送信者: "Kumao KANEKO" <kkaneko@eeecom.jp>
件名 : EEE会議（安全性か秘密保持か？　原発のテロ対策）
日時 : 2003年5月20日 18:53

各位殿

９.１１事件以後米国では、原子力発電所へのテロ攻撃対策が強化されております
が、その結果原子力発電所の構造や防護体制についての情報公開にブレーキがかか
り、かえって安全性に対する地元住民の不安が高まっているそうです。つまり安全性
か秘密保持か(safety or secrecy?)、どちらを優先させるかという問題で、実際にあ
り得ないようなカミカゼ式テロ攻撃を想定して、その防護に際限もなく金を使うわけ
にも行かず、他方原子力発電所の構造上の弱点や警備員に関する情報までも公開すれ
ばテロリストを利するだけだから、そうした情報は一切非公開にすることになるとい
うディレンマです。米国原子力規制委員会(NRC)の新基準に批判が出ている模様。日
本とは事情が色々違う面があるでしょうが、一応「他山の石」にすべきかもしれませ
ん。次にご紹介するNYTimes紙（5/20)の寄稿論文は、「敵の武器としての原子力発電
所」("Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy"）の著者として知られる専
門家が書いたものです。ご参考まで。
金子熊夫

*********************************************

Safety or Secrecy?
By BENNETT RAMBERG


OS ANGELES
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has quietly issued new security standards
that nuclear power plants must meet to defend against terrorist attacks. If
this was intended to help people living near the plants sleep more soundly,
it was a dismal failure. The few specific improvements the commission made
public were unambitious, and it kept secret its "design basis threat" ・the
elaborate set of rules spelling out the most likely terrorism attacks that
the reactors must be protected against.

The new rules did include some sensible if limited new criteria on the
hiring and use of security guards, and required other steps to "enhance" the
power plants' security strategies. But the design basis threat is the
centerpiece of the government's antiterrorism effort ・and in a break with
tradition, the commission refused to make public even its nonclassified
elements.

Keeping the terrorists guessing about our defenses was presumably one
motivation for the secrecy. However, it might also reflect the commission's
desire to play down its acquiescence to the nuclear industry's hubristic
view that the plants are nearly invulnerable.

Washington has long been reluctant to impose burdensome requirements based
on hypothetical threats. In 1982, for example, federal authorities declared
that nuclear plants need not defend against kamikaze attacks by airplanes ・
the cost, it was determined, outweighed the risks.

In 1985, I was one of several experts on military sabotage who appeared
before the commission's advisory board on reactor safeguards to make a case
for tightening the standards. We argued that the existing rule ・which
required utilities to be prepared only for an attack involving a handful of
terrorists using handheld weapons ・did not address the emerging terrorist
risk. Our presentation was met with ridicule. One member scoffed: "Now it's
truck bombs. What are you going to require us to do next, defend against
attacks by aircraft or boats?"

In 1994, after the first World Trade Center bombing, I again appeared before
the commission to discuss evidence that the terrorists had also contemplated
attacks on reactors. I argued against the commission's presumptions ・
especially the idea that there would be timely warning before any attacks.
It did finally concede that the risk of truck bombs should be taken more
seriously. However, any changes made to heighten security against truck bomb
attacks were kept secret. (Likewise, if the commission is intent on keeping
the new rules classified, it should at least be prepared to tell us they
will protect against the devastating types of bombs used this month in Saudi
Arabia.)

In subsequent years public policy groups like the Nuclear Control Institute
and the Committee to Bridge the Gap pressed the commission to change other
elements of the design basis threat. Yet when the commission finally
revisited the issue seriously after 9/11, it excluded any input from those
public groups that had pointed out the inadequacy of standards in the first
place.

Instead, it worked only with cleared government agencies and the energy
industry itself ・the same companies whose most significant step after 9/11
was to require their ill-prepared security guards to work exceedingly long
hours.

Guards from several of the reactors told a watchdog group, the Project on
Government Oversight, that they felt they were incapable of resisting a
ground assault. The regulatory commission says it will work to improve these
security systems by conducting mock attacks. However, the results of these
exercises will not be released to the public and no fines will be levied for
initial failures. In past drills, the mock terrorists have succeeded at
nearly half the plants tested ・though the utilities were given months to
prepare and even told the dates the attacks would come. And following such
exercises, utilities are likely to ratchet down plant security ・the
assumption being that there will be similar advance warning before a real
attack.

The new rules may be a reaction to 9/11, but the commission doesn't seem to
have learned the lesson of those attacks ・not a thing will be done to
reduce the vulnerability of reactors to strikes from the air. Some senators
are talking about bypassing the commission and legislating new standards.
This might be a long-term fix, but such laws would take take years to write,
enact and put into effect. For now, Congress should demand a full public
accounting of the commission's latest standards and ensure that it start
meeting the security requirements of the post-9/11 world.


Bennett Ramberg, a former policy analyst at the State Department, is author
of "Nuclear Power Plants as Weapons for the Enemy."