And
now, here’s the update:
Very
Large Lies about Waste (VLLW)
We’ve
been very busy fighting one of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) worst ideas to
date: To relabel very dangerous and long-lasting
nuclear waste as “Very Low-Level Waste,” or VLLW
(we call it Very Large Lies about Waste). By
labeling dangerous nuclear waste as “very
low-level,” the NRC would make it easy for
operators to get rid of their waste on the
cheap, bypassing regulations that protect the
health and safety of our communities. The NRC’s
proposal would pave the way for dangerous
nuclear waste to end up in our local landfills,
or even to be recycled into consumer products,
such as zippers and baby bottles. To fight back
against this terrible proposal, NIRS supporters
like you have sent more than 6,000 comments to
the NRC demanding that nuclear power waste stay
under regulatory control—and we’re keeping up
the pressure into the fall, too!
Hauling
Dangerous Nuclear Waste Across America
Here’s
another bad from the NRC that we’ve been fending
off this summer: Licensing Consolidated
‘Interim’ Storage (CIS) facilities for
high-level nuclear waste in Texas and New
Mexico. Building these so-called ‘interim’ sites
would require hauling dangerous, high-level
nuclear waste all over the country twice: Once
to the ‘interim’ sites, then once again to the
permanent site—if that is ever built. If the
permanent site is not built, the ‘interim’ sites
could become de-facto permanent storage sites.
Communities (largely Hispanic) in New Mexico and
Texas would become the latest sacrifice to the
nuclear industry. NIRS supporters like you have
sent thousands of comments to the NRC opposing
these proposals. We’ve also helped local groups
in Texas and New Mexico organize opposition to
these sites.
COVID-19
and Nuclear Safety
While
the NRC has been busy with all these bad ideas,
they’ve also been falling down on the job of
protecting nuclear workers from COVID-19 and
protecting us from the pandemic’s effects on
nuclear safety. We don’t have an accurate count
of how many nuclear workers have contracted
COVID-19 because the NRC and the industry are
not even collecting that information. At the few
reactor sites where reports have surfaced,
hundreds of workers have been infected. And the
NRC has granted more than 200 exemptions to skip
safety inspections during the pandemic. We also
don’t have an official account of how the
pandemic is affecting essential nuclear facility
functions, such as refueling, because the NRC
isn’t keeping track on behalf of the public. We
mobilized over 90 organizations to put
pressure on the NRC, the industry, and the White
House to come clean on COVID-19’s impact on
nuclear workers and public safety. We also
created a petition to Congress and the
president’s COVID-19 task force to protect
nuclear workers during the pandemic.
Nuclear
Corruption
Recent
news about corrupt nuclear bailouts in Illinois
and Ohio revealed to the public what we already
knew: The nuclear industry is corrupt from top
to bottom. Federal agents have arrested the
Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives and
lobbyists, and utilities that received
billion-dollar nuclear bailouts in both states
are under investigation. In South Carolina,
nuclear executives are under indictment for
fraud in a failed $9 billion reactor project.
We’ve been beating this drum relentlessly on
social and traditional media, and calling for
investigations of nuclear corruption in other
states where utilities have lobbied for more
than $10 billion in bailouts. For example, we
recently syndicated a co-authored opinion piece
where we connect the dots about corruption in
the nuclear industry with its other faults, such
as its role in blocking the rollout of
renewables.
Cutting
Corners on New Nuclear Reactors
In
yet another bad idea (do you see a pattern
here?), the NRC is looking to exempt so-called
‘advanced’ nuclear reactors (ANRs) from various
regulations that protect public health and the
environment. If the NRC has its way, certain
kinds of new reactors would be exempt from
providing emergency response plans that must be
approved by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency. Instead, the NRC would let plant owners
determine what the size of the Emergency
Planning Zone (EPZ) should be—or whether offsite
emergency planning is required at all. The NRC’s
other bright idea is to produce a generic
environmental impact statement for these
‘advanced’ reactors. By fast-tracking the
environmental review of ANRs, the NRC is once
again putting the interests of the nuclear
industry before our health and safety. NIRS
supporters sent thousands of comments to the NRC
opposing these proposals.
Support
Our Work
These
are just some of the projects we’ve been working
on this summer. We plan to continue some of
these and launch new ones this fall. But we
can’t do it without your support.
If
you believe in our vision of a nuclear-free,
fossil-free world, please
donate today and your gift will be matched by a
generous anonymous donor.
Thanks
for all you do,
The
NIRS Team
Diane
D'Arrigo Luis Hestres Denise
Jakobsberg Tim Judson
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