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Nuclear
Control Institute Committee
to Bridge the Gap September 14 The Honorable
Richard Meserve Washington, D.C. Dear Chairman Meserve: In
light of the extraordinary and unprecedented terrorist threat that now exists
inside the United States in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, we are writing urgently to request that you promptly advise
the President and the governors of each of the 32 states in which operational
nuclear power plants are located to call up National Guard forces for the
purpose of providing additional security for these plants. We also urge prompt consideration of
deployment of radar-directed, anti-aircraft weaponry by these forces at the
plant sites. Since 1987, when Iran issued a
threat against U.S. centers and nuclear reactors, our organizations have
repeatedly called upon the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to upgrade protection
at nuclear power plants against truck-bomb attacks and other armed assaults.
Nonetheless, half of the nation's 103 nuclear power plants are currently
failing to repel NRC-supervised mock terrorist attacks involving only three
lightly armed "attackers." These "force-on-force" exercises
have resulted in the simulated destruction of redundant safety systems that in
a real attack would result in severe core damage leading to a meltdown. In 1994, the NRC finally agreed
with our longstanding request for adoption of a truck-bomb rule, but only after
the truck-bomb attack on the World Trade Center and an intruders crashing of
his car into the remaining Three Mile Island plant provided the wake-up call the year before. The Commission has since resisted our
demands to upgrade the truck-bomb rule to establish barriers and set-back
distances sufficient to resist the larger bombs subsequently used against the
federal building in Oklahoma City and the U.S. Marine barracks in Saudi Arabia.
Also, the NRC is now in the
process of acquiescing in nuclear industry demands to shift responsibility for
supervising the mock-terrorist attack exercises from the NRC to the plant
operators in response to industry complaints that the exercises are too severe
and the costs of upgrading security are not justified by the supposed low
probability of an attack. Indeed, we
were dismayed to learn recently that budget planning is now underway to zero
out funding for the NRC-supervised exercises to make way for what amounts to an
industry self-assessment program. Since, as you know, a nuclear
power reactor contains an enormous inventory of highly radioactive materials, a
successful attack against a nuclear plant could produce tens of thousands of
latent cancers among the downwind population over a distance of hundreds of
miles from the plant and severely contaminate the area. In other words, the consequences of a
successful attack on a nuclear power plant near a major metropolitan area would
dwarf the human and economic toll of the recent attacks in New York and
Washington. It should be clear that in
the present situation, in which significant numbers of highly sophisticated
terrorists may still be at large in the United States, prudent measures must be
taken to avoid such a catastrophe without delay. The current situation is made
all the more perilous by the unprecedented attacks from the air by suicidal
teams. There have been assertions that
the containment dome of a nuclear power plant could withstand a direct hit by a
large commercial aircraft. This is
simply not so, and recent statements to the press by industry and NRC spokesmen
appear to confirm this. Our
calculations indicate that the engines of a Boeing 767, for example, could
penetrate at least three feet of reinforced concrete at full cruising speed of
530 MPH---more than enough to crash through the containment domes of many
nuclear reactors. Furthermore, a plane need not hit the containment to precipitate
a core meltdown or comparable catastrophic radioactive releases; a direct hit
on secondary systems or the spent fuel pool could produce such severe effects. A spokesman for the Nuclear
Energy Institute, the nuclear power industrys interlocutor with the NRC on
security issues, has been quoted as describing the recent terrorist assault
with commercial aircraft as a military-type attack which nuclear reactors are
not designed to withstand. Further, as
you know, Mr. Chairman, NRC regulations, specifically 10 C.F.R. 50.13,
specifically provide that licensed power plant operators are "not required to provide
for design features or other measures for the specific purpose of protection
against the effects of (a) attacks and destructive acts, including sabotage,
directed against the facility by an enemy of the United States, whether a
foreign government or other person . . . .
It is noteworthy that this provision covers any "person" who
is an enemy of the United States, not just governments. It
should be straightforward, therefore, that with regard to plant-design and
guard-force defenses against attack by air, land or water, the present
arrangements are dangerously inadequate against the extraordinary and
unprecedented adversary the nation faces today. A number of European nations have deployed military forces to
protect their plants in response to the recent attacks in the United
States. We think the U.S. Government
should do the same by means of the National Guard. The
danger here could escalate rapidly and be directed against nuclear plants,
especially if U.S. military strikes against terrorist targets abroad invite
retaliation inside the United States.
