The New York Times criticizes Obama's nuclear bill ... but misses the main problem

The New York Times (NYT) published an article this past weekend that was highly critical of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) bill, the Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2007 (S.2224), that requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to establish a program for nuclear power plants to report within 24 hours any unplanned releases of "fission products or other radioactive substances" that:

1. Exceed NRC regulatory requirements; or 
2. Enter the environment and may cause may cause drinking water sources to exceed a USEPA maximum contaminant level for fission products or other radioactive substances.

The NYT points out that this bill is a watered-down version of a previous bill proposed by Obama. The NYT goes on to argue that Obama weakened his proposal due to intense lobbying by Exelon Corporation (the owner of all Illinois nukes and a major campaign contributor to Obama), Senate Republicans, and nuclear regulators. The Obama campaign quickly published a rebuttal to the NYT story.

I don't want to get into the he-said-she-said aspects of the article and response. Read them yourself and draw your own conclusion.

However, I do want to point out one major point missed by the NYT and certainly not mentioned by the Obama campaign's rebuttal: If S.2224 is enacted into law, it will most likely preempt states from adopting their own nuclear release reporting programs. This will hurt Illinois, which took the lead nationally when it adopted its own radionuclide release reporting requirements.

Illinois adopted radionuclide release reporting legislation, Public Act 94-849, in 2006. This state law is significantly more stringent than S.2224 for radionuclides. Also, in 2007, the Illinois EPA proposed -- and the Pollution Control Board adopted for first notice -- regulations (PCB R2007-020) under Public Act 94-849 that prescribe in more detail the radionuclide release reporting requirements. If S.2224 is enacted into law, both Public Act 94-849 and the Board rules will likely be preempted and therefore void. Illinois and its citizens will then be at the mercy of whatever the NRC decides to do, and historically the NRC has not taken radionuclide releases very seriously.

If Obama really wants to help Illinois on this issue, he should amend S.2224 to expressly state that the legislation does not preempt states from adopting their own more stringent radionuclide release reporting requirements.