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4.)

5.)

subordinate to the federal regulations. NRC discretionary enforcement and industry self-
regulation initiatives in these areas need to be permanently abolished, to reflect the
"permanent war footing" in which members of Congress say we now find ourselves in
relation to terrorist threats. Evaluation of reactor site security must reflect the real life, 21"
Century scenarios demonstrated to exist by the 9-11 attack; and must be frequent, realistic
and force-on-force. Reactor sites which fail to meet these enhanced regulatory standards
dictated as necessary, realistic and "credible" by the 9-11 attack must be closed and remain so
until they meet these new regulatory requirements.

NEIS has commented in detail on the previous failings of the NRC in matters of reactor security in its October 22, 2001 report, "Here Today, THERE Tomorrow: Commercial Nuclear Reactor Sites as Terrorist Targets." This report can be read and downloaded from the NEIS website at: http://www.neis.org Copies of this report will be available at the hearing for distribution.

The decision by the House to accept the Yucca Mt. site as the Nation's HLRW repository needs to be accompanied with the necessary infrastructure and security improvements to safeguard the anticipated 104,000 (truck) shipments of HLRW away from the existing security and emergency response capabilities found at fixed reactor sites.

Ultimately, a shift away from nuclear power and its attendant and expensive liabilities -threat of catastrophic release of radiation through accident or attack, "dirty" bomb source or targets, further creation of more radioactive wastes, nuclear materials and weapons proliferation, to name a few --to energy production resources which do not have such liabilities must emanate from Washington.

This is not a matter to be left decided by markets, utility executives, or others with vested economic interests. To listen to this Administration and members of Congress, we are at "war," and decisions of national survival during wartime do not come from corporate boards or business executives, but from elected officials charged by oath of office to defend the Constitution and the republic. The best intervention that could take place would be to methodically reduce this Nation's dependence on and vulnerability from nuclear power and other energy resources which represent both attractive targets and weapons of mass destruction. A second logical effort would be to begin the shift away from highly centralized transmission of electricity, and move towards "distributed generation."

Without a conscious effort to accomplish this goal -- reduction of our vulnerability by moving to less-vulnerable energy resources all other inputs requested by this committee are reduced to mere "after the fact" exercises that already concede and guarantee that our enemy can harm and defeat us. As Albert Einstein DID actually say, "A clever person solves a problem. A Wise person avoids it."

These comments reflect only the beginning initiatives that are required to secure nuclear power facilities in the current real-world situations in which they now find themselves operating. We believe that ongoing cooperative task forces and planning groups, drawing from all levels of citizen stake-holders - industry, government, private citizens should be established to establish

these changes within a year's time.

We thank you for your consideration of these views, and are available for additional questions and comments.

Mr. HORN. Well, thank you.

We will have a few questions and then we will move ahead to panel two.

Do any of my colleagues want to ask any questions of the panel now? They will be around, but we have four people on panel two. Go ahead, Ms. Biggert.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Lumpkin, it is nice to see you again and I know that I see you on the airplane quite often as you traverse to Washington, DC, so I know that you are working to coordinate what is happening in the State of Illinois with the Federal Government.

Dr. Schneider just talked about the potassium iodide that has been suggested that States have, and I do-could you explain what is the policy in Illinois right now in public health as far as-what I had heard was that Illinois had not made a decision or had not signed on to receiving that or to have a stockpile in case something happened.

Dr. LUMPKIN. Well, that is actually not the case. First of all, Illinois is one of the few States, if not the only State, that has a separate Department of Nuclear Safety, and we have had some discussions on the issue of potassium iodide. The Department of Nuclear Safety just recently announced it has purchased 350,000 doses, which it will be making available to the public in the evacuation zone; I think it is a 10-mile zone around each of the facilities.

We have some concerns about that particular process, even though we will be making that available, because studies in other areas where it has been distributed, indicate that the people, after a year, have not been able to find or locate those pills. So we are also using State dollars to purchase potassium iodide as part of our State pharmaceutical stockpile. We are probably one of the few States that has a pharmaceutical stockpile. Primarily, we have antibiotics and mark one kits and other things for use by first responders in that stockpile, but we also will requisition potassium iodide so it will be available at the evacuation centers. So really our strategy is going to be two-fold.

We have some concerns about the Federal distribution. For instance, there is quite an extensive disclaimer that is required to be given to each person receiving potassium iodide, disclaimer about the Federal program. We believe that we can use State dollars that we get from industry, which is wanting us to distribute them, without going to the Federal program, and that has been our intent.

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you very much.

And then, Mr. Kraft, I know that we have had a nuclear waste problem and have been working on it for quite a while, but I certainly do not think we should abandon nuclear power as a source of electricity as a result, and certainly 52 percent of our electrical power in Illinois comes from nuclear and is a clean source of power.

