With only a single partial exception, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) primary security regulations are unchanged from a quarter century ago. And despite September 11th, both the industry and the agency that regulates it continue to resist making any significant improvement to dismally inadequate and outmoded security regulations.

The primary concern is the fuel within the nuclear reactor and the spent fuel stored onsite after its removal from the nuclear reactor. The fuel, whether inside the nuclear reactor or not, must be cooled to prevent damage from overheating. If the fuel is damaged, government studies report that the radioactive material released from either the reactor or the onsite irradiated "spent" fuel can kill and injure tens of thousands of people living within 500 miles and render large regions uninhabitable for long periods.

Severe core damage could result from one of several situations: loss-of-coolant, station black-out, interference with the reactor controls, or elimination of the capability to cool the core of a shut-down reactor (loss of the heat sink).

Structures on site including containment domes, irradiated spent fuel pools, and control rooms are not designed to sustain a crash from a large airplane or a smaller plane loaded with explosives.

In 1982, the NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled that reactor owners “are not required to design against such things as . . . kamikaze dives by large airplanes. Reactors could not be effectively protected against such attacks without turning them into virtually impregnable fortresses at much higher cost.” This view is buttressed by NRC’s equally long-standing policy blocking consideration of terrorist acts in licensing proceedings. Because acts of terrorism are unpredictable, the NRC reasons, they are not germane to safety requirements.

A “No Fly Zone” does NOT exist. The argument is that a “No Fly Zone” cannot be effectively implemented, given the number of airports within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point.

No defenses exist to intercept an attacking aircraft.