Nita Lowey: “I rise in support of a provision authored by my colleague and good friend from New York, Eliot Engel, and included in…”

“I rise in support of a provision authored by my colleague and good friend from New York, Eliot Engel, and included in the Manager's amendment. The provision would close a critical security loophole by requiring the Coast Guard to conduct a vulnerability assessment of the Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, NY. Since September 11, 2001, intelligence officials have amassed a critical body of evidence suggesting terrorist intentions to strike our nuclear infrastructure. Plans of U.S. nuclear facilities were discovered in Al Qaeda caves during U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Most recently, reports of a terrorist plan to sabotage the Palo Verde nuclear power plants in Arizona were sufficiently serious that the National Guard was immediately deployed to secure the plant. The public health and economic consequences of an attack on a nuclear power plant are almost too chilling to contemplate. Congressman Engel and I, whose districts abut Indian Point on the eastern banks of the Hudson River in Buchanan, have been briefed in detail on these scenarios. In 1982, the NRC commissioned a study which found that a meltdown at Indian Point--which lies within 50 miles of 21 million people--could lead to 123,000 short- and long-term deaths, over 300,000 injuries, and property damages conservatively estimated at over $1 trillion.”