Document ID: EPA-HQ-OA-2021-0683-0026
Agency: epa
Document Type: Supporting & Related Material
Title: 
Posted Date: 2021-12-10T05:00Z

November 30, 2021
								  Submitted via 											  www.regulations.gov

White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-AO-2021-0683 

We would like to express our thanks and appreciation to the members of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council for their efforts to make substantial recommendations to advance initiatives that will promote the achievement of environmental justice. 

Despite the urgency of climate change, recent legislation has supported billions of dollars in additional subsidies for nuclear energy- both for existing reactors and new so-called advanced versions. This spending will significantly delay achievement of our climate goals. It could also contribute to nuclear catastrophe.  Major long term funding will be required for new unproven nuclear technologies, significantly hindering the attainment of climate goals and the associated benefits. Investments in renewables and efficiency will deliver clean energy faster and at a fraction of the costs of nuclear, enabling us to easily meet our climate goals faster and avoid the enormous costs from climate damages. 

The consequences of not meeting the climate goals mount every year -- millions more acres, homes and businesses burned, thousands of people breathing dangerous levels of fine particulate matter. Then there are the more severe storms and flooding and the damages to cities and towns and rising deaths. Rising storm damage also has the real potential of impacting nuclear reactors, yet little consideration has been given to thorough evaluations of every reactor in the country for possible catastrophic impacts  -  initiated by rising floodwaters, dam failures, and tornados, etc.   

Exelon and EDF, Inc. acting separately, have disclosed the harsh truth about Nuclear Power. They are reducing their ownership interests and future involvement with  nuclear reactors. Despite massive subsidies in a variety of forms for approximately 70 years, nuclear power cannot stand on its own economically, in the absence of substantial taxpayer subsidies. Taxpayers can no longer sustain this failing industry. 
This overall situation has been expected for some time with Wall Street frowning on the economics of nuclear, despite extraordinary government subsidies that ensured economic gains for investors, while assigning the risks to the public.  

Selling the Public on Nuclear Power

"Atoms for Peace" was launched by President Eisenhower in the 1950s as a way of balancing nuclear warfare with a domestic use for nuclear power. The public was promised "electricity too cheap to meter"  -  but this promise was never realized.  Nuclear waste was also said to be an easy problem to solve, so it was given no attention. It now looms as a major threat to our nation. It is clearly not easily solved.                                                     
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, from the beginning, government subsidies have been directed to every portion of the nuclear fuel cycle with 4 main goals: 
 Reducing the cost of capital, labor and land        
 Masking the true cost of producing nuclear energy
 Shifting the security and accident risks to the public 
 Shifting long-term operating risks (decommissioning & waste management) to the public 
The public generally has born the burden of significant subsidies for nuclear, via increased taxes, and higher electric bills. Non- monetary health and safety risks, which pose significant impacts for the public have not received appropriate attention or the necessary budget allocations to provide adequate public safety. Workers regularly receive excess exposures due to inadequate controls at work or untrained or incompetent supervisors. 

Waste Legacy Costs borne by the public. 

More nuclear reactors are undergoing decommissioning and the magnitude of dangers associated with waste management and whether funds are sufficient for a complete cleanup is of increasing concern for the public. This is also true at many early nuclear waste sites where few protections were put in place. Such legacy waste can impact public spaces and drinking water supplies. The long timeline for decay of some radionuclides means many generations will require adequate protection for many thousands of years. Health impacts across multiple generations are an intergenerational 

injustice, where careless radioactive waste handling today can harm many future generations in the future, leaving a legacy of cancer, birth defects and illness. At the West Valley Nuclear Waste site in New York, the site was chosen upstream of Seneca nation territory before any of our major environmental laws were passed. High level wastes are stored there despite the danger that severe erosion will release radioactive waste to the drinking water for millions of people in Buffalo and Western NY. 

The US General Accounting Office has identified nuclear wastes as a high risk for the entire nation due to the growth of environmental liabilities.  Environmental monetary liabilities in 2018 ($377 billion) exceeded funding for actual site cleanups ($46.8 billion) by eight times. Inadequate funding for the Dept. of Energy to cleanup sites and isolate dangerous radionuclides means that we are allowing the transfer of nuclear wastes into current and future public health problems. Notably many communities deal with extraordinary inequities associated with past environmental abuses -- yet face new severe threats created by our nuclear agencies- DOE & NRC.