There is a recent, unconfirmed Russian news report that Russian
intelligence has warned U.S. intelligence that more terrorist attacks in the
United States are expected and that the next target will be an American nuclear
facility. Even
the present heightened state of alert that has been put in place at nuclear
power plants at the recommendation of the NRC is a weak defense that could
entice attack against what a large, sophisticated terrorist force would regard
as a soft target. According to
statements by plant operators appearing in the press, the security upgrade
includes canceling visitor tours, positioning guards at all gates, increasing
patrols inside and around the plants and ordering manual inspection of staff
IDs. We suggest that in the wake of the
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, these measures are not to
be taken seriously by the kind of adversary that may be at large in America
today. In
view of the gravity of the current emergency and the need for a prompt
response, we urge you to take the following actions: 1.
Recommend to the President and to the governors of states with nuclear power
plants that National Guard forces be deployed promptly to provide additional
protection for these plants for the duration of the current emergency. We believe that deployment of 30 or more
troops around and inside the plant at all times is necessary as both a visible
show of force and as an effective deterrent.
2.
Recommend that radar-directed, anti-aircraft weaponry be deployed by these
forces. 3.
Commence a new vetting by nuclear power plant operators and law-enforcement
officials of all plant employees to determine whether known or suspected
terrorists have succeeded in penetrating the work force as insiders. 4.
The Commission take the additional steps itemized in the annex to this letter
to upgrade protection against radiological sabotage to a level sufficient to
deal with the vastly greater terrorist threat now evident. We
would appreciate receiving your response to these recommendations by Wednesday,
September 19. Thank you for your prompt
attention to this urgent matter. Sincerely, Paul Leventhal Daniel Hirsch Nuclear Control Institute
Committee to Bridge the Gap
We urge the Commission, on an immediately effective basis, to promulgate new security regulations for protection of nuclear facilities that upgrade those regulations and the associated Design Basis Threat to deal with a threat of the magnitude that is now evident. That security upgrade should include: (a) increasing the design basis threat to a significantly larger number of attackers than the current very small group; (b) increasing the required guard force accordingly; (c) requiring protection against attackers working in coordinated teams, using sophisticated techniques and equipment; (d) requiring a strong two-person rule and other enhanced measures to protect against insiders; (e) requiring protection against a truck bomb as big as a large truck can carry; (f) requiring protections against boat and airplane attacks; and (g) requiring full security protection of spent fuel storage pools and dry cask storage, including after reactor closure. CCs:
Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor to the President Colin
Powell, Secretary of State Donald
Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense Robert
S. Mueller, III, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation Joe
M. Allbaugh, Director, Federal Emergency Management Agency Senator
Joseph Biden, Chair, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Senator
Jesse Helms, Ranking Minority Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Representative
Henry Hyde, Chair, House International Relations Committee Representative
Benjamin Gilman, Ranking Minority Member, House International Relations
Committee Senator
Carl Levin, Chair, Senate Armed Services Committee Senator
John Warner, Ranking Member, Senate Armed Services Committee Representative
Bob Stump, Chair, House Armed Services Committee Representative
Ike Skelton, Ranking Member, House Armed Services Committee Senator
Jeff Bingaman, Chair, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Senator
Frank Murkowski, Ranking Member, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Representative
W.J. Billy Tauzin, Chair, House Energy and Commerce Committee Representative
John Dingell, Ranking Minority Member, House Energy and Commerce Committee Senator
James Jeffords, Chair, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Senator
Bob Smith, Ranking Minority Member, Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee Senator
Harry Reid, Chair, Subcommittee
on Transportation, Infrastructure, and Nuclear Safety, Senate Committee on Environment
and Public Works Senator
James Inhofe, Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Transportation,
Infrastructure, and Nuclear Safety, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Senator
Bob Graham, Chair, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator
Richard Shelby, Vice Chair, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Senator
Barbara Boxer, Chair, International Terrorism Subcommittee, Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Senator
Mike Enzi, Ranking Member, International Terrorism Subcommittee, Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Representative
Edward J. Markey Alabama
Governor Don Siegelman |
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