Markey Calls for Agencies to Declassify Three Mile Island Documents

Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-MA) has written three government agencies, demanding that they declassify all documents relating to the 1979 nuclear power plant meltdown at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, PA. Markey said, there could be no remaining justification for keeping any information about it classified. Most secrets are declassified automatically after 25 years.

The TMI incident was responsible for a massive failure of public confidence in the nuclear industry which stopped investment in new reactors for a quarter of a century. Markey's request comes at a time when the electric industry and NRC are pushing for quick authorization of a new generation of nuclear power plants.

Markey called on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Energy to declassify TMI documents under their control. He said the public had a right to information relevant to important public policy decisions. He also argued that release of the documents would demonstrate the confidence of government and industry in their own assertions that nuclear plants today are much safer than in the day of TMI.

"Numerous members of the communities living near TMI have been attempting to obtain these documents for years in order to ascertain additional details regarding the radiation levels they may have been exposed to," he wrote.

Current national security classification rules, Markey said, only rarely allow withholding information that old. "there should be no national or homeland security risk in disclosing any previously classified materials regarding the cause of an accident that occurred 25 years ago."

-- Letter from Rep. Edward Markey to NRC Chairman Nils Diaz, April 9, 2004.