Editing Nuclear Regulatory Commission (section)

=== Intentionally concealing reports concerning the risks of flooding ===
{{More citations needed|section|date=May 2021}}

Following the Fukushima disaster, the NRC prepared a report in 2011 to examine the risk that dam failures posed on the nation's fleet of nuclear reactors. A redacted version of NRC's report on dam failures was posted on the NRC website on March 6. The original, un-redacted version was leaked to the public.

The un-redacted version which was leaked to the public highlights the threat that flooding poses to nuclear power plants located near large dams and substantiates claims that NRC management has intentionally misled the public for years about the severity of the flooding.

The leaked version of the report concluded that one-third of the U.S. nuclear fleet (34 plants) may face flooding hazards greater than they were designed to withstand. It also shows that NRC management was aware of some aspects of this risk for 15 years and yet it had done nothing to effectively address the problem. Some flooding events are so serious that they could result in a "severe" nuclear accident, up to, and including, a nuclear meltdown.

This criticism is corroborated by two NRC whistleblowers who accused their management of deliberately covering up information concerning the vulnerability of flooding, and of failing to take corrective actions despite being aware of these risks for years. Richard Perkins, a second risk engineer with the NRC and the lead author of the leaked report, filed a complaint with the agency's Inspector General, asserting that NRC staff had improperly redacted information from the public version of his report "to prevent the disclosure of this safety information to the public because it will embarrass the agency." Perkins wrote. "Concurrently, the NRC concealed the information from the public."<ref name="ReferenceA">{{Cite web|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/19/nuclear-plant-flood-threat-leak_n_1983005.html|last=Zeller|first=Tom|work=Huffpost|title=Leaked Report Suggests Long-Known Flood Threat To Nuclear Plants, Safety Advocates Say|date=October 19, 2012}}</ref>

Larry Criscione, a second NRC risk engineer also raised concerns about the NRC withholding information concerning the risk of flooding. He stated that assertions by NRC's management that plants are "currently able to mitigate flooding events," was false.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and safety advocate with the [[Union of Concerned Scientists]]: "The redacted information shows that the NRC is lying to the American public about the safety of U.S. reactors,"<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

The [[Oconee Nuclear Station]] has been shown to be at particular risk from flooding. An NRC letter dated 2009 states that "a [[Jocassee Dam|Jocassee Dam failure]] is a credible event". It goes on to state that "NRC staff expressed concerns that Duke has not demonstrated that the [null Oconee Nuclear Station] units will be adequately protected."<ref>NRC's July 2011 report on dam failures say that the 2009 letter is not publicly available; this quote here is taken from the unredacted version of the NRC's July 2011 report</ref>

NRC's 2011 leaked report notes that "dam failure incidents are common". NRC estimated the odds that dams constructed like Jocassee will fail is about 1 in 3,600 failures per year. Oconee is licensed to operate for another 20 years. The odds of the Jocassee Dam failing over that period are 1 in 180. NRC requires risks to be investigated if they have a frequency of more than 1 in 10,000 years. For a reactor operating over a period of 40 years, these risks must be evaluated if they have a chance greater than a 1 in 250 of occurring.

NRC identified 34 reactors that lie downstream from a total of more than 50 dams. More than half of these dams are roughly the size of the Jocassee dam. Assuming the NRC's failure rate applies to all of these dams, the chance that one will fail over the next 40 years is about one in four or 25 percent chance. This dam failure rate does not include risks posed by earthquakes or terrorism. Thus, the true probability may be much higher.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/floods-from-dam-failure-10-19-12.pdf|title=Union of Concerned Scientists, Dam Failures and Flooding at U.S. Nuclear Plant|access-date=September 6, 2019|archive-date=September 26, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190926060112/https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/floods-from-dam-failure-10-19-12.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

This raised a second and potentially larger issue. NRC recently completed its license renewal program which extended the operating licenses of the nation's fleet of nuclear reactors for an additional 20 years. NRC stated that the probability of a severe accident is so incredible that the consequences can be dismissed from the analysis of impacts in its relicensing [[environmental impact statement]]s (EIS). Yet this conflicts with NRC's internal analyses which concluded that flooding presented a serious human and environmental risk. Critics charge that if these relicensing EISs failed to evaluate the risks of flooding, then how can the public be confident that NRC did not mislead stakeholders concerning other risks such as the potential for a nuclear meltdown.

NRC officials stated in June 2011 that US nuclear safety rules do not adequately weigh the risk of a single event that would knock out electricity from the grid and from emergency generators, as a quake and tsunami did in Japan.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/u-s-reactors-unprepared-for-total-power-loss-report-suggests/ |title=U.S. Reactors Unprepared for Total Power Loss, Report Suggests |author=Matthew Wald |date=June 15, 2011 |work=New York Times }}</ref> {{As of|2011|10|alt = In October 2011}}, and NRC instructed agency staff to move forward with seven of the 12 safety recommendations put forward by a federal task force in July 2011. The recommendations include "new standards aimed at strengthening operators' ability to deal with a complete loss of power, ensuring plants can withstand floods and earthquakes and improving emergency response capabilities". The new safety standards will take up to five years to fully implement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/188767-federal-regulators-agree-to-implement-tighter-nuclear-standards |title=Nuke regulators toughen safety rules |author=Andrew Restuccia |date=2011-10-20 |work=The Hill |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114112850/http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/188767-federal-regulators-agree-to-implement-tighter-nuclear-standards |archive-date=2012-01-14 }}</ref>

{{As of|2011|11|alt = In November 2011}}, Jaczko warned power companies against complacency and said the agency must "push ahead with new rules prompted by the nuclear crisis in Japan, while also resolving long-running issues involving fire protection and a new analysis of earthquake risks".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/nrc-chair-warns-nuclear-industry-against-complacency-says-it-must-resolve-long-running-issues/2011/11/10/gIQAq32l9M_story.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827034738/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/industries/nrc-chair-warns-nuclear-industry-against-complacency-says-it-must-resolve-long-running-issues/2011/11/10/gIQAq32l9M_story.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 August 2016 |title=NRC chair warns nuclear industry against complacency, says it must resolve long-running issues |date=11 November 2011 |newspaper=Washington Post }}</ref>

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has also been criticized for its reluctance to allow for innovation and experimentation, even controlled for and purportedly safe methods of deploying nuclear power that countries such as Poland are approving before the United States. As reported by [[Reason (magazine)|Reason magazine]] in May 2022: {{blockquote|Oregon's NuScale Power signed an agreement with the Polish mining and processing firm KGHM to deploy NuScale's innovative small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in Poland by 2029. At the U.N.'s Glasgow Climate Change Conference in November, NuScale contracted with a Romanian energy company to deploy its SMR technology in that country by 2028. NuScale has signed similar memoranda of understanding with electric power companies in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

This kind of advanced energy technology will likely be powering homes and businesses in Europe before the first reactor is completed in the United States. That's because the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is in no hurry to help.<ref name="America's Nuclear Reluctance – Reason">{{cite web |last1=Bailey |first1=Ronald |title=America's Nuclear Reluctance |url=https://reason.com/2022/05/23/americas-nuclear-reluctance/ |website=reason.com |date=23 May 2022 |publisher=Reason |access-date=25 May 2022}}</ref>
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