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Washington, D.C. - Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA), and other House members along with grassroots organizations today launched a campaign to secure spent fuel at nuclear reactors around the country. Hinchey expressed strong concern in particular about the danger of unprotected nuclear fuel at the Indian Point power plant in New York, which is one of 103 nuclear reactors across the country with unprotected spent nuclear fuel that is vulnerable to attack by terrorists.
"It is an absolute tragedy that nearly five years after September 11, we find ourselves here today having to put pressure on the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress to secure the spent nuclear fuel that is sitting at 103 nuclear reactor sites across the country," Hinchey said. Securing spent nuclear fuel and protecting it from a terrorist attack is common sense and it should have been done a long time ago. How can this White House and this Congress look the people of New York City, upstate New York, and the surrounding area in the eye, and tell them that they are just leaving spent nuclear fuel sitting around prone to a terrorist attack? This is a national tragedy. This must end."
The Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress have failed to adequately secure spent nuclear fuel that is vulnerable to terrorist attacks despite multiple warnings about the danger from the National Academy of Sciences and other organizations. Hinchey and his colleagues along with the grassroots organizations called for the implementation of a storage technology known as “Hardened On-Site Storage” (HOSS) – by which nuclear fuel rods currently sitting in cooling pools at reactor sites are off-loaded into dry storage casks that have been ‘hardened’ against terrorist attack. Hinchey and his colleagues noted that since there are no permanent storage facilities to transfer spent nuclear fuel away from reactor sites, the need to put the nuclear waste into hardened storage is great. Even though the spent nuclear fuel will remain at each reactor site, the House members said that at the very least they would be much better protected in a hardened cask rather than simply sitting in a cooling pool.
"Nearly five years after September 11, we know that terrorists are still plotting to attack this country. And we know that a nuclear attack would be the most devastating attack of all," Hinchey said. "Just as we must take steps abroad to ensure that terrorists don't acquire nuclear weapons from rogue states, we must pay equal, if not more attention, to ensuring that our own nuclear material is not vulnerable to attack. We must shield the spent nuclear fuel at the 103 reactors in this country from the possibility of a terrorist attack."
Hinchey and his colleagues called on the Bush administration's Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue new mandates that would require Hardened On-Site Storage at all 103 reactor sites. Additionally, to force the administration's hand, the House members urged Congress to pass strict guidelines that would require Hardened On-Site Storage.
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