Five Years Later, NRC Has Made Only Limited Progress Instituting Post-Fukushima Safety Upgrades

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http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/post-fukushima-reforms-report-0678

March 3, 2016

Report: Five Years Later, NRC Has Made Only Limited Progress Instituting Post-Fukushima Safety Upgrades

Public Remains at Unacceptable Risk from Serious Accidents

WASHINGTON (March 3, 2016) — Five years after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has made insufficient progress in improving U.S. nuclear power safety in light of lessons learned from the disaster, according to a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The report, “Preventing an American Fukushima,” found that the NRC rejected or significantly weakened key common-sense recommendations made by its post-Fukushima task force and others to enhance nuclear safety and has yet to fully implement the reforms it did adopt. The report also found that all too often the agency abdicated its responsibility as the nation’s nuclear watchdog by allowing the industry to rely on voluntary guidelines, which are, by their very nature, unenforceable.

“Although the NRC and the nuclear industry have devoted considerable resources to address the post-Fukushima task force recommendations, they haven’t done all they should to protect the public from a similar disaster,” said report author Edwin Lyman, a UCS senior scientist and co-author of the 2014 book, “Fukushima: The Story of a Nuclear Disaster.” “If the NRC is serious about protecting the public and plant workers, it should reconsider a number of recommendations it scrapped under pressure from plant owners and their supporters in Congress.”

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