Congressman says nation's nuclear power plants susceptible to terrorists

BOSTON - Security at the nation&#39;s civilian nuclear power plants is so poor that terrorists could already be secretly working at reactors, a congressman alleges in a new report on homeland security. <br> <br> Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said the nation&#39;s 86 most sensitive nuclear power plants fail to screen workers for terrorist ties and don&#39;t know how many foreign nationals they employ. <br> <br> &#34;Terrorists may now be employed at nuclear reactors in the United States just as terrorists enrolled in flight schools in the U.S.,&#34; Markey said in his report, &#34;Security Gap: A Hard Look at Soft Spots in Our Civilian Nuclear Reactor Security.&#34; <br> <br> Markey, a proponent of federalizing nuclear power plant safety, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not sufficiently improved security since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. <br> <br> &#34;The NRC is in the dark about what nuclear reactor licensees are doing to ensure the reactors are safe from attack,&#34; Markey told the Boston Herald. <br> <br> NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci declined to discuss the report&#39;s details, saying &#34;we don&#39;t normally comment on press releases from members of Congress.&#34; <br> <br> She told The Boston Globe that security employees at nuclear plants are fingerprinted, and that minimum staffing levels are included in security plans filed with the NRC. <br> <br> Markey said the NRC doesn&#39;t check workers for possible terrorist ties. <br> <br> &#34;As long as they have no criminal record in this country, al-Qaida operatives are not required to pass any security check intended to find and expose terrorist links,&#34; he said. <br> <br> Dave Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said existing NRC-required background checks are &#34;somewhat limited.&#34; <br> <br> &#34;I&#39;ve worked in over 20 plants in the 17 years I was in the industry. Had I wanted to sabotage the plant, it wouldn&#39;t have been that difficult to do so,&#34; he said. <br> <br> <br> ------ <br> <br> On the Net: <br> <br> Markey: http://www.house.gov/markey/ <br> <br> NRC: http://www.nrc.gov/ <br> <br> Concerned Scientists: http://www.ucsusa.org/index.html <br> <br>