Submitted via: <WCS_CISF_EIS@nrc.gov>
NRC's collusion and complicity in rubber-stamping license application approvals for CISFs -- both Holtec/ELEA's in NM, as well as ISP/WCS's in TX -- is objectionable. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is supposed to protect public health, safety, security, and the environment. As the country's nuclear safety regulatory agency, NRC is not a policy setting agency, and is not supposed to promote nuclear power industry schemes, such as these CISFs.
In fact, on each of the four ISP/WCS CISF DEIS NRC call-in sessions (Oct. 1, Oct. 6, Oct. 8, and Oct. 15), NRC's Environmental Review Project Manager, James Park, has stated aloud during the NRC slide show introductory presentation (while reading the following written bullet point from Slide #9):
The NRC’s CISF Review Process...
[Is] Not to promote ISP’s proposal or the Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) concept
Indeed, that is the way it is SUPPOSED to be. But James Park's assurances are false.
For example, at its late 2015 Division of Spent Fuel Management RegCon (Regulatory Conference), NRC's Tony Hsia, Acting Director of the Division of Spent Fuel Management, in his closing remarks, concluded the two-day symposium with no less than a pep rally cry. He passionately called for industry and NRC (as well as DOE, and other nuclear establishment players) to work together ("[If we] all work together, we can make it [centralized interim storage] happen!"), to open de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dumps, such as at Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists, LLC in Andrews County, TX, and/or Holtec International/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, near WIPP in NM. He even pumped his fist in the air when he did so. Such advocacy in favor of the proposed CISFs, by a senior NRC manager, was incredibly inappropriate.
And, relevant to this public comment proceeding, NRC's behavior shows that it is overwhelmingly biased in favor of the ISP/WCS CISF, despite its LARGE, and EXTRA LARGE (to borrow a phrase and concept from a Nuclear Issues Study Group member, during her public comments on a Holtec call-in session), impacts on not only the environment, but also public health and safety. This, despite James Park's false assurance, during the call-in session introductory slideshows, that "The NRC’s CISF Review Process...[Is] Not to promote ISP’s proposal or the Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) concept."
See slide #9 in the Oct. 1, 2020 slideshow, here:
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2027/ML20274A035.pdf
All four slideshows -- Oct. 1, Oct. 6, Oct. 8, and Oct. 15 -- were identical.
Such schizophrenic safety regulation/industry promotion imbalance is what led to the demise of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) by the mid-1970s. Stringent safety regulation and unbridled industry advocacy are mutually exclusive, of course. NRC rose from AEC's ashes with the clear mandate to "protect people and the environment," as the NRC logo puts it. Most unfortunately, for the public interest anyway, DOE was given AEC's nuclear advocacy role, embodied in its unbridled Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE). NRC has violated its mandate. It has strayed very far into the policy setting and industry advocacy arena.
(And by the way, when Holtec and ISP claim to simply be carrying out the will of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future (BRC), to establish CISFs, as stated in the BRC's Jan. 2012 Final Report, this must be taken with a grain of salt. BRC was based at DOE's ONE. In fact, in BRC's mandate, it was stated explicitly that BRC was to issue final recommendations on so-called "solving the nuclear waste problem," so that the nuclear power industry could get along with carrying out its greedy, dangerous, immoral, and unwise agenda, of building new nuclear power industry facilities in the U.S. and overseas. Besides that blatantly promotional -- as opposed to environmentally-, safety-, and health-protective -- agenda of DOE ONE's BRC, that is also the contradiction that "consent-based siting" was another BRC Final Report top tier recommendation, right up there with establishment of CISFs. And ISP/WCS, as well as Holtec/ELEA, do not have the consent of the host states, NM and TX. Both Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham in NM, and Republican Governor Greg Abbott in TX, have written to President Trump, expressing strong opposition to both CISFs -- Holtec/ELEA's and ISP/WCS's -- targeting NM and TX, within 40 miles of each other.)
NRC Staff, as well as the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, and even the NRC Commissioners, have consistently demonstrated their overwhelming bias in favor of CISFs, despite the LARGE and EXTRA LARGE risks and impacts; they have done so consistently, ever since Tony Hsia's incredibly inappropriate pep rally cheer in favor of CISF licensing in late 2015. NRC's complicity and collusion with Holtec/ELEA and ISP/WCS is not only immoral, illegal, and unwise, it is very dangerous.
The Japanese Parliament concluded that the root cause of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe was collusion between regulator, industry, and government officials. It was the reason the three reactors, which melted down and exploded, causing a catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity to the environment, were so very vulnerable to the earthquake and tsunami that struck them on 3/11/11 in the first place. Such dangerous collusion exists in spades in the U.S., as on radioactive waste, as between NRC (Staff, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, and Commissioners) and Holtec/ELEA, re: the proposed CISF in NM, and ISP/WCS, re: the proposed CISF in TX, immediately upon the NM border at Eunice.
Please address and rectify your woefully inadequate "hard look" under NEPA, re: this health-, safety-, and environmentally-significant, as well as legally-binding, subject matter above.
And please acknowledge your receipt of these comments, and confirm their inclusion as official public comments in the record of this docket.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kay Drey, President, Board of Directors, Beyond Nuclear
and
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear