Wrestling with Regulation

In the early 1970s, energy experts predicted that 2000 nuclear plants would dot the countryside by the turn of the century. Current projections put the number at fewer than 120.

Spiraling construction costs, mounting operational difficulties, public opposition, and dozens of nearaccidents have all contributed to the decline of the nuclear industry in the United States.

The 1979 accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) only hastened the collapse of the domestic nuclear market. By the early 1980s, with plant construction costs soaring to double and triple the levels that had seemed spectacularly high just four years earlier, even Wall Street financial executives were skeptical that the industry would ever recover. In its February 1985 cover story, Forbes magazine called the nuclear industry "the largest managerial disaster in business history."

Now, seven years after the Three Mile Island accident and almost a decade since the last nuclear order was placed, the nuclear industry is lobbying hard to change the regulatory process in order to pave the way for new reactor orders in the 1990s.

The industry's number one priority is licensing "reform," or licensing deregulation. Several bills have been introduced in Congress that share the same key components: "one-step" licensing, reactor design standardization, and limited public participation. The bill promoted most heavily by the industry is H.R. 1029, sponsored by Rep. James Broyhill, R-N.C., which is now pending before the House Subcommittee on Energy, Conservation and Power. Hearings on the bill have already been held and a majority of the subcommittee members have urged its passage.

"If Congress enacts the proposed reforms, it would be easier for companies to build new nuclear power plants," but it would also "drastically reduce" citizen input, said Rep. Gerry Sikorski, a Minnesota Democrat. "Public participation in the licensing process is one of the things that keeps American companies from building poor or unsafe nuclear reactors."

Currently, nuclear plant licensing is a two-step process: utilities must apply for a construction permit, and then, when the plant is nearly completed, apply for an operating license. The public may intervene during both phases of the process. Under the "one-step" proposal, a utility would receive its construction permit and operating license at the same time-before any work on the plant had begun. As former Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Victor Gilinsky noted, one step licensing "makes about as much sense as handing an incoming freshman his college diploma."

Public participation would be sharply curtailed under the one-step proposal. Citizens would only be able to raise issues before construction had begun. There would be little opportunity for citizens to challenge shoddy construction, faulty emergency evacuation plans, and other issues that arise when the plant is near completion.

The bill would encourage, but not require, standardization in reactor design. Standardization, if implemented, would be a significant improvement over the prevailing "design-as-you-build" method used by most utilities. But the bill would not require the encouraged standardized design to address the hundreds of outstanding safety issues not resolved by current plant designs.

"[The bill] is being misrepresented as an initiative to standardize the design of nuclear power plants," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. But "the only result this bill guarantees is significantly less public participation in nuclear power plant licensing decisions and not assurances of safe plant operation."

Another legislative initiative favored by the industry is the renewal of the Price-Anderson Act which caps industry liability. (See Limiting Liability, page 24.) Without liability coverage, it is unlikely that any new nuclear plants would be built. Damages from the Chernobyl accident, which threatens long term health hazards for up to 100,000 people and has contaminated at least 2800 square miles of land, are likely to rise well above $8 billion. Estimates of potential damage from a U.S. reactor accident at a plant such as Indian Point, located less than 50 miles from New York City, reach above $300 billion.

Emergency planning is another area in which the nuclear industry is seeking dramatic changes. Before the 1979 TMI accident, emergency planning was virtually nonexistent at reactor sites. Nuclear plants were required to be located in "low population zones" which extended about two miles around the plant and safety precautions were required only for plant workers and residents in these zones. At the time, industry and government officials simply did not believe a severe accident was possible.

After TMI, Congress pressured the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to institute Emergency Planning Zones (EPZs) around reactors. Under the EPZ guidelines, utilities are required to have the capability of evacuating all residents within a 10-mile radius of the plant. More recently, the industry has been pressing for a return to two-mile EPZs. Last spring, in what was widely perceived as a test case for the industry, the Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. formally petitioned the NRC for a two-mile EPZ at its Calvert Cliffs facility on the Chesapeake Bay. The industry hopes that if smaller EPZs are approved, nuclear plants will seem safer than before and public opposition to new plants will diminish. The NRC so far has refused to rule on the petition, and has said it will wait until the results of a study on "source term" (the type and amount of radiation that would be released in an accident) are released later this year.

The Chernobyl accident may severely undermine the utilities' hopes for a lower EPZ. The Soviets evacuated an 18-mile radius from the plant, and the U.S. government advised citizens in Kiev---nearly 80 miles from Chernobyl to leave the city. It will be very difficult for either the U.S. nuclear industry or the U.S. government to argue that what is essential to protect citizens abroad isn't necessary for citizens at home. Following the Chernobyl accident, the Monroe County Board of Commissioners in Michigan--where the Fermi-2 reactor is located---voted to ask the NRC to establish a 20-mile EPZ around that plant.

Through its legislative initiatives, the nuclear industry is seeking self-regulation as a way to revive the LJ.S. market for reactors. In Lando Zech, the incoming NRC chairman, the industry has found a government official who both shares their zeal for the promotion of nuclear power and ardently believes in a regulatory atmosphere of industry-government cooperation. From the industry's point of view, he is the ideal man to open the door for new nuclear plant orders in the 1990s.

But, polls consistently have shown that while the public does not favor the immediate shutdown of operating plants, they would prefer that no new nuclear plants ever be built. Until tile nuclear industry solves the basic problems of waste disposal, safety, decommissioning, and high priced energy, that have plagued it since its inception, it is ualikely the public will change its mind on this point. Overcoming public opposition to nuclear power will be far more difficult for the industry than changing the regulatory climate. O

Michael Mariotte is the editor of Groundswell, a publication of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C.