Sens. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and New York members of Congress sent a second letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week asking for a hearing before the Indian Point Energy Center license transfer application.
The lawmakers first asked for a hearing in January, but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hasn’t yet decided to hold one. The state of New York and the cities and towns surrounding the facility, such as the town of Cortlandt, the village of Buchanan, and the Hendrick Hudson School District, all filed petitions to intervene in February.
The locales and their representatives are concerned that a decision on the license transfer requests will be issued before the hearing requests are resolved. The NRC said in April it intends to finish its evaluation of the license transfer application from owner Entergy to prospective buyer Holtec International by the end of 2020.
“This is deeply disturbing when coupled with the fact that, over the last 8 months, the NRC has failed to act on New York’s and the Town of Cortlandt, Village of Buchanan, and the Hendrick Hudson School District’s petitions to intervene,” Schumer, Gillibrand and others wrote in the letter. “We now face the prospect that the decision by NRC staff to transfer the plant’s license and grant regulatory exemptions may well be made before the various stakeholders representing the communities surrounding Indian Point have had an opportunity to fully present its contentions to the Commission in a hearing.”
Such a situation would be “wholly unacceptable” to constituents surrounding the facility in the Lower Hudson Valley, the letter said, asking the NRC to hold off on approving the license transfer until the Commission has “fully and fairly” considered each pending petition.
The group requested a response to the letter with an update on the status of the NRC’s review of all petitions requesting a hearing by Wednesday.
Entergy owns the three-reactor facility in the village of Buchanan, 24 miles from New York City. The company retired Reactor Unit 2 on April 30 and plans to retire Unit 3 by April 30, 2021.
