[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 64 (Tuesday, April 18, 2023)] [House] [Pages H1763-H1764] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-18
Chamber: HOUSE
Ms. KAPTUR: in my home State of Ohio, the largest nuclear scandal in American history has been perpetuated on our public. Ohio's only nuclear power is generated in northern Ohio, along Lake Erie by plants owned by Energy Harbor, previously known as FirstEnergy. For decades, FirstEnergy's customers have unknowingly paid for the outfall of this criminal company's nuclear malfeasance, careless management, and costly outages, and now criminality. When a hole in the nuclear reactor head at Davis-Besse proved to be the size of a pineapple, jaws dropped too late here in Washington at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Where were they? When a switch failure triggered by FirstEnergy shut off power for 3 days across the entire Midwest; Northeast; and Ontario, Canada, costing our economy $10 billion and nine lost lives, those in the commercial nuclear power world should have understood there was a big problem at FirstEnergy.  Where were they? Neither the private sector nor the Federal Government did their jobs. Nuclear power production requires excellence and vigilance. No excuses. No passing the buck. FirstEnergy's business plan started to fail due to its huge repair costs resulting from its own mistakes. As the company sank into debt, rather than aspiring to excellence, it resorted to bribery, wire fraud, conspiracy, and racketeering. Thus, the largest commercial nuclear crimes in U.S. history are being litigated in Federal court in Cincinnati, Ohio. Convictions for accepting FirstEnergy bribes have been levied against Ohio's former house Republican Speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican Party chair, Matt Borges. They led a criminal scheme in which FirstEnergy bribed them with $61 million in dark money. Householder used it for personal expenses, reelecting himself, and a slate of willing Republican and Democratic legislators, to bend the law to serve FirstEnergy's financial interests. Once in office, Householder led his handpicked politicians in a legislative bailout of FirstEnergy, foisting $1 billion plus in corporate nuclear energy and coal losses on Ohio's ratepayers. Never did Householder or his associates express any concern about FirstEnergy's nuclear mishaps, its awesome nuclear responsibility, and what really was required to restore operational excellence. If FirstEnergy's plan had exploded and fried everything in its radius in northern Ohio, including my house, Mr. Householder would not have been affected. He lives too far south, as do most coconspirators to the bribery scheme. Even prevailing winds generally don't blow in their direction, but an explosion would have completely polluted Lake Erie. FirstEnergy itself avoided fraud and criminal indictments by admitting its corporate guilt. Of course, nuclear malfeasance is not on trial, but it should be. Thus far, the court has ordered FirstEnergy to pay a historic $230 million settlement, the largest public fine in Ohio's history, although there were no fines for bigger crimes against the public interest by multiple nuclear endangerments. FirstEnergy's management made huge blunders in nuclear operation. Were it not for the skilled union laborers who three times put their lives at risk for our region, a nuclear catastrophe along Lake Erie was indeed possible. At least three major nuclear incidents have occurred during my lifetime: 1985, 2002, 2003. Davis-Besse plant records document the second and third as the worst nuclear incidents since Three Mile Island. The ongoing criminal litigation ignores these massive nuclear close calls. Each major nuclear blunder translated into real threats to lives, safety, and health. At what point does our Nation say no to a pattern of persistent commercial plant nuclear negligence and abysmal nuclear management? The time is now as our region tries to pick up the pieces and rebuild advanced nuclear--but not by past standards. The starting point to get effective safety monitoring in these two Ohio facilities begins by requesting the Federal Government's Government Accountability Office to perform thorough and independent nuclear safety audits of its aging nuclear facilities. The next step is to require the Nuclear Navy, with independent experts, to complete a thorough engineering analysis of the plant's remaining physical infrastructure. Next, specific individuals who were responsible for criminal activity at FirstEnergy must be identified and barred for life from working or contracting with the U.S. commercial nuclear industry, and we must also identify legal means to restore to ratepayers compensation for their losses. As Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the Nuclear Navy, said: ``Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches.'' Let Ohio learn and let America learn, and let's do it right.