Given the amount of power generated without any emissions and the resulting air quality benefits, nuclear power I think has to remain part of our energy supply. And there is research that is being done at Argon National Laboratory, which is in my district, to reduce the volume and toxicity of nuclear waste and it really is pyroprocessing technology and transmutation and has really been able to reduce the amount of waste and put it into a solid which then can be transported much more safely and will also not be a hot-what they call a hot product, for a considerably shorter period of time. It actually reduces it to 300 years instead of 10,000 years. Does your organization support such research or are you opposed to anything nuclear?

Mr. KRAFT. We do not have any problem with research. We would merely ask that, again, are you focusing so narrowly on solving an immediate problem that you miss the forest? Some of the statements you made, I would take some exception to. Nuclear power does produce emissions, it does not produce global warming emissions, although as a matter of fact, the fabrication of the fuel does. It is the largest producer of CFC and ozone layer damaging chemicals on the North American continent. But it does produce denoble gases, they are routinely released into the atmosphere. You have water emissions from the routine operation of reactors and then if something goes wrong, you have unanticipated emissions. So to say it is emission-free is not quite accurate.

In terms of your description though of the transportation, I think that is an excellent example of the future problem that has not been anticipated and which was brought up and reflected earlier here today when the reference was made to the individual who was interested in making a dirty bomb. Materials for the dirty bomb will come from shipments like those that you describe, in the future. Just the Yucca Mountain project itself, we anticipate over 68,000 shipments going through Illinois in a 38-year period.

This is the infrastructure that you buy into when you continue this technology. And to make the claim that we can make it 100 percent failsafe and contain all that material, especially when you have a determined terrorist threat out there that is not managed yet, really I think stretches the imagination.

So we are not opposed to research, we are merely saying for your dollar spent, would it be better to get away from a technology that buys you into that tar baby or is it better spent on a technology that still gives you the electricity that you want but does not increase nuclear proliferation, like pyroprocessing does.

So those are the hard strategic questions Congress needs to ask before you ask the front line defenders here to pick up the pieces of dirty bomb explosions and radiation assaults and finally perhaps

even

Ms. BIGGERT. The NRC chairman recently referred to the security at the nuclear power plants as the gold standard in the area of industrial security. Would you agree with that and do you think that other facilities pose the same risk or similar risk as nuclear and should have that security equal to nuclear security?

Mr. KRAFT. The second part of your question; yes, I think other industries do have a similar kind of risk. The chemical industry could be pointed to, for example, as having that type of risk and should be required to have enhanced security as well. I cannot speak to direct knowledge of what type of security has occurred at nuclear reactors since September 11th, but I would welcome it. And I certainly would not want to personally challenge it right now. I have spoken with reporters who have been onsites just recentlyChannel 5 News was out at Dresden, and they do report significant improvements in security.

Whether those are adequate, we will not know. But one thing I will point out is that the same time the NRC is making those boasts, just prior to the 11th, they were allowing-they were contemplating allowing the industry to more or less regulate itself and test itself on plant security, at a time when they knew that those plants failed 50 percent of the force-on-force tests

Ms. BIGGERT. Thank you. I do not mean to cut you off, but my time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. HORN. The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Kirk.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just briefly, I will have to leave in a minute for going out to inspect the new aircraft doors that have been installed on United Airlines aircraft to prevent access to the cockpit.

But my mother lives in Evanston, she lives on Main Street in Evanston, Chief Wilkinson. How large is the Evanston police force? Mr. NILSSON. The Evanston Police Department has 162 sworn police officers.

Mr. KIRK. And how large is the Fire Department?
Mr. WILKINSON. 110.

Mr. KIRK. 110. So we have got roughly 200 first responders in a suburban-if the Sears Tower was hit, a la September 11th, or we had a huge fire at Zion, the nuclear reactor, how would you be tasked to assist in that effort under the current system. Chief Reardon is here, but I am going to put you on the spot since you are a front line police department.

Mr. WILKINSON. OK, there is a structure in place, it is relatively-the stricken community makes a request at various levels and there is an automatic response then based on that request. So if Chicago were to ask for X,Y,Z and we happened to be X, we would then respond. It reduces communications down to a smaller level and it is a predetermined structure. And we respond based on the need of the stricken community.

Mr. KIRK. Do they call you via telephone, is there a radio? Mr. WILKINSON. No, it is done via radio. There is a backup, of course, telephone call should there not be a response. The central dispatch area then for a MABAS division-we are broken up into a number of divisions-will then initiate the call, anticipate and wait for a verbal response from the community that should be responding. Should they not respond or not be able to, they automatically move to the next level and they will also back it up with a phone call.

Mr. KIRK. If we had a fire at Zion, we would have to probably evacuate close to 100,000 people, so our need for fire and police personnel would be vast. Have you ever been tasked to look into how you would respond to a huge downtown contingency or a huge contingency at one of our reactors? Has Evanston gone through that yet?

Mr. WILKINSON. We have done it only fortunately at a table-top level, and we realize that an initial incident, as it gets larger or is large, we have a limited capability in dealing with that incident. And until we can get enough resources for whatever our needs are, we can only handle so much of that incident and we have to accept that there may be losses as a result.

Mr. KIRK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

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