which we are going to have to hear in order to have a complete hearing today, please refrain from any outbursts of any nature. Governor DUKAKIS. I know that witnesses may follow me today to assert that the NRC's idea of an adequate plan is less stringent than mine, and that the NRC's judgment ought to prevail. Yet, I have to assume that the NRC knew what it was doing back in 1980 when it created the emergency planning rules and delegated to the governors the responsibility to determine the adequacy of those plans. Mr. Chairman, the NRC acted wisely when it gave the emergency planning responsibility to the States. Only the States can quickly mobilize the resources necessary to protect the public during disasters of the magnitude of a nuclear accident. I believe we have exercised our responsibility toward emergency planning for Seabrook in good faith, and I believe that my decision is the only responsible one that could have been made. I trust and expect that that decision will be upheld, and I welcome your continued support for it. Both I and Secretary Pollard and Secretary Barry will be heppy to respond to any questions that you might have, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Governor, very much. They do not have individual statements to make? Governor DUKAKIS. No, sir. Mr. MARKEY. Thank you. [Testimony resumes on p. 104.] [The prepared testimony of Governor Dukakis and attachment follow:] Testimony of Governor "chael S. Dukakis House Subcommittee or Fnergy Conservation and Power Amesbury, Massachusetts Thank you, "r. Chairman, and allow me to commend you, not only for bringing this hearing to Amesbury today, but for your continuing effort to hold the nuclear power program in this country to the highest levels of safety. The issue of safety is what brings us here today, the safety of the people of Massachusetts and New Hampshire who live and work near the Seabrook nuclear power plant, and the safety of the public at large. Mr. Chairman, as you know only too well, nuclear plant safety is the product of many different and complex factors. Yet one thing about nuclear plants is very simple and clear: the safest plant is not the plant with the best emergency plans, or the strongest containment vessel, or the greatest number of back-up safety systems. The safest plants are those where accidents never happen and never will. Maybe this sounds simplistic, like saying that the best evacuation plan is the one we never have to use. But it is true. For any accident that leads to the use of back-up safety systems, or brings the containment into use, or leads to evacuation- any accident that brings these things about will also bring about some damage to the nuclear reactor, and the chance of damage to the environment and to people, regardless of how good the safety systems and the evacuation planning is for that nuclear plant. This confronts us with an enormous challenge. As we were reminded so vividly by Chernobyl, nuclear energy and its by-products have extraordinary destructive potential. Even a little damage from a little nuclear accident may be too much for us to bear. Does this mean that we should give up on nuclear power ? Not necessarily. I do not believe that nuclear technology is cursed by certain failure any more than believed the claims made back in the Fifties and the Sixties that nuclear power was fool-proof and would eventually be "too cheap to meter. But nuclear technology is enormously complex, and potentially very dangerous. Some of its rost serious problems have been almost ignored, most particularly the probler of ruclear waste disposal. The way to ensure nuclear safety is to attack these problems head-on, to insist on clear answers, and above all, to insist that these plants he designed, constructed, re-constructed if necessary, and then operated in a manner so that accidents will not happen. Mr. Chairman, that is why the work that you and your subcommittee are doing is so important. The best emergency planning will go for naught, if nuclear plants are not operated and maintained at the highest levels of safety, and if our nuclear program does not aggressively confront potential problems with nuclear plant design and construction as they become apparent. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is our watchdog on these issues. Your efforts to ensure that the N.R.C. lives up to its mission are thus very critical, for all of us. State government has a very important role to play here as well, primarily in devising effective emergency response plans. After the Three Mile Island accident, the N.P.C. wisely promulgated new rules which called upon the states to submit emergency evacuation plans before nuclear power plants were licensed for operation. In issuing these rules the N.P.C. admitted that accidents can happen. In fact, the Commission's emergency planning guidelines instruct governors to assume that accidents will happen. The governors are not asked to make a judgment call on whether or not an accident will occur, and how bad it will be. The governors are asked to prepare for a wide range of possible accidents, from the most minor to the worst, and to certify to the Federal government that those plans will be adequate to protect the public health and safety in the event of an accident. Let me repeat this. Emergency plans must be "adequate to protect the public health and safety." The regulations do not say that plans shall he rinimally adequate, or that they will merely reduce the threat to public health: they say that plans will be "adequate to protect public health and safety." Now many other witnesses may come after me to testify that the N.P.C. says that plans must be "adequate" they mean something less. I ar perfectly aware that the "uclear Pegulatory Commission seems prepared to accept emergency plans that merely demonstrate that public officials will do the best job they can when and if a nuclear accident occurs. I am also aware that the N.P.^. rules make it possible for a governor to submit plans to the Federal authorities without certifying that they are adequate. Yet I would be derelict in my duty if I did not exercise the authority given to me to certify emergency plans, and I would be irresponsible to certify as adequate plans that I did not believe in good conscience were adequate. I must assume that the N.R.C. knew what it was doing back in 1980 when it created these rules. The Commissioners recognized that effective emergency planning is important for the safe operation of nuclear power plants, so important that new plants should not be allowed to operate unless emergency plans are demonstrated to be effective. The Commissioners also recognized that the states should play the lead role in emergency planning. Only the states can quickly mobilize all the resources that may be necessary in an emergency to protect public health and safety. The state governments perform this role during natural disasters such as hurricanes, and they should do so during nuclear accidents as well. The Commissioners recognized all this back in 19800, and in doing so I believe they gave the states the right and the obligation to certify whether any amount of emergency planning could meet a meaningful standard of "adequacy." Testimony of Covernor Michael S. Pukakis Amesbury, Massachusetts November 18, 1986 Page Four Mr. Chairman, we have taken this right and obligation very seriously. My administration spent months analyzing draft plans for Seabrook. We spent many weeks sifting through the evidence from Chernoby! regarding evacuation planning. As most everyone is aware, on September 20 announced my finding that emergency planning for Seabrook simply could not be adequate. As a result, I did not, and will not, submit emergency plans. I released a lengthy statement on September 20 regarding my decision. J have provided copies of that statement to the subcommittee, and I woul¿ commend the statement to you for a full explanation of my position. Allow me to reiterate a few key points. First, in instructing the governors to prepare for a wide range of possible accidents the Federal guidelines further instruct us that a major release of radiation can take place thirty minutes after the onset of an accident at a nuclear plant, and that the radiation can reach out to a radius of five miles within two hours. Massachusetts Civil Defense employed a Federal computer model to estimate evacuation times from the Seabrook evacuation zone. New Fampshire has used the same model. Estimates from the computer model indicated that it would take about three hours and forty minutes to evacuate the Massachusetts evacuation zone communities under very favorable circumstances, such as during nighttime, mid-week, during the winter with good weather. Under bad conditions, such as mid-day during a summer weekend, during a sudden rainstorm, when hundreds of thousands of beachgoers are in the area, evacuation from the Massachusetts communities could take nearly eight hours. In both these cases the estimates reflect an assumption that only Massachusetts would order an evacuation from its own communities. In the more realistic case, in which both Massachusetts and New Hampshire ordered an evacuation at the same time, then the evacuation time estimates go up accordingly. |