Nuclear agency squandered $350 million on redundant building but claims $8 million too high and timeframe too long for cancer study
Beyond Nuclear today released a statement denouncing the NRC's willingness to squander money on white elephants and protracted licensing proceedings while canceling a vital cancer study around nuclear facilitiies:
TAKOMA PARK, MD, September 11, 2015 — This week, Beyond Nuclear, was widely quoted in the press as challenging the reasoning given by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in canceling a proposed cancer study around U.S. nuclear facilities.
We alleged that the NRC’s balking at just an $8 million expenditure for a 39-month pilot study “smells wrong” and “doesn't seem like a credible answer."
An NRC spokesman justified the cancelation due to cost and “the long duration" of such a study while pointing to the agency's “responsibility to use congressionally-provided funds as wisely as possible.”
That “wise” spending includes $350 million of taxpayer money squandered on a new building, 3 White Flint North (pictured), located at the NRC’s Rockville, MD headquarters and that the agency found it in fact did not need. This lavish expenditure was predicated on ramping up staff to deal with the “renaissance” of new nuclear plants, which has proven an illusion of industry. But the agency is not shy about spending time and money on projects favorable to the nuclear industry it is supposed to monitor.
“The NRC is certainly willing to spend millions of dollars and as long as it takes to license and relicense aging reactors that are likely responsible for cancers the agency now refuses to even look at,” said Paul Gunter, Director of Reactor Oversight at Beyond Nuclear. “The NRC has been reviewing the Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear power plant’s construction and operation application for 43 years for a 40-year operating license,” he noted.
September 11, 2015