[NukeNet] 9 groups file with NRC to halt reactor license renewal process--you can help

Thu Jan 3 15:29:17 EST 2008

January 3, 2008

Dear Friends:

Below is a press release about an important legal petition filed today
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by NIRS and eight other
environmental groups. We are asking the NRC to halt the nuclear reactor
license renewal process based on the agency's failure to identify
safety-related issues, its acceptance without investigation of utility
assertions, and other problems identified by the agency's Inspector
General.

The formatted press release and entire filing are available on the front
page of NIRS' website, www.nirs.org <http://www.nirs.org/> .

YOU CAN GET INVOLVED AND HELP! We want to get broad attention and
political support for this petition. Please bring it to the attention of
your local media and to your Congressmembers, and ask them to issue a
statement of support for this initiative and a halt to the NRC's reactor
licensing process.

While the petition, for legal reasons, is limited to Oyster Creek,
Indian Point, Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee, it is our hope that its
ramifications will be felt in every license renewal action from now on.

Please contact Michael Mariotte or Aja Binette at NIRS, 202.328.0002,
nirsnet at nirs.org, if you'd like any more information on how you can
help.

As always, thank you for everything you do.

And here's to a 2008 that brings us closer to a sustainable,
nuclear-free future.

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

January 3, 2008

CONTACT:

Richard Webster, Eastern Environmental Law Center, 973-353-3189

Janet Tauro, Stop the Relicensing of Oyster Creek, 732-295-3874

Peggy Sturmfels, NJ Environmental Federation 732-280-8990

Renee Cho, Riverkeeper 914-478-4501, ext. 239

GROUPS FILE PETITION TO HALT NRC "CUT AND PASTE"             RELICENSING
TACTICS

NRC Failures Threaten Public Health and Safety

Ocean County, New Jersey:  In response to a scathing review by a federal
investigatory agency, Stop the Relicensing of Oyster Creek (STROC), a
coalition of six environmental and citizen's groups, has teamed with
Riverkeeper today to petition the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to
halt the license renewal process for America's aging fleet of nuclear
power plants until objective and independent analysis is conducted into
the current licensing renewal process. Pilgrim Watch and New England
Coalition, the only other groups that are currently challenging license
renewals, join STROC and Riverkeeper.

This petition is in direct response to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Office of Inspector General (OIG) audit in September 2007 that found:

            1) In over 70% of the audited plant renewals the NRC staff
did not verity the authenticity of technical safety information
submitted by nuclear power plant operators; and

            2) NRC staff reviewers routinely "cut and pasted" whole
sections of the renewal application text into their own safety reviews,
rather than write their own evaluations.

            3) The NRC had no procedures in place to check whether the
safety reviews were done properly.

At one plant in New York State, the Inspector General found that NRC
staff had copied 100% of the safety review data provided by the nuclear
operator into its own application.

STROC, a coalition of six environmental and citizen groups, is battling
to prevent the 20-year extension of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power
Plant, the country's oldest and with the worst safety record.
Investigators from the OIG uncovered that over 70% of Oyster Creek's
safety evaluation was "unsubstantiated" by NRC staff. The Atomic Safety
Licensing Board (ASLB) ruled on the challenge to Oyster Creek's license
renewal on December 20. Despite one of the three-panel judges finding
that Exelon has not fully met the requirements to show it complied with
the minimum safety standards, the panel decided to allow the license
procedure to proceed. To date, STROC is the only group in the country to
have won a hearing before the ASLB.

Richard Webster of the Eastern Environmental Law Center, the attorney
representing STROC stated: "The OIG report confirms that the
deficiencies we found throughout the hearing process for Oyster Creek
were only the tip of the iceberg. The NRC is illegally allowing
licensees to write their own safety evaluations. So far, the relicensing
process has been a conveyor belt to a rubber stamp, not a proper safety
review."

"You would think a relicensing inspection for a nuclear power plant
would be at least as thorough as the house inspection you get when you
purchase a home,' said STROC member Paula Gotsch. "My inspector tested
equipment and systems carefully--himself. Here you have a federal
agency, the NRC, content to just shuffle papers. It's truly mind
boggling."

Peggi Sturmfels, also a STROC member, said the report demands
Congressional review. "The NRC is an agency in need of Congressional
overhaul, and if this OIG report doesn't prove that, nothing short of a
nuclear meltdown will."

"I don't know how the NRC is going to wiggle its way out of this one,"
says Janet Tauro, of STROC. "We now have a federal investigatory agency
saying that the NRC reviews are shoddy and without legitimacy. There can
be no relicensings until this agency is fixed."

Across the Hudson River, Entergy Nuclear Northeast submitted its
application for a 20-year license extension of the Indian Point nuclear
power plant. Riverkeeper and the State of New York have petitioned to
intervene in the licensing proceedings.

"For years, Riverkeeper has been gravely concerned with the NRC's
lackluster approach to regulating the nuclear industry," notes Lisa
Rainwater, Riverkeeper's Policy Director. "The infamous revolving door
syndrome of the nuclear industry is the underlying cause of this grave
problem. Backslapping industry and agency officials swap safety review
data just as readily as they swap jobs. The time has come to put a wedge
in the swinging door."

The group's petition demands that the NRC suspend all current license
renewal proceedings pending completion of the following actions:

            * A comprehensive, independent investigation to determine
whether NRC staff are actually conducting independent technical reviews
of license renewal applications or merely "cutting and pasting" whole
sections of the applications into their safety reviews or approving them
without independent verification.

            * Complete revision of existing NRC procedures for license
renewal reviews to ensure completeness, consistency, and documentation
of review by NRC staff prior to license renewal;

            *Establishment of a Quality Assurance program for NRC staff
review of renewal applications.

            *Redoing the safety reviews for pending license renewals,
the reviews done so far are obviously inadequate.

"The OIG report makes it clear that the current NRC license renewal
process is a failure and must be completely re-evaluated before another
plant is relicensed," states Phillip Musegaas, Riverkeeper staff
attorney. "The Indian Point license renewal process has just gotten
underway. The 20 million people who live in the shadow of Indian Point
deserve a federal agency that does more than cut and paste with their
health and safety."

Riverkeeper co-petitioned with STROC's six member groups; New Jersey
Environmental Federation, Nuclear Information & Resource Service, New
Jersey Sierra Club, NJ Public Interest Research Group, Jersey Shore
Nuclear Watch, and Grandmothers, Mothers, and More (GRAMMES) for Energy
Safety.

The petition can be found at: www.nirs.org <http://www.nirs.org/> .

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