Washington, DC - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today took her continuing concerns about safety and security at Indian Point directly to officials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) including Commissioner Dale Klein. At an Oversight Hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Senator Clinton put series of questions to top NRC officials in advance of tomorrow's public meeting on Indian Point. Following the hearing, Senator Clinton said she was disappointed by the NRC's continued reluctance to undertake an Independent Safety Assessment of Indian Point and was alarmed by their lack of concern about the litany of problems the facility has experienced in recent months.

"I was glad to have the opportunity to raise my concerns directly with the NRC Commissioners, but I am disappointed that they do not share my level of concern about the numerous problems that have arisen at the facility over the last several years," Senator Clinton said. "I hope that the NRC officials have better answers for the people in the surrounding communities at tomorrow's public meeting. And I continue to think that an Independent Assessment is needed to restore public confidence in Indian Point, particularly in light of Entergy's intent to apply to re-license the plant."

The Senators heard from Dale Klein, Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and a number of NRC Commissioners including Ed McGaffigan, Jeff Merrifield, Greg Jaczko and Pete Lyons.

A transcript of Senator Clinton's questions to the NRC appears below.

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Oversight Hearing on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Senator Clinton: Thank you very much. Mr Chairman and Members of the Commission, it won't surprise you to hear that I have continuing significant concerns about Indian Point and about the adequacy of the oversight that the NRC is providing. That's why I have introduced legislation to require an independent safety assessment at Indian Point. I simply don't have time in my round of questions to recite the full litany of recent problems at Indian Point, or to ask all of the questions that I have for the NRC, so I will submit additional questions in writing. But I do want to briefly describe some of the recent problems.

Indians Point's rate of unplanned emergency shutdowns is now five to six times higher then the national average for all nuclear plants in the United States. And Indian Point Unit three has had three unplanned shutdowns just so far in 2007. Entergy recently failed to comply with an extended deadline of April 15 to have a new siren system installed in the communities around Indian Point pursuant to a requirement that I added to the 2005 Energy Bill. In December of 2006, the NRC gave Entergy 30 days to come up with a plan to resolve what the agency called a "chilling effect" among workers who might be intimidated to not bring safety concerns forward. In August of 2005, a leak was discovered in a spent-fuel pool that seeped into the groundwater beneath the plant and reached the Hudson River, and that leak continues today.

So you can see why I'm concerned because my constituents are concerned and just about every week we pick up the local newspaper and find some other problem at Indian Point.

First, I want to say thank you to the NRC for deciding to issue a fine of $130,000 for the failure of the sirens. But I remain concerned about Entergy's failure to meet a deadline that had already been extended three months. What is the cause of the delay? When do you expect the sirens to be fully operational? And why did you choose to assess a fine of $130,000, equivalent to the maximum daily penalty, when the violation has now exceeded ten days?

With respect to the Independent Safety Assessment, when I discussed this with the NRC last year, I was assured that the NRC would conduct extra inspections at Indian Point. My understanding is those are underway, but the reality is that problems continue at the plant, and there is a significant trust gap in what the NRC is doing in Westchester and around Indian Point. If the NRC is so confident that its inspections are well-run, why hasn't the NRC invited outside observers from state and local governments, and NGOs to participate in these added inspections?

With respect to the "chilling effect" that you determined existed at Indian Point, I note that the commission relied on independent assessments to reach this conclusion. Why is relying on independent assessments appropriate in this case but not in looking at other safety issues?

What is the estimated timeframe for stopping the current leaks from the spent-fuel pool at Indian Point Unit one? Are Entergy's decommissioning funds sufficient to cover the groundwater cleanup?

So these are some of the questions and I ask them all at one time because it may very well be that you want to answer them all at one time instead of taking them piecemeal. But I hope that NRC is prepared to address these concerns and other concerns from local governments tomorrow during the Annual Safety Review in Westchester County.

And Mr. Chairman I want to ask a request of you. I hope we can examine the issue of the adequacy of the reactor oversight process and the need for independent safety assessments in some detail, because I think there are certain cases, and I believe Indian Point is one, where that additional safety check is necessary. So, Mr. Chairman and Commissioners, could you perhaps respond to my general concerns about Indian Point?

Chairman Klein: Well Senator Clinton, as we had visited prior to my confirmation hearing, that it does seem like - as you indicated Indian Point is snake bit at some times-- it certainly, things like not getting the sirens working does not instill public confidence and so we are addressing those issues.

Let me talk more broadly and then turn it over to Commissioner McGaffigan for further comments but I'd like to just talk a little bit about the independent safety assessment and compare it with our reactor oversight. One of the tasks that I looked at when I became Chairman was the Independent Safety Assessment and the reactor oversight and did a comparison. I don't believe we are doing a good job at the agency of explaining what our reactor oversight program is and what it does. It's a continuous evaluation process. Independent safety assessments tend to be a snapshot look. And I think we need to do a better job as an agency of articulating what the NRC does. And as you and I have talked in the past, we want all of our reactors to be safe and examined, including Indian Point. So we try and we do have a program to ensure that the reactors are safe. We have a rigorous inspection process and I'd like to let Commissioner McGaffigan to talk a little further on the reactor oversight program and the independent safety assessment concepts.

Commissioner McGaffigan: Thank you Mr. Chairman. First, I'd like to tell Senator Clinton I've been over ten and half years at the Commission and we have given Indian Point very close attention. The people of New York should thank God everyday that Entergy is running that site as an integrated site. ConEd and NYPA were not interested in running a safe nuclear site; they wanted to be out of the business. So, I believe Entergy has been an enormous step forward for the Indian Point site.

