Nulcear Reactors 178 - The NRC Improperly Withheld Documents From the U.S. Public
I have often mentioned my lack of faith in the competence and integrity of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I have blogged before about their failure to adequately monitor and regulate the nuclear power industry in the U.S. Today I am going to talk about another problem with the NRC. The Union of Concerned Scientists recently published an article by Dave Lochbaum, the director of the Nuclear Safety Project criticizing the NRC for withholding documents from the public.
In 2004, the NRC made the decision to withhold documents that it had received from nuclear power plant operators dealing with fire protection and emergency planning. The NRC policy paper admitted that most information related to fire protection and emergency planning would not need to be designated as sensitive. This means that the NRC had no need to withhold most such documents from the public but they decided to withhold many such documents anyway. The NRC policy paper stated that all fire protection and emergency planning documents from plant operators would be categorized as "nonpublic."
The NRC maintains an online library called ADAMS that is open to the public. However, "nonpublic" documents are not placed in this online database. In addition, there is not even a mention of such documents in the index or bibliography of ADAMS. The 2004 NRC policy paper also said that the NRC "will review for release upon request" any request for any of the fire protection or emergency planning documents from plant operators. The problem with this policy is that the public currently has no way of even knowing that some documents even exist which makes requests for them impossible.
When Lochbaum discovered this NRC practice in 2014, he immediately filed a request under the Freedom of Information ACT (FOIA) for all incoming documents from all U.S. nuclear power plants that dealt with fire protection from October 1, 2004 to the present. Eventually, the NRC added hundreds of such documents to the ADAMS online database. When Lochbaum reviewed these documents he found a number of requests from nuclear power plant operators in 2006 and 2007 for amendments to or exemptions from NRC fire protection regulations during negotiations over relicensing. Some of these were granted by the NRC. Federal law states that the NRC must consider public input when reviewing licensing of nuclear power plants. Obviously this could not happen if the documents were hidden and the requests were granted without public input.
None of the information in the documents that Lochbaum reviewed were redacted meaning that the NRC did not consider any of the information in the documents to be of a "sensitive" nature justifying withholding them from public scrutiny. It turns out that none of the plant operators who submitted these documents requested that they be kept secret. The NRC withheld these documents from public access for reasons of their own which have not been adequately explained. Lochbaum has also requested the emergency planning documents that have been withheld by the NRC but has not received a response yet.
With respect to public transparency of its activities, the NRC says "Nuclear regulation is the public’s business, and it must be transacted publicly and candidly. The public must be informed about and have the opportunity to participate in the regulatory processes as required by law. Open channels of communication must be maintained with Congress, other government agencies, licensees, and the public, as well as with the international nuclear community." The behavior of the NRC since 2004 has seriously violated what the NRC says is one of its core values of openness. This is just one more reason that the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. is a very bad idea. If we cannot depend on government agencies to carry out their mandated activities with openness and transparency, we must depend on the honesty and competence of the nuclear industry which has proven to be unworthy of such trust in the past.
Fire at Hartlepool Nuclear Power Station near Cleveland:
