to congratulate you on your

efforts to continue to pursue this.

With that, we adjourn. Thank you.

[Whereupon, at 6:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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