Spitzer Effort To Shut Indian Point Alarms Businesses

To the alarm of business and energy groups, the Spitzer administration is cranking up its effort to shut down the Indian Point nuclear reactors by demanding that the federal government reject the plant's license renewal application because of safety reasons.

Governor Spitzer, along with Attorney General Cuomo, yesterday submitted a petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission claiming that the Hudson River plant is too old and susceptible to terrorist attacks and natural disasters to be granted a 20-year extension of its license.
"The presence of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in our midst is untenable," the petition states.

The legal filing is the governor's most significant action against the plant since taking office, and the latest sign of a political shift among local government officials toward shutting it down.

While winning plaudits from environmental activists and Westchester elected officials, the governor's action against Indian Point was greeted with silence from Mayor Bloomberg, who has expressed support for using nuclear energy to meet the city's expanding electricity needs.

Business groups were vocal in their criticism of the governor's policy, saying shutting down Indian Point would deprive New York of a critical source of power and trigger spikes in energy costs.

The president and chief executive of the business-backed Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, criticized the governor for not focusing on getting Albany lawmakers to settle their disagreement over the reauthorization of the so-called Article X statute, which is supposed to expedite the environmental review and siting of power plants.

"To have failed to get an Article X extension agreed to so the production of new power plants can move forward, and then be looking at closing an essential source of electricity precipitously, is really a threat to the local economy," Ms. Wylde said.

Messrs. Spitzer and Cuomo are demanding that the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission convene special licensing hearings where they can present their arguments against the plants. The three-member board is expected to rule on the petition in March. The license process is expected to continue for at least another two years.

Completed in the 1970s, the two nuclear reactors comprising Indian Point, situated on the east bank of the Hudson River in Buchanan about 35 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, supply an estimated one-quarter of the electricity delivered to the city and the lower Hudson Valley. About 20 million people live or work within 50 miles of the plant.

Mr. Spitzer's heightened opposition to Indian Point is another indication that the governor, after a series of political setbacks, is seeking to shore up his base of support in the New York City area, where environmental and terrorism concerns have turned the plant into a more pressing political issue.

The motion against the power plant also positions the governor closer to the center on an issue that has become an important cause for Mr. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat and potential gubernatorial primary challenger to Mr. Spitzer in 2010. Mr. Cuomo has waged a legal battle against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over a licensing process that he faults for not considering terrorism risk factors.

The petition accuses the owner of the plant, Entergy Nuclear Northeast, of failing to provide for an adequate evacuation plan in the event of a terrorist attack and says the plant's reactor components have aged to a dangerous degree.

It claims the plant suffers from "troubling safety problems," such as "the persistent leak of radioactive material into groundwater," malfunctioning discharge valves, worn wiring, and low water levels in steam generators.

"By participating in this proceeding, the state seeks to bring such rubber stamping to an end and to insist on a full airing of the issues," the report states. "If the federal government will not take adequate steps to ensure public safety with respect to the Indian Point power plants, the State of New York will step into this void and use every legal tool and resource to force a full consideration of these issues."

Entergy, which bought the plant six years ago, says it has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in safety improvements.

A report issued last year by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences, which was asked by Congress to examine the consequences of closing Indian Point, concluded that shutting down Indian Point would likely increase energy bills and cause more pollution due to an increased reliance on natural gas.

It also raised concerns that bureaucratic, political, and financial hurdles would make it extremely difficult for New York to replace energy generated by two Indian Point pressurized-water reactors — Indian Point 2 and 3 — before their licenses expire in 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Closing the plant would require 5,000 megawatts of additional energy sources, including the 2,000 megawatts needed to replace the lost production, the report said.

"From an environmental, economic, and electric system operation point of view, there simply are no realistic practical alternatives to the renewal of Indian Point's license," the executive director of Energy Association of New York State, Patrick Curran, said. The association represents the state's major energy corporations.

While Mr. Cuomo in a statement called for the closing of the plant, Mr. Spitzer said the plant should close as "soon as there is sufficient replacement power available."