August 31, 2015 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has rejected the recommendation of the high-level task force it convened after the March 2011 Fukushima disaster to require nuclear plant owners to develop and maintain plans for coping with a core-melt accident.

Credit: MartinLisner

The decision raises concerns that the NRC is ignoring the lessons it should have learned from the Fukushima accident and that nuclear plants will be allowed to continue to maintain plans voluntarily and deny the agency the authority to review those plans or issue citations if they are deficient.

"Emergency plans are not worth the paper they are printed on unless they are rigorously developed, maintained and periodically exercised," said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). "When it comes to these critical safety measures, the NRC is allowing the industry to regulate itself."

 

In its decision, NRC commissioners instructed agency staff to remove a provision of a proposed draft rule aimed at protecting plants from Fukushima-type accidents, requiring nuclear plants to establish Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMG). The staff's proposal was in response to Recommendation 8 of the NRC's post-Fukushima staff recommendations, which questioned the effectiveness of NRC's current practice of allowing plant owners to develop and maintain the SAMGs on a voluntary basis.

"The NRC has concluded that SAMGs are an essential part of the regulatory framework for the mitigation of the consequences of accidents," the NRC staff wrote in its proposed draft rule. "Imposition of SAMGs requirements (versus a continuation of the voluntary initiative) would ensure that SAMGs are maintained as an effective guideline set through time."

The NRC opposed the proposal to require SAMGs, arguing that it did not meet a strict cost-benefit standard -- rejecting its own staff's recommendation.

"The NRC's process for cost-benefit analysis is defective and is being misused to make bad decisions," Lyman said. "The American public is not going to be adequately protected unless this process is fixed by taking into account the true costs should a Fukushima-type accident take place in the United States."

The decision also removes a provision from the proposed draft rule that would require new reactors to have additional design features to protect against Fukushima-type accidents. By eliminating this requirement, Lyman said, the NRC is relinquishing the opportunity to ensure that new reactors built in the United States will have stronger protection measures than the current reactor fleet. 

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