Better Safe Than Sorry

Politically, Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.)--two conservatives and two liberals--agree on virtually nothing. They do agree on one thing, however: The United States must not permit a terrorist to turn one of the nation’s nuclear power plants into a Chernobyl.

The meltdown that turned the infamous Ukrainian plant into a radioactive volcano came about by accident. Fearful evidence exists that a similar catastrophe could occur here by sabotage. Last week, the four senators wrote Ivan Selin, chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, “In the aftermath of the truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, the truck bombing of the World Trade Center, and the intrusion into the turbine building of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant by a deranged individual driving a station wagon, the design-basis threat (at U.S. nuclear power plants) should be upgraded to include these types of vehicular assaults.”

A design-basis threat is one that is met not by such measures as alerting security guards but by the physical design of the plant itself. After the Beirut attack, design-basis measures were taken to prevent a truck-bomb suicide attack on the White House. The senators want to see analogous measures in force at nuclear power plants.

The World Trade Center bombing proved that terrorists operating in the United States are capable of a no-warning attack with massive explosive force. After that attack, the NRC announced plans to require design-basis protection at American nuclear power plants.

More recently, however, some advisers to the NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards have urged a go-slow policy, suggesting that the NRC conduct a probabilistic risk assessment before implementing new regulations. In their letter to Selin, the senators write: “Undertaking a probabilistic risk assessment at this point would turn a matter of common sense into a complicated mathematical exercise. Clearly, there is a big gap in the current regulations, and this gap needs to be filled.”

We agree, and we urge Selin to move forward with all possible dispatch. The cost of the safety upgrade--which the utilities will pass on to the ratepayers in any event--is tiny compared to the cost of a Chernobyl on American soil.