Background: A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08747.pdf that reviewed the performance of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in regulating federally-mandated fire protection standards at U.S. nuclear reactors was released this week. The report confirmed that the NRC has for three decades consistently mishandled fire protection violations at the country’s nuclear power plants. Federal requirements mandate reactor operators to install and maintain qualified fire barriers to protect electrical circuits. However, the report found that the NRC has done little to enforce these safety mandates, needed to ensure the reactor does not melt down as the result of a fire. The report revealed that rather than fix bogus fire barriers as agreed in the mid-1990s, many nuclear utilities instead quietly substituted – without NRC approval –largely untested plans to send station personnel out into the burning and radioactive reactor building to manually operate shutdown equipment without the assurance that they could succeed. The GAO investigation came in large part as a result of the investigative work on this issue by Beyond Nuclear’s Paul Gunter. See more on the Nuclear Reactors page on Beyond Nuclear's website: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/nuclearreactors.html

Our View (Beyond Nuclear): The GAO report is a welcome reprimand of NRC negligence but omits the fact that even after the NRC found that the industry had falsely reported fixes to fire barriers in defiance of agency agreements and orders, the agency looked the other way. It is apparent from this report that the industry did not fully and truthfully disclose fire protection violations at reactors and is much better at maintaining firewalls to federal law than complying with public safety requirements. Of equal concern, the NRC is a willing collaborator in turning a blind eye to federal law and leaving public safety in jeopardy. Finally, to send plant workers into a burning reactor building to manually turn off switches is tantamount to demanding a suicide mission.

What You Can Do: The NRC is a congressionally-mandated agency that must be called on the carpet to answer for this latest in an on-going pattern of capitulation to the nuclear industry. Michigan representatives John Dingell and Bart Stupak were expected to lead a House investigative hearing into the NRC’s track record in April but the hearing has mysteriously vanished. Please contact your congressperson and urge them to help schedule this vital hearing so that the NRC can be asked to answer for its lapdog track record. The Capitol Switchboard number is: (202) 224-3121