Threat Assessment:  NRC Will Not Factor Terrorism Into Licensing Decisions

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decided that the possible threat of a terrorist attack cannot be considered when licensing a nuclear facility, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 30, 2002).

In its ruling last month, the commission decided that terrorism could not be considered under the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires the issuing of an Environmental Impact Statement before any major action, according to the Times.  While taking note of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the NRC said a better approach would be to improve security at nuclear sites or the country as a whole, rather than attempt to determine the environmental impact of a terrorist attack on a site.

The commission also decided that site security preparations would remain secret.  It said that discussing the possible threat to a site during a licensing hearing would provide too much information to terrorists and might “unduly alarm the public.”

The ruling applies to several nuclear facilities, including a mixed-oxide fuel production plant under construction in South Carolina and two reactors that would use the MOX fuel, according to the Times (see GSN, May 9, 2002).

Some NRC critics have charged that the ruling ignored the idea that terrorists will choose targets near population centers.

“One of the main threats we face today in the U.S. is that many potentially hazardous facilities are located near heavily populated areas,” said Edwin Lyman, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a nuclear activist group.  “This situation is tolerated because severe accidents are considered highly improbable.  But surely in the future, it makes sense to consider the possibility of terrorist acts that could intentionally cause large releases when making decisions about the location and design features of hazardous facilities,” he added (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Jan. 7).

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