MsMilkytheclown1 | The NRC's Magnificent Seven w/ Arnie & Maggie Gundersen and David Lochbaum @MsMilkytheclown1 | Uploaded March 2016 | Updated October 2024, 15 minutes ago.
An Excellent interview with Arnie Gundersen, David Lochbaum, and Maggie Gundersen discussing the known problems at various nuclear plants and how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has systematically ignored safety issues. Nuclear reactor sites discussed include (but not limited to) Byron, Oyster Creek, Diablo Canyon, Davis Besse, Oconee, Fukushima, Millstone, Peach Bottom,...
Source podcast: The NRC’s Magnificent Seven tinyurl.com/h5b7kkt
Several weeks ago, the Crew at Fairewinds Energy Education told you about The NRC’s Magnificent Seven – electrical engineers employed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who are putting their careers on the line to protect all of us. The courageous employees found a critical flaw in atomic power plants, which the NRC chose to ignore. These people took the only action open to them, as private citizens they legally filed a 2.206 petition seeking action from the NRC to either enforce existing regulations for atomic power plants or shut them down.
Invited guest David Lochbaum from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Maggie and Arnie Gundersen discuss the brave seven who submitted the "put up or shut down" petition in this most recent Fairewinds podcast.
DL: They did. And Exelon implemented that fix at all of their plants except for Oyster Creek, which is going to be shutting down at the end of this decade. But all other plants they’ve already implemented that fix. Part of the problem is that the other owners are also waiting for enforcement discretion. If they voluntarily implement the fix, that will be an implicit concession that they’ve been outside federal regulations for decades. So part of what the industry is waiting for is immunity from past sins so they can go ahead and implement this fix.
AG: So enforcement discretion is sort of like a get-out-of-jail free card in Monopoly?
DL: It’s very much like that, yes. It removes all liability from plant owners for busting federal violations.
DL: There is a measure on the NRC’s regulations called the 2.206 petition process that allows any member of the public to petition the NRC seeking enforcement action. In this case, the seven NRC engineers, acting as private citizens and not as NRC employees, submitted a petition under 2.206 asking the NRC to compel this fix to be implemented at all plants. Or if that’s not done, require all plants to be shut down immediately. That second measure is typically thrown in as just a carrot-and-stick thing to make the first option look more reasonable. But they basically – those seven had felt that they exhausted all internal options for getting this problem solved and felt that some outside pressure was needed to get a safety regulator to regulate safety. That’s really a very bad indication that the safety culture within this agency, the NRC, is not what it should be.
MG: (15:35) I’d like to acknowledge the courage of these seven. It takes a lot of courage to do this, to put your career and your income and your family in such jeopardy. And we all know what that means firsthand.
DL: Again, I understand their remaining silent because the system just churns people out. I’ve heard people call it ethical cleansing. If you have ethics, you get cleansed out of the industry. But I do respect the courage of people. That’s part of what motivation for doing the blog was hopefully putting some attention on the issue will give them some protection against action – retaliatory action the NRC might take.
David Lochbaum: The NRC keeps getting voted as the best place to work in the federal government. And I think the experience is that we’re seeing is that you can make mistakes and still get promoted and paid is like a license to steal.
In the words David Lochbaum, taken from his All Things Nuclear blog post on the subject:
“If employees of the NRC do not trust the NRC to have acted to protect members of the public and have to petition their employer to protect the public, why should any member of the public trust the NRC to have its back (other than to have its back covered with a target)?”
full transcript available here: http://www.fairewinds.org/podcast//th...
Video images from David Lochbaum youtu.be/7Oa9YmHWgoU
and
Fukushima: New Evidence Proving High Radiation Exposure in Japan w/ A Gundersen youtu.be/bTMaYcNRiEY
video compiled by MsMilkytheclown1 on YouTube.
