Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel demanded Entergy immediately start raising the missing $500 million necessary to safely close down the reactors at Indian Point. Nuclear power plants are required to have enough funds set aside to safely close plants. A recent New York Times report said Entergy is a half billion dollars short of the required $1.5 billion.

Rep. Engel said, “In its March 21 edition, the Times reported the Entergy shortfall necessary to safety shut down the plant’s two active reactors. These plants are already too old and Entergy wants to run them for another 20 years   - that’s a recipe for disaster.

“Eighty-four of the nation’s 104 reactors have put aside enough money to finance dismantling, but not enough has been set aside for the three reactors at Indian Point.  Indian Point 1 closed 38 years ago, and still hasn’t been dismantled.  Time after time, and criteria after criteria, Indian Point had ranked among the nation’s most dangerous nuclear reactors.  The time to close Indian Point is past.”

He added, “Indian Point has received vast government subsidies through tax credits, loan guarantees, and nuclear liability insurance system which requires the taxpayers to provide insurance against a nuclear accident since no private insurance company is willing to take on that risk. Taxpayers should not have to contribute any more to this outdated plant.  It’s time for Entergy to pay its own way.”

The 12-term Congressman said, “Among the expenses associated with the shutdown of a plant, is moving spent nuclear fuel from fuel pools into dry cask storage.  The reactors at Indian Point have three times more radioactivity than the combined total of all four spent-fuel pools at the damaged Fukushima reactors.  The expense and time needed to dismantle nuclear reactors would be greatly reduced with the passage of my Dry Cask Storage Act (HR 2075), which would require moving spent nuclear fuel rods to certified dry cask storage within one year of the fuel rods being qualified to be placed in the casks.”

“If the plants’ licenses expire, as they should, the metropolitan area faces decades of them sitting idle while money slowly accrues to close them. This is a highly unsafe scenario, one that the millions of people who live near the plant must not be forced to face,” continued Rep. Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that he will deny the plants state environmental permits to force them to close. Entergy has said it wants to renew its licenses to accrue enough money to then close the plants.

Rep. Engel said, “This sounds like corporate blackmail; ‘Give us the licenses or face a hulking industrial relic sitting idle for decades 25 miles from New York City.’ These plants should be closed and Entergy must face its obligation to close them safely and as quickly as possible.”

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