The Associated Press has just spent a year looking at how nuclear power plants get licensed. The conclusion is that history is being rewritten and regulations are industry driven, not safety driven.

America gets about 20% of its energy from nuclear power plants. Most of the plants were built in the 1960’s, with an expected lifespan of 40 years. Simple math: 1960 + 40 = 2000. The existing plants should be dead and buried by now. But they aren’t. They are getting reauthorized with very little input from the public and very little oversight by regulators.

This appears to be another profit over people scheme. With an expected lifespan of 40 years, the original investment has been fully recaptured through depreciation tax breaks, leaving only operating costs on the books of the utilities. Just as it is a lot easier to make a family’s budget balance if there is no mortgage to support, a fully paid-for nuclear power plant is way more profitable than one that has just been built. The cost of building a plant has no doubt increased over the past 40 years.

One would assume that regulation would have toughened over the intervening decades, also. But one would be wrong. Just as emergency plans in the oil and gas industry, especially on deep water drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, were cut and paste documents that all read the same--including making plans to save animals that hadn’t been seen in the Gulf for about a million years--emergency plans in the nuclear power industry are cut and paste documents. They all said 40 years ago that the lifespan of a nuclear power plant was 40 years. Now they all say that same plant can live another 40, or even 60 years, despite original engineering anticipating 40 years.

I have a scary personal story to tell you. My second ex-husband was an engineer on a nuclear power plant. He was living in New Orleans at the time, where bars are open most of the night. He was an alcoholic. He drank himself into oblivion every night, and then on about two hours of sleep, he would go to work designing a nuclear power plant. I don’t know that every engineer was that irresponsible, but one was, and it only takes one major engineering mistake to cause a lot of trouble.

So far my excursion into trying to understand nuclear energy has led me to discover that aging power plants are being rubber stamped for reauthorization, with little or no safety reviews. At least two of them, near Omaha, were built in a known flood plain. What other hazards are out there for me to discover?

Homework

Regulatory Capture in Nuclear Power Plants

Officals Say Power Plants Near Omaha Are Safe

We are three days away from the end of Colorado’s legislative session. Steve King is in panic mode because his Regulatory Recapture Bill hasn’t yet been passed. You may remember that I’ve written about HB 1223 repeatedly. If it doesn’t pass the Senate by midnight Wednesday, it is dead. At least until some bonehead once again decides to put the profits of the oil and gas industry ahead of the health and welfare of the citizens of the state.

Today, King “wrote” an op-ed for the Sentinel using the same tired story that regulations caused the downturn in the economy. That’s pure bullshit. Market conditions caused the slowdown—the price of natural gas went down, so investors slowed down their investing in exploration. Colorado’s oil and gas industry is alive and well, and doing business in the state. The recent trend is toward increased activity, not continued decreases.

The same issue of the Sentinel had a stark reminder of why regulation is so important. Three years ago  there were two spills of oil and gas chemicals that are finally going to have a hearing by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Committee.  May 16 – 18 the Committee will consider fining Berry Petroleum after they reported spilling over 100,000 gallons of drilling fluids into a tributary of Parachute Creek. Later the Committee will consider actions against Marathon Oil, which reported spilling 1.25 million gallons of fracking fluid in the same area.

Regulatory capture is responsible for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Every drilling plan contained the same language, including some that demonstrated the plans were simply a cut and paste job. They mentioned protecting aquatic animals that do not exist in the Gulf, and haven’t for thousands, if not millions, of years. The plans were approved because nobody at the agency responsible for regulations was reading them.

Colorado changed the rules that regulate the industry on state and private lands so that the environmental and farming interests would have a voice at the table. Steve King and Ray Scott want the commission to go back to the way it was, with industry calling all the shots. It is a lame-brained idea that is only supported by small companies and legislators who listen only to this one segment of the industry. The big boys have moved on. HB 1223 deserves a quick death in the Senate.

