"...part of the Unit 2 core may be out of the reactor pressure vessel..."

A dispute has erupted between top officials at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA), longtime critic of the nuclear power industry and ranking Democrat on the U.S. House Energy and Environment Subcommittee. NASDAQ reports that Timothy Riley, an NRC congressional affairs officer, emailed a Markey staffer that "Based on radiation readings in the drywell and the torus ... the NRC staff speculates that part of the Unit 2 core may be out of the reactor pressure vessel and may be in the lower space of the drywell...". But Martin Virgilio, deputy executive director for reactor and preparedness programs at NRC, told reporters yesterday "That's not in the situation report that we have from the team in Japan...And that [report is] as of this morning." Virgilio continued that Markey "obviously received the information from somebody or some source and from the NRC...So we'll have to sort that out." Virgilio concluded that NRC believes there was significant fuel damage in three reactors, "but we don't believe at this point in time that core has left the vessel." The New York Times has also reported on this subject.