Is there anyone else that might? If you are, I'd appreciate your standing up, and we'll swear everyone in; and if we call on you, we'll just know that you were sworn in. Raising your right hands, thank you, gentlemen and ladies. [Witnesses sworn.] Mr. SHAYS. Note for the record everyone has responded in the affirmative. Please be seated. Do we have enough chairs? Mr. Renz, I'm going to have you slide a little to your right just a speck, I guess, and then slide over a little bit. Yes, that's good. OK. Have we left anyone out? I may have not pronounced your name correctly, sir. Mr. SLOBODIEN. Slobodien. Mr. SHAYS. Slobodien? Mr. SLOBODIEN. Yes. Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't pronounce it correctly. It's wonderful to have you here. I'm sorry you had to wait so long. I suspect you probably figured that might happen. But what I would appreciate is that you recognize that this is a very important panel; we're looking forward to some of the interaction that will take place between you. I would be more inclined to want to hear-have you speak for 5 minutes rather than 10, given the size of this panel. And I think we all will have questions for you. So we'll start, I guess the way you're seated, OK? And that's the way we'll do it. Mr. Wells. STATEMENTS OF JIM WELLS, DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; MICHAEL J. SLOBODIEN, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY PROGRAMS, ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.; WILLIAM F. RENZ, DIRECTOR, NUCLEAR PROTECTION SERVICES AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, DOMINION RESOURCES SERVICES, INC.; ANGELINA S. HOWARD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NUCLEAR ENERGY INSTITUTE; ALEX MATTHIESSEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RIVERKEEPER; AND DAVID LOCHBAUM, NUCLEAR SAFETY ENGINEER, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS Mr. WELLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are pleased to be here today to discuss emergency preparedness at commercial and nuclear power plants. Twenty-four years ago, March 1979, the accident at Three Mile Island challenged emergency planning. The residents at Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant awoke in February 2000 to similar concerns. Following the September 11 terrorist attack, nuclear power plants have once again received a high level of focus and concern. Almost 2 years later, we're sitting here today learning that we still have to get our act together, and we still have a ways to go on emergency planning. You have already heard testimony from NRC, FEMA and others on the events at Indian Point. Clearly, no one is going to take emergency preparedness lightly. But as you can see today, Mr. Chairman, getting facts to questions is like asking auditing ques tions, that it is sometimes difficult to get the answers; and we share your pain. At the time we looked at Indian Point, NRC had identified a number of emergency preparedness weaknesses that had gone largely uncorrected. I think it would be fair to say that over the years, Consolidated Edison's efforts to improve were not completely successful. And it's fair to say from our perspective that the NRC and its IGs had maintained a strong regulatory posture in finding problems. They identified problems, but didn't necessarily always have the solutions. For example, 1996, 1998, 1999, NRC identified communication weaknesses. These included delays as simple as just notifying and getting the pagers to work so that people could be told of an emergency. The IG also issued a strong report. The plant has, and is, taking corrective actions to address these problems. According to a 2001 NRC inspection report, these actions, when they went in and looked, were not fully effective. Although NRC is finding problems-although of a minor nature, it expressed the view that the existing program could protect the public. The four New York communities surrounding the facilities also had their problems and made improvements over time. But we continue to hear a common theme that suggests that better communication among NRC, FEMA, State and local entities is clearly needed. For example, the classic case of confusion occurred when the plant reported that a release had occurred, but posed no threat to the public; yet, the county officials reported that no release had occurred. This contradictory information has led to credibility problems with the media and the public, and it continues to do so. We also reported the concern, and the main message of our GAO report was that the NRC and the FEMA communication was oriented toward the State officials and less with local officials. Both NRC and FEMA continually told us that they had limited resources that forced them to rely on the States to work more closely with the counties. Effective communication, over and over again, has been pointed out as being extremely critical to respond to a radiological emergency. You've heard it today. We recommended that NRC and FEMA reassess these policies for communicating primarily with the State and in those instances where the local communities are clearly the first to have to respond to this emergency. Mr. Conklin today, Homeland Security, used the terminology, "working closely with the local communities." Mr. Miller, NRC, used the words "closely monitoring all the existing reports" that were coming up and used the terminology "stepped up meetings." I guess it depends on your definition of "closely," because we called the local officials as we got ready for this hearing and we asked questions about how had communications improved. And I think it would be a general, valid statement to say that the answers we were getting back from many of the local officials was that not much has changed. So I guess your definition of "closely" may depend on whether it's minuscule or some, but that was what we were able to find in a few days before coming to the table here today. You also asked us our opinion about the latest review that had been done at Indian Point, the draft Witt report. Clearly, the Witt report was more technical than our 2000 report, but they both addressed difficulties in communications and in planning inadequacy. The Witt report implied that the current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to protect the public from an unacceptable dose of radiation. We are aware, Mr. Chairman, that FEMA has disagreed with some of the issues raised, but they also admit that the report does highlight several issues that are worth considering in order to improve emergency preparedness not only at Indian Point, but perhaps more importantly, nationwide. And at the risk, Mr. Chairman, of raising your ire, we also saw where NRC had commented that the report gives undue weight to the impact of terrorism. But the point, regardless of these quick positions, is that if the Witt findings are true, these findings may have merit across the board at all the nuclear power plants, and clearly more needs to be done. Mr. Chairman, in summary, let me just say that the post-September 11 environment clearly raises new challenges for NRC and FEMA. NRC and the nuclear industry, some of which are here on the panel today, they deserve a lot of credit for taking action quickly to strengthen their security as a result of a changing world. However, let me just make two quick points. First, at Indian Point, there's been a lot of ink in the press. There've been a lot of audit reports in GAO, from the NRC IG and even the new Witt study questioning the weaknesses in emergency preparedness. We, today, are still concerned that, as revealed in the hearings today, problems in emergency preparedness are still commonplace. Mr. Chairman, in your opening statement you used the terminology, "deficiencies can linger for years;" that is unfortunately too true. Even minor problems can cause concern. As to what happened at Indian Point, senior management officials must clearly pay attention to emergency preparedness. These plans have not received, as they should, greater visibility-sometimes minimal direction and inadequate resource allocation. We heard 27 people in the State of Connecticut, for instance. Second, the point I want to make is the old saying, "What gets watched gets done," is particularly appropriate here. Hearings like this today that continue to focus on the NRC mission to provide quality oversight I'm not sure we heard quality oversight today, but clearly our goal is to assist you, Mr. Chairman, and your committee in sorting through where do we go from here as a nation. And I agree 100 percent that the public has a right to know. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll conclude my remarks. |