Homework:

Garden Gulch Hearings

Steve King Op Ed

Wikipedia Defines Regulatory Capture

September 2010 Report Finds Regulatory Capture in Oil and Gas Industry

Yesterday I commented that I hoped Ray Scott’s Regulatory Recapture Bill (okay, that’s my name for it) would die a quick death in the committee hearing. While that may still happen, there was no vote on the bill yesterday, because there were too many people wanting to comment.

Not So Short Background: Once upon a time there was a seven member commission that regulated oil and gas development in Colorado. Of the seven members of the commission, five were oil and gas professionals. That is the definition of regulatory capture. When an industry controls the agency that is charged with regulating it, regulations protect the industry, not the other stakeholders. In the case of oil and gas regulation, the Regulatory Recapture Bill could facilitate continued stonewalling about chemicals in fracking fluids, and any understanding of how they may or may not impact our access to clean water for drinking, farming, fishing, and recreation. Last year, when both the House and Senate were run by Democrats, the make-up of the commission was changed to include farmers, environmentalists, and oil and gas representatives. The more inclusive commission is more representative of everyone who has an interest in pollution free development of oil and gas resources, and would work to protect ALL stakeholders, not just one.

Ray Scott, who has swallowed the political fabrication that regulations caused the loss of jobs in Mesa County, is an ardent industry supporter. I say political fabrication, because industry representatives have repeatedly said that a downturn in prices and limited distribution capabilities were the cause of the slowdown in Mesa County, not regulations. In fact, the industry is facing tougher regulations in many states—Pennsylvania, Wyoming, New York, Maryland just to name a few. And just one more fact, there were 6,000 oil and gas leases issued last year in Colorado—the third largest number in the history of leasing. The industry is working. The industry is working in Colorado. Regulations did not drive the industry out of Colorado.  Even more amusing, the hearing room yesterday wasn’t filled to capacity because the big industry players say they have a good relationship with the regulatory commission.

Will you do two things today? Call Ray Scott and tell him that he is misguided. Then call other committee members and tell them that you would like them to vote against the Regulatory Recapture Bill—only you should probably call it House Bill 1223.

Homework

Pitkin County Opposed to HB 1223

Durango Newspaper Story on Bill

List of Committee Members

Regulatory capture is when an agency, which is charged with protecting the interests of the citizens, becomes so close to the industry they are charged with regulating that they do the bidding of the industry instead of regulating it. That’s what the fight was all about in 2007 when the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) was revamped to include environmentalists. Now Ray Scott and Steve King have introduced a bill to allow industry to take back the commission.

Every state entity has a mission statement. The mission statement of the COGCC is to promote responsible oil and gas development in the state. Responsibility includes “the prevention and mitigation of adverse environmental impacts.” If we learned nothing else from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico it is that the industry will not protect the environment unless there are regulations forcing them to do so. Much of the BP spill was the result of regulatory capture by industry to the extent that they were writing their own inspection reports, with little or no review by the federal agency charged with oversight.

House Bill 11–1223 was introduced into the House by Ray Scott on February 9. Co‐sponsors in the House are Representatives Balmer, Baumgardner, Brown, Conti, Kerr J., and Ramirez. It is still in committee, with a hearing scheduled. The lone Senate sponsor is Steve King. HB 11–1223 reduces the size of the commission from nine to seven members; removes the executive director of the department of natural resources and the executive director of public health and environment; removes the requirement that one member should represent local government; requires that five members have substantial experience in the oil and gas industry; requires that any rancher serving on the commission be a royalty owner. My personal favorite language in the bill is “The general assembly hereby finds, determines, and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety.” Right.

According to the Sentinel’s Charles Ashby, Senate President Brandon Shaffer is not interested in revisiting the makeup of the commission, and would rather focus on creating jobs for Coloradans. So, this bill could die in committee in the House and/or never come to a vote in the Senate. We should do more than hope for its demise. We should be expressing our concerns to our Representatives, our Senator, and the leaders of the relevant committees in Denver.

Homework

Text of Bill Sponsored by Scott & King

Definition of Regulatory Capture

COGCC Mission

Charles Ashby's Story in the Sentinel About the Bill