http://www.reformer.com/headlines/ci_7079558

By EVAN LEHMANN, Reformer Washington Bureau Brattleboro Reformer

WASHINGTON - The nation's top official overseeing the safety of nuclear power plants resisted Sen. Bernard Sanders' request Wednesday to organize independent inspections of Vermont Yankee and the 103 other plants in the country.

With a poster of Vermont Yankee's crumbled cooling tower cell behind him, Vermont's independent senator suggested that the three-person Nuclear Regulatory Commission favors industry interests over enhanced safety measures that could siphon regulatory power from Washington.

He pointed to the sudden collapse at Vermont Yankee on Aug. 21, and an emergency shutdown following a stuck steam valve on Aug. 30.

"Problems happen when nuclear power plants get old," Sanders told the trio in a Senate hearing. "If you were living in southern Vermont, or New Hampshire, or northern Massachusetts, would you have confidence in the NRC after this series of events?"

When the panel's chairman, Dale E. Klein, responded that Vermonters should trust the commission, Sanders shot back: "They don't."

Sanders, a member of the Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate Change and Nuclear Energy, is trying to pass legislation requiring independent safety inspections of the country's nuclear power plants, involving state experts and outside engineers.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, contends that it already allows those experts to participate in inspections under enhanced safety protocols. And Klein said ultimate say over the safety of those plants, providing 20 percent of the country's power, should be kept in federal hands under strict oversight.

The pressure has mounted on the commission as the 104 plants in 33 states, first built in the 1950s, show their age and test federal officials' ability to maintain untarnished safety records.

Thirty-five liters of a highly enriched uranium solution leaked onto the floor of the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin, Tennessee, in March 2006. The NRC didn't tell Congress about the leak until 14 months later, angering lawmakers.

Four years earlier, in March 2002, workers discovered a football-size hole in a reactor head at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio. The hole, which threatened to create a radioactive disaster, was overlooked in safety inspections over a period of six years.

The commission Tuesday sought to reassure Vermonters that the state's 35-year-old nuclear plant is secure.

"That visible collapse is a concern," Klein said of the August accident. "It's important to note that cell collapse is not part of the safety system. In terms of the public being at risk from a safety standpoint, they are not at risk."

The commission is considering extending Vermont Yankee's operational license 20 years, to 2032. The plant is owned by Entergy.

Another witness testifying before the panel has little confidence in the commission's reassurances about safety nationwide.

"The NRC is not an aggressive enforcer of regulations; it is a meek and mild enabler of non-conforming behavior," David A. Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said in written testimony.

After a years-long absence of nuclear power plant construction in the United States, the NRC received its first building application last week. It expects to receive up to a dozen more in the next year, creating what officials call a "nuclear renaissance."

"Before we think about building dozens of more nuclear power plants, somebody might want to ask the simple question, 'What are you going to do with that waste?'" Sanders told the commission.

"I'm not convinced that you know what to do with this highly lethal, high-level waste if Yucca does not turn out to be the depository," he added, referring to the Yucca Mountain repository proposed in 1978.

A central repository isn't necessarily needed, commissioners said, citing the use of onsite dry cask storage using steel cylinders to hold spent fuel rods surrounded by inert gas.

Klein said it is a "safe" method.

"Safe is a big word when we have Osama bin Laden and others running around," Sanders said. "I hope you recognize that."

Gregory B. Jaczko, an NRC commissioner, responded: "When we say safe, we mean very, very safe."

"The risk is very close to zero."

"I was very pleased that the Union of Concerned Scientists came out in strong support of my legislation," said Sanders. "We made a good case to the commission about the need for an independent safety assessment at Vermont Yankee involving state government and independent inspectors." "I was not surprised that they were not interested or sympathetic to Vermont Yankee having one because that would set a precedent for power plants across the country."

"Klein does understand that given the recent problems at Vermont Yankee there is a lot of concern in southern Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire about the plant and the need to bend over backwards to make sure this plant is as safe as humanly possible. Right now, people don't have that assurance."

Sanders said he and the rest of the Vermont delegation in Washington would "stay on top of this issue," until they are satisfied with the NRC's response.