Lawmaker Authored 2002 Law That Requires Potassium Iodide for Residents Living within 20 Miles of Nuclear Plant; Law Ignored by Bush Administration
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass) sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting the department’s assistance in urging Presidential Science Advisor Dr. John Holdren to reverse the Bush administration decision that effectively blocks HHS from distributing potassium iodide – also called KI – to Americans living within a 20 mile radius of a nuclear power plant. Potassium iodide has been found to protect individuals, especially young children, from the cancer-causing releases of radioactive iodine that would occur if a nuclear disaster occurred in the United States. In the wake of the Japan nuclear crisis, earlier this week, Rep. Markey today wrote to the President’s science adviser asking him to begin implementing the law.
“The essential value of distributing potassium iodide in preparation for a potential nuclear disaster has been abundantly clear for more than 30 years,” wrote Rep. Markey in the letter to Secretary Sebelius “The exercise of Presidential power to distribute KI is now long overdue, leaving many Americans living near these plants needlessly at risk, as sadly evidenced by the disaster in Japan.”
A copy of the letter to the HHS can be found below.
Rep. Markey amended the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 to make potassium iodide available to state and local governments to meet the needs of all persons living within a 20-mile radius of a nuclear power plant. However, the Bush administration chose to ignore these provisions and declined to implement them, thereby denying communities access to stockpiles of KI.
In December 2009, Rep. Markey wrote President Obama urging him to move forward with full implementation of the provisions. However, Dr. Holdren’s office wrote Rep. Markey in July of last year upholding the Bush administration’s position. Because of this action, citizens living within the 10 mile radius of nuclear power plants in some states have KI stockpiled for an accident, but others do not and those living out to the 20 mile radius do not receive KI.
Rep. Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee and a senior Democratic member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has served on the Committees that have oversight over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear utility industry since 1976. Following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, he authored an amendment to establish a moratorium on licensing of new nuclear power plants until the consequences of that accident could be fully understood and participated in the Congressional hearings on the accident. Following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, he chaired the Congressional hearings examining the causes and consequences of the accident.
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