Let me turn to the ISA. I also happen to be the sole commissioner left who actually watched the first--the one and only--ISA we ever conducted at Main Yankee. And Senator Sanders earlier today talked about how our ISA lead to the closure. Our ISA was an ad-hoc procedure that we invented in 1996 on a one time basis. We had allegations that our Region one was too close to the licensee. We had people from outside of that region and outside the office of nuclear reactor regulations come in. We had state involvement because we had an agreement with them. We have state involvement in inspections, such as engineering inspections today at Indian Point. Our reactor oversight process that was developed in the late 90s, is infinitely better in my view than the ad-hoc ISA that was conducted at Main Yankee. And it was not our conducting an ISA that lead to the closure of Main Yankee, it was a corporate structure with 14 different owners, many of which wanted to get out of the nuclear business. They had plenty of decommissioning funds and so they said we're out. They brought Entergy in. They let them work for only a few months. Entergy would have been able to save that plant. And in some sense it's a sad story that corporate governance led to the closure of Main Yankee because it could be providing a lot of very needed power in New England today. We have a much better-- we could talk to you about this at great length-- why the reactor oversight hearing program today, augmented as we deem necessary at Indian Point, is so much better than the ISA conducted in 1996.

Senator Clinton: If I could, Mr. McGaffigan suggest that it might be worth considering having outside observers to try to rebuild some confidence in the work that you're doing. You all know, because you've been following this, it is just a terrible dilemma because there is a feeling that we are keep being reassured that everything is fine and then something goes wrong. It may be that the work that was done before was not up to standards and there is still a lot of issues. But why not, let some outsiders in so at least there can be validation of the work that you describe is going on under the NRC's supervision?

Commissioner McGaffigan: I do think we invite the state the engineering inspection that Commissioner Diaz initiated. In fact the whole concept of these extra engineering inspections. We had, or invited it. I don't know if it was taken advantage of when we had the first of our engineering inspections earlier this year. That is our protocol and that is our protocol in other states. The state of Illinois is famous for its aggressive participation in our inspections and we don't move away from that at all. I think a lot of the people who want Independent Safety Assessments really have quite a negative agendas--vis a vis nuclear power--and I think their version of an independent safety assessment is one where folks who are really quite opposed to nuclear power come in and second guess fairly minor incidents.

Senator Clinton: Could I ask Commissioner Jazcko to comment?

Commissioner Jazcko: I certainly think it's an interesting suggestion and I think it's one that I would support of look at ways that we could include an outside observer. I think your point about the trust gap is really very accurate. I think what we are dealing with at Indian Point is, to some extent, is a trust gap. There are situations and problems that you mentioned but based on our assessments in the oversight process, we think that those are lower on the level of safety significance. So they're not issues that we think are of tremendous safety significance, but I think we're having a challenge communicating that to the public around that plant. And I think adding something like outside observers to one of these design engineering inspections could perhaps go towards addressing that trust gap. And I believe we have done an inspection for Indian Point two as part of this design inspection. I believe that Indian Point three's inspection is coming up in the fall. So that would certainly be an area where I would support figuring out a way to include some outside observers. I think it would be good for the agency to show the process that we use to go through this inspection.

Senator Clinton: Commissioner Merrifield?

Commissioner Merrifield: Senator Clinton I appreciate the suggestion. I think it's certainly one we could take a further look at. I don't think I am willing to commit at this point to having external folks come on board. Frankly, as an agency that is trying to be very open in conducting inspections, we have a series of public meetings after that where open up our results, we have a dialogue in public to explain what we do, our staff goes into great detail about the process that we use, the facility's we inspected and the results.

I think one of the things that we get somewhat defensive-- and I think it's somewhat understandable--is we were appointed as the independent regulator of nuclear power and I think some of our staff understandably takes some umbrage when the issue--well gee you're not independent enough and there is a lost of trust. In our view, and I think one of the challenges that we deal with as an independent regulator, is we have to call it as we see it. And it is sort of like a soccer game, the officials, you're going to have certain people in the stadium that aren't going to like your calls and certain people who are, simply based on the score. And I agree with Commissioner McGaffigan. I think that there are some individuals--and certainly, I don't mean to impune your desire to seek the legislation, but I think there are some individuals--who believe that were we go down the route of an ISA at Indian Point that would have the same result as Main Yankee. But I agree with Ed. I think it's a completely different factual situation relative to the issues that we were confronted with at Main Yankee, which were quite serious. And the issues, although you have noted them at Indian Point, are not nearly of the same safety significance. We have to worry about having a degree of uniformity in the inspection programs that we do and I think that's ultimately one of the concerns I have that the application of our processes at Indian Point should also be applicable to my home state plant of Seabrook, to Arkansas Nuclear One, the Palo Verde in Arizona and elsewhere. And to the extent we get ourselves in a point of cherry-picking additional inspection resources based simply on issues of public concern, I think that gets us into a very unpredictable standpoint as a regulator.

Senator Clinton: Well let me just end by saying as I understand what Commissioner McGaffigan said, that you do work with the state and the state could participate in some fashion. Is that correct?

Commissioner McGaffigan: That's my understanding. I don't know whether the January inspection, whether they took advantage of the opportunity or not.

Witness: It is my understanding that the state did have an observer for the inspection at Indian Point two that we did.

Senator Clinton: Thank you Mr. Chairman

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Read more statements by Senator Clinton concerning Indian Point.

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