Action needed to address Diablo Canyon safety risks posed by Trump Administration deregulation of NRC (Mothers for Peace, Friends of the Earth letter to Gov. Newsom, State leaders)
Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth have sent a letter to California Governor Newsom and other top California government officials, pointing out that President Trump’s recent actions profoundly undermine the independence and effectiveness of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and urging the California officials to close the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors once and for all.
“We urge your immediate attention to recent Trump Administration actions abruptly and decisively undermining any basis for confidence in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to effectively oversee the safety of the aging and earthquake-vulnerable Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors.
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Instead of maintaining or improving the NRC’s regulatory program for carrying out these duties and generally protecting public health and safety and the environment, the Trump Administration has elevated production of nuclear energy over safety, installed DOGE overseers at the top of the agency to slash staffing levels, ordered arbitrary reductions in regulations, sought to raise the limits on human radiation exposure, and fired or forced the retirement of the Commission’s strongest safety advocate and other experienced and safety-conscious senior staff.
To be clear, the Administration’s actions – which include an explicit statement that the NRC is expected to “rubber stamp” licensing requests – go well beyond the pro-nuclear bias that has concerned us for decades. Instead, the Trump Administration is actively and openly gutting the NRC as an independent safety regulator and rendering it subservient to the Administration’s political aims.
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Three years ago, in passing S.B. 846, the Legislature included a key guardrail: NRC oversight of Diablo Canyon’s safety and seismic integrity. S.B. 846 looked to the NRC not only for purposes of protecting public health and safety and the environment, but also to provide the CPUC with insights on what it would cost to keep the reactors safe, so that they can determine whether continued operation is cost-effective. Likewise, S.B. 846 assigned considerable weight to the DCISC’s function of advising the CPUC on safety matters affecting Diablo Canyon costs, adding import to the concerns voiced by Dr. Budnitz. The recent evisceration of the NRC by the Trump Administration compromises the CPUC’s ability to adequately fulfill either role.
Fortunately, you have no need to continue to place unwarranted confidence in the NRC during the five-year extended operation of Diablo Canyon approved in S.B. 846. Since S.B. 846 was passed, California has added significantly more energy to the grid along with an unprecedented amount of storage. There is no need to continue to pour ratepayer and taxpayer funds into the continued operation of these aging and earthquake-vulnerable reactors. You have at your disposal the means to release the State from its dangerous dependence on the NRC and make California a more sustainable, less expensive and less risky place to live and do business by closing the Diablo Canyon reactors. We urge you to expeditiously take all necessary steps to achieve that result.”
Read the full letter from Mothers for Peace and Friends of the Earth by clicking here.