Today we have few waste solutions. We have no plans for a repository and it is clear from the budget allocations alone that we are not adequately managing our waste problems. Some notorious wastes sites have been worked on for decades with no reasonable completion dates in sight, like Hanford and Savannah River. We do have many that threaten nearby communities or water supplies. 
Government subsidies have not stabilized the nuclear industry. It is failing. 

Unfortunately today government agencies are coming up with new creative forms of regulatory relief that also serve as subsidies for the nuclear industry- but are dangerous to public health.

Under the Trump administration, agencies often lacked managers with adequate education and training appropriate to the tasks.  We experienced worsening deregulation in the nuclear industry at DOE and NRC.    

Some examples: 
 Spent fuel pools were allowed to increase the density of spent fuel by 2-3 times            
      beyond their original design specifications, delaying movement to dry storage and increasing potential catastrophic risks. 
 Additional safety standards for these spent fuel pools were recommended following the Fukushima disaster by the National Academy of Sciences, but NRC rejected most of the recommendations, allowing only one.  

 High Level Waste was deregulated -- reducing former applicable regulations.
 Greater than Class C waste was proposed for reduced regulation, thus no longer needing a repository. No final decision has been made yet (status not certain).

 High Burnup Fuel needed more comprehensive research according to the US Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board in a 2010 report. Rather than arrange the research, NRC has moved forward with higher burnups and enrichment up to just under 20%. In 2016, the NWTRB renewed its request for the needed research on high burnup fuel. 

 NRC staff approved a proposed rulemaking for the monitoring of CRUD on fuel rods in the core of reactors to ensure that emergency cooling of the core would not be adversely impacted. Higher burnup fuel creates more CRUD. The Commission rejected the proposal. Since then NRC is allowing reactors to test accident tolerant fuels while also using high burnup fuels in the reactors. 

 Fuel enrichment to provide higher burnups requires enrichment facilities that use Uranium Hexafluoride or UF-6. This compound has significant global warming potential- 23,900 times that of carbon dioxide, and little that removes or destroys it once released. Current enrichment is approximately at 5%. Enriching to almost 20% will require four times as much UF-6.  UF-6 is also hazardous to humans from manufacturing and transportation releases.   

 Remote transfer systems (RTSs) to transfer leaking containers of spent nuclear fuel were adopted by NRC as requirements in 2014, but abandoned for planned Consolidated Interim Storage Facilities. The plan is to Return to Sender even if that requires thousands of miles with a radioactive leak. Remote handling is required for worker protection from highly radioactive emissions associated with a leak.

 Extending reactor licenses far beyond their original design life to 80 or 100 years is another new plan being implemented in the absence of adequate scientific and environmental review. Coupled with this there will be no testing of metal samples in the reactor core to ensure the pressure vessel will not experience sudden shattering during emergency cooling. This sample testing was a previous requirement. 
Such extensive deregulation related to nuclear reactors and waste exacerbates the potential risks associated with climate change and should be given concentrated attention and regulation to prevent catastrophe.

Note: This is not intended to be a complete list. To our knowledge no federal agency has estimated the value of these deregulatory subsidies for this industry.

Our Comments are below in Bold related to some items. 

WHEJAC Final Report Executive Order 14008 p. 59 

EXAMPLES OF THE TYPES OF PROJECTS THAT WILL NOT BENEFIT A COMMUNITY .......

1. Fossil fuel procurement, development, infrastructure repair that would in any way extend lifespan or production capacity, transmission system investments to facilitate fossil-fired generation or any related subsidy.

2. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS). 
This technology has been promoted for several years with little technical progress and likelihood of achieving success with long term storage, despite its high cost.  

3. Direct air capture 

4. The procurement of nuclear power 

Nuclear Power as a technology is a long term economic failure  -  much of it is hidden from the public because taxpayers have been forced to pay long term subsidies to the nuclear industry, continuously from its inception. Today nuclear power offers no economic benefits. Renewable energy and efficiency are cheaper, and more quickly implemented -- essential to the urgent need to address climate change.

Item #13 below.  Abandonment of Radioactive Waste 
Despite the billions in subsidies, massive taxpayer bills loom in the future related to the failure to handle the long term safe management of nuclear waste in a permanent repository. The US GAO recently cautioned that this bill may ultimately be paid by taxpayers. ( GAO-21-603, Sept. 2021) As of Sept. 2020, the Nuclear Waste Fund Balance was almost $43 billion with interest accrued over the last ten years of $1.4 billion per year.  The possible costs estimated for 2117- $83 billion to $127 billion. According to GAO, if nuclear waste fees remain at zero and if the funds are not adequate to cover repository costs, the American taxpayer may ultimately pay the additional costs.( p.32-33) 

GAO also declared that the environmental liabilities associated with nuclear waste are high risk for the nation and are not adequately funded. Hundreds of sites currently pose health and safety risks to communities, their water, air and environments. Many radionuclides are highly toxic and long-lived, causing cancer and birth defects and other harms.  The public is jeopardized by potential catastrophic nuclear accidents, like Three-mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. In addition environmental contamination associated with nuclear waste can cause health damage for many future generations. This represents severe Inter-generational Injustice. We know of two areas impacted by wildfires containing nuclear waste that burned spreading contamination -  Santa Susanah Field Lab in California and the Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico.

A small area of the Southwest has been targeted for enormous quantities of high level spent nuclear fuel storage or consolidated interim storage in New Mexico and nearby in Texas. This is an environmental justice community of Native Americans and Hispanic Americans. These large facilities will be visible by air and vulnerable to a terror attack. This area is a prime oil and gas drilling region- the Permian basin. Nearby WIPP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Project, continues to store transuranic waste underground in a salt repository, despite the serious accident in 2014 that released plutonium, contaminating workers. 
Historically this area was subjected to Trinity nuclear bomb testing. Uranium mining has also resulted in extensive contamination at multiple sites that has not been remediated. The Ogallala aquifer that serves multiple states could be impacted by the plans for consolidated storage of hi level spent nuclear fuel.

5. Research and development
6. The establishment or advancement of carbon markets, including cap and trade 
7. Geoengineering and techno fixes 
8. Highway expansion 
9. Road improvements or automobile infra-structure, other than electric vehicle charging stations 
10. Industrial scale bioenergy 
11. Incentives for investor-owned utilities 
12. Projects that promote gentrification without any housing policy crafted by a community to prevent displacement 
13. Incineration, waste-to-energy or biomass incineration, and landfilling (Anishinabek Nation and Iroquois Caucus Transport and Abandonment of Radioactive Waste)
14. Pipeline creation, expansion, or maintenance 
15. Memo to the Biden administration: What not to do on climate 
16. The Conversation: Climate Scientists: Concept of Net Zero Is A Dangerous Trap 
17. NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program: Fossil Fueled Foolery 

WHEJAC Final Report Executive Order 14008 p. 19 

Current Program / Agency: Tennessee Valley Authority Recommendation: As the nation's largest public power provider, Tennessee Valley Authority should lead by example by implementing a transition to clean energy well ahead of the President's industry-wide target of 2035, as well as by ensuring the large population of disadvantaged communities in their territory receive the benefits of this transition. Specific actions the administration should take include calling on TVA to set an ambitious goal of transitioning to clean energy by 2030 in its next integrated resource plan, creating a specific carve out for TVA in federal Clean Energy Standards, and prioritizing the rapid and safe cleanup of coal ash contaminated sites across its territory.
Our Recommendations: The TVA has invested heavily in nuclear and fossil fuels. It has failed to responsibly invest in energy efficiency and renewables as many utilities across the country have. The other TVA priority should be to address climate change risks- such as flooding and storms- to existing facilities such as nuclear reactors and dams. TVA should not be permitted to invest in any new nuclear projects. 
                 
           
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the extensive work of the Advisory Council. 

Sincerely,

Barbara Warren RN, MS
Executive Director

									

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