Gordon Questions NRC’s Double Standard on Nuclear Plant Secrets
In response to recent concerns raised by House Science Committee Ranking Member Bart Gordon (D-TN), the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has acknowledged that the agency made a deliberate decision after 9/11 not to "retrieve or restrict access" to sensitive security documents regarding U.S. nuclear power plants contained in more than 80 public libraries across the nation.
This decision left thousands of documents on U.S. nuclear facilities – including details on their vulnerabilities, plant schematics and even the potential consequences of an aircraft crashing into a commercial reactor – easily available for viewing and copying at public libraries across the country.
"Leaving potentially dangerous information like this in the public domain is simply irresponsible," said Rep. Gordon. "As soon as it came to my attention, I contacted the NRC to give them a chance to better clarify the situation."
The NRC’s public document rooms stopped receiving documents from the NRC in 1999 when the agency began posting its information on a new publicly accessible on-line database. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks the NRC took its on-line database off-line and removed thousands of sensitive documents. Yet, they never pulled the same documents from the public document rooms. Last night, NBC Nightly News reported on an investigation they conducted on this issue where a producer obtained access to these "sensitive" nuclear documents at four separate libraries. Nuclear security experts say many of those documents could provide a roadmap for terrorists.
"This is an inconsistent policy that needs correcting," added Rep. Gordon. In response to the Ranking Member’s concerns, the NRC sent a 16-page reply this week to his questions. In their letter, they argue that the amount of sensitive security information in the public domain is "limited" and the usefulness of the material is "minimal" both because of the "age" of the documents and the "subsequent improvements in security programs and measures."
The NRC also argues that the ownership of the NRC public document rooms was transferred to the Government Printing Office (GPO), which maintains a Federal Depository Library Program, and to local public libraries in 1999, suggesting that they have limited control over the pre-1999 NRC documents. Yet, e-mails obtained by the House Science Committee show that in the wake of the 9/11 attacks both the GPO and public libraries that maintained the NRC records sought guidance from the NRC regarding public access to sensitive NRC documents in the libraries’ collection of NRC data. Instead of providing guidance regarding the removal of sensitive documents from the public domain, the NRC made a deliberate decision not to remove any of the data from the public document rooms.
"The NRC’s response is less than adequate, and it certainly doesn’t assure me that citizens are safe from ill-intentioned groups seeking to access this information," said Rep. Gordon. "The NRC owes it to the American public to make an accurate and consistent determination of what information is truly a security risk and what is not and then pull the information that poses a threat."
The NRC’s own Inspector General’s office is in the process of completing a report on the agency’s local public document rooms. Rep. Gordon and the Science Committee intend to closely monitor this situation and urge the agency to re-visit and revamp the NRC’s current contradictory and disjointed policy.
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