Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Congressional Hearings Transcript

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and to mitigate the adverse effects of such an accident should one
occur.
Foreign experience demonstrates that there are practical and
reasonable opti.ons available to reduce the severe accident risk in
this country as well. I would propose a three-part program to
achieve this objective. First, each of the 100 operating plants
in the U.S. should be reexamined to identify design deficiencies
and vulnerabilities, of the type seen in our recent serious
operating events and plant safety analyses, that could cause or
contribute to a severe accident. Second, improvement programs
should be required in areas of demonstrated weak performance at
the U.S. plants such as management, maintenance, personnel
performance and equipment reliability. Our objective should be to
bring all U.S. plants up to the highest standards of operating
performance being achieved in other countries. We should insist
upon rapid improvement in the case of those U.S. plants with a
history of poor performance.
Third, new design features should be considered for existing and
future U.S. plants which have the potential to reduce both the
likelihood and the consequences of a core meltdown accident. The
design features being added in foreign plants, such as an added
independent decay heat removal system, improvements in the
reliability of reactor control systems and emergency power supply
systems, systems to protect against the loss of power to operate
cooling and safety systems, and systems to allow the controlled
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