Congress is irresponsibly pressing forward with legislation that would encourage construction of new nuclear power plants. Even the Senate energy bill that might have balanced the Bush administration's pro-nuclear stance is industry-friendly. Written by Senate President Tom Daschle and Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (both Democrats), the bill would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in incentives to build new plants and to extend the life of existing reactors. And it would reauthorize a program in which American taxpayers underwrite the insurance for the nuclear industry.

But Congress and the industry have skipped a crucial step -- protecting us from the threats posed by nuclear power generation. Before another nuclear power plant is permitted, or even planned, the federal government should resolve the challenge of nuclear waste disposal and shore up the security at existing reactors.

Spent fuel is piling up at more than 100 nuclear reactors in 31 states, including three in Florida. The fuel presents a significant risk to human health and the environment if dispersed by accident, natural disaster or terrorist act. The government's answer is to ship the material to an underground storage site in Nevada called Yucca Mountain, but that plan has faced a variety of obstacles.

Las Vegas lies within 90 miles of Yucca Mountain, and the residents there are understandably worried. The waste that would be stored at Yucca Mountain is still highly radioactive, and a freshwater aquifer flows beneath the site, which is in an earthquake-prone area. The greatest risk, however, could be in transporting the material there from every corner of the country. While in transit by truck or rail car, the waste would pass by tens of millions of American homes and be vulnerable to accident or terrorist attack. Even if transportation and storage is carried out flawlessly, it is only a temporary fix, because the total amount of radioactive waste is already greater than Yucca Mountain's capacity, and growing each year.

The government hasn't even begun to address security shortcomings at the reactors. U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., recently presented his concerns to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and concluded that "there is little comfort to be found in the agency's response to my questions." Markey found that the NRC doesn't require adequate background checks on reactor employees; that spent fuel is stored in buildings that are not hardened structures; that the NRC was slow to react to the Sept. 11 disaster with security enhancements; that reactor sites fail their security tests about half the time.

Then there are the everyday challenges to safe operation of a nuclear reactor. Workers at an Ohio reactor recently discovered that corrosion had nearly eaten through the container that holds pressurized cooling water. Until then, corrosion had not been a concern for the 69 nuclear reactors of that design. A failure could have spewed out radioactive water and possibly have led to core damage and even a meltdown.

If there ever is such a catastrophic event, guess who would pay for most of the damage done? Taxpayers. That's because a reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act has been made a part of the Senate energy bill. The act was originally approved in 1957 to get the fledgling nuclear power industry off the ground. Insurance companies wouldn't write policies for nuclear reactors (perhaps they know something we don't) so the act required the industry to come up with $9.4-billion to cover financial claims, and made the federal government responsible for any amount over that. Problem is, a nuclear accident could cost more than $300-billion, according to a government study.

Because existing nuclear reactors are already covered by the act, there is only one reason to renew it: to encourage construction of new nuclear power plants. In fact, that seems to be the direction in which the Bush administration, the House and the Senate are all headed. But they had better slow down.

The promise of nuclear power is misleading. Its potential costs are hidden but almost unlimited. It is difficult to defend against a variety of possible terrorist plots. If something goes wrong at a reactor or waste sites or along the waste transportation route -- whether by accident or intentional act -- the potential consequences are almost too horrible to imagine.

Rather than rushing a decision to expand nuclear power, Congress should be slowing down and giving the issue the serious thought it demands.

© St. Petersburg Times