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television with my 18-year old daughter and I was about to drive her off to school and watched
<br /> this horror unfold just a few miles away from my home. And I began to think about this more
<br /> carefully. In doing that, what I discovered is that this county here, Orange County, has played a
<br /> very critical role in forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into making some very important
<br /> concessions about the nature and risk of spent fuel fires (applause). The nation of Germany
<br /> had come to this conclusion 25 years ago. I think that the problem we face in adding on to what
<br /> Ed was saying with respect to the consequences of a fire; if you look very carefully at the
<br /> Nuclear Regulatory Commission's entire approach to risk associated with accidents or acts of
<br /> malice, they do not consider land contamination. They do consider evacuation, but they do not
<br /> consider when it is safe to return. From the perspective of spent fuel, there is general
<br /> agreement if the industry is going to be intellectually honest and open that this poses the most
<br /> severe radiological vulnerability in the United States and the world. We are talking about some
<br /> of the largest concentrations of radioactivity in the planet in our backyards — in conditions where
<br /> they should not be stored. They should not be stored in water, they should not be density
<br /> compacted. We have technologies, moreover, to put them in safer, hardened, secure storage.
<br /> Now, what are the lessons that we have learned from this? We should have learned lessons
<br /> from Chernobyl. Chernobyl, while it was a reactor accident, involved two major explosions and
<br /> a fire that went on for ten days. It subsequently involved 600,000 emergency responders to
<br /> deal with. Over 220,000 people were permanently relocated. Today, 74,000 square miles of
<br /> land in northern and eastern Europe are contaminated with Cesium 137 at levels in this country
<br /> that would not be considered acceptable or tolerable for habitation.
<br /> Why haven't we learned this lesson as a society, as a nation, as a government?
<br /> I think the problem is pretty straightforward. We have a system that is in denial. We are not
<br /> talking about generating electricity anymore and making money from electricity. We are talking
<br /> about public safety, public security, and how we define these priorities. On the short list of
<br /> those priorities, from my own personal and professional perspective, is the safe and secure
<br /> storage of spent fuel. You have heard that the technologies exist, this is not something that is
<br /> exotic. It takes will and the desire and an admission by this industry that this is not a safe way
<br /> of going about doing business. There is legislation before the United States Congress, the
<br /> Nuclear Security Act-1746, which was introduced by Senators Lieberman, Clinton, Reid, and
<br /> Jeffords. It is a very important piece of legislation because what it does, among many things, is
<br /> that it federalizes the security forces around commercial reactors. You have heard this today
<br /> about the deficiencies of the protection that exist today at commercial reactors. It expands the
<br /> emergency planning zone from ten to fifty miles. We know that radiation does not sort of obey
<br /> geographical boundary rules. It, most importantly, requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
<br /> to come up within 18 months of enactment of this bill, what is called a new design basis threat.
<br /> This is the envelope in which the protection and security this plan is based upon that takes into
<br /> account what happened on September 11`h, not just a handful of people going in and taking
<br /> over, but as many as 20 people. It requires that these tests, these OSRE tests be done with
<br /> great rigor, and that there be penalties assigned to the reactor owners who fail these tests. And
<br /> it also calls for the placement of spent fuel from pools into dry hardened storage modes
<br /> (applause).
<br /> Now, in the scheme of things, given the fact that we now live in this unfortunate
<br /> and increasingly dangerous world, we have to start assigning risks and making tough decisions
<br /> about what are the pious risks. And quite frankly, from my own personal point of view, the
<br /> closure of a reactor at this stage in history is not going to significantly reduce our risk, but the
<br /> safe secure storage of spent fuel would be a first order priority. The Yucca Mountain repository,
<br /> you may have heard from many politicians that this is going to make our spent fuel secure.
<br /> Well, assuming under the most optimistic scenario that we will open a repository by the year
<br /> 2010, we are looking at a 40-year window of time when this stuff will be moved. And assuming
<br /> that we will continue to generate this waste, based on various assumptions, we will probably
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