Plan to federalize guards at nuclear plants revealed

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Nov. 30, 2001 | 9:45 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Now that Congress has approved a federal security force for the nation's airports, it should approve the same for nuclear power plants, Sen. Harry Reid said.

Reid, D-Nev., along with Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, unveiled new legislation Thursday designed to reduce terrorism risks at the nation's 103 nuclear reactors. Nuclear power plants are "clear and harrowing" potential terrorist targets, Lieberman said.

The bill would put a new security force of as many as 7,000 highly trained guards under the jurisdiction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The legislation also would: mandate mock terrorist attacks on plants by air, water and land; mandate that plants plan for a wider variety of potential terrorist threats; and require the stockpile of potassium iodide, which can reduce the effects of radiation exposure, at schools and hospitals within 50 miles of nuclear facilities.

"We need a whole new system," Reid said at a press conference. Reid called current security at plants "rent-a-cops."

The NRC "strongly opposes" the bill for a number of reasons, NRC chairman Richard Meserve said in a Nov. 28 letter to Reid.

The federalized security force is not needed, Meserve said, although Reid and the bill's other co-signers said security tests at nuclear power plants have shown a number of weaknesses.

Meserve said Reid's bill tries to fix a "non-existent problem." Private security firms provide "well-trained, well paid" guards, Meserve said. The bill also preempts efforts under way by the NRC to strengthen security, Meserve said.

Meserve argued that the legislation would shift the whole focus of the NRC from an independent regulatory agency to a security force manager. He also pointed to the cost: roughly $1 billion, which means nuclear power plants could pass on higher electricity rates to consumers.

Reid countered that nuclear power plants already spend a lot of money on private security, so the $1 billion figure is misleading.

The nuclear industry opposes the bill, too, said Joe Colvin, president and chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's influential top lobby group.

"The proposal is a reflexive political response to a problem that does not exist, given the fact that nuclear power plants are private facilities protected by a paramilitary force of highly trained, well-armed, dedicated professionals," Colvin said.