Union of Concerned Scientists ucsusa.org
Fairewinds Energy Education http://www.fairewinds.org/nuclear-ene...
consider donating to Fairewinds here: fairewinds.org/donate
An Excellent interview with Arnie Gundersen, David Lochbaum, and Maggie Gundersen discussing the known problems at various nuclear plants and how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has systematically ignored safety issues. Nuclear reactor sites discussed include (but not limited to) Byron, Oyster Creek, Diablo Canyon, Davis Besse, Oconee, Fukushima, Millstone, Peach Bottom,...
Source podcast: The NRC’s Magnificent Seven tinyurl.com/h5b7kkt
Several weeks ago, the Crew at Fairewinds Energy Education told you about The NRC’s Magnificent Seven – electrical engineers employed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) who are putting their careers on the line to protect all of us. The courageous employees found a critical flaw in atomic power plants, which the NRC chose to ignore. These people took the only action open to them, as private citizens they legally filed a 2.206 petition seeking action from the NRC to either enforce existing regulations for atomic power plants or shut them down.
Invited guest David Lochbaum from the Union of Concerned Scientists and Maggie and Arnie Gundersen discuss the brave seven who submitted the "put up or shut down" petition in this most recent Fairewinds podcast.
DL: They did. And Exelon implemented that fix at all of their plants except for Oyster Creek, which is going to be shutting down at the end of this decade. But all other plants they’ve already implemented that fix. Part of the problem is that the other owners are also waiting for enforcement discretion. If they voluntarily implement the fix, that will be an implicit concession that they’ve been outside federal regulations for decades. So part of what the industry is waiting for is immunity from past sins so they can go ahead and implement this fix.
AG: So enforcement discretion is sort of like a get-out-of-jail free card in Monopoly?
DL: It’s very much like that, yes. It removes all liability from plant owners for busting federal violations.
DL: There is a measure on the NRC’s regulations called the 2.206 petition process that allows any member of the public to petition the NRC seeking enforcement action. In this case, the seven NRC engineers, acting as private citizens and not as NRC employees, submitted a petition under 2.206 asking the NRC to compel this fix to be implemented at all plants. Or if that’s not done, require all plants to be shut down immediately. That second measure is typically thrown in as just a carrot-and-stick thing to make the first option look more reasonable. But they basically – those seven had felt that they exhausted all internal options for getting this problem solved and felt that some outside pressure was needed to get a safety regulator to regulate safety. That’s really a very bad indication that the safety culture within this agency, the NRC, is not what it should be.
MG: (15:35) I’d like to acknowledge the courage of these seven. It takes a lot of courage to do this, to put your career and your income and your family in such jeopardy. And we all know what that means firsthand.
DL: Again, I understand their remaining silent because the system just churns people out. I’ve heard people call it ethical cleansing. If you have ethics, you get cleansed out of the industry. But I do respect the courage of people. That’s part of what motivation for doing the blog was hopefully putting some attention on the issue will give them some protection against action – retaliatory action the NRC might take.
David Lochbaum: The NRC keeps getting voted as the best place to work in the federal government. And I think the experience is that we’re seeing is that you can make mistakes and still get promoted and paid is like a license to steal.
In the words David Lochbaum, taken from his All Things Nuclear blog post on the subject:
“If employees of the NRC do not trust the NRC to have acted to protect members of the public and have to petition their employer to protect the public, why should any member of the public trust the NRC to have its back (other than to have its back covered with a target)?”
full transcript available here: http://www.fairewinds.org/podcast//th...
Video images from David Lochbaum youtu.be/7Oa9YmHWgoU
and
Fukushima: New Evidence Proving High Radiation Exposure in Japan w/ A Gundersen youtu.be/bTMaYcNRiEY
video compiled by MsMilkytheclown1 on YouTube.
Union of Concerned Scientists ucsusa.org
Fairewinds Energy Education http://www.fairewinds.org/nuclear-ene...
consider donating to Fairewinds here: fairewinds.org/donate
