technical experts which can contribute to the Commission's consideration of these health, safety, and environmental

Student Intern, Center for Law and Social Policy.

**

Research Assistant, Natural Resources Defense Council.

APPENDIX A

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a non-profit, public-interest environmental protection organization with over 45,000 members in the United States and twenty other countries. NRDC members include about ten Filipino citizens living within five miles of the site of the proposed nuclear power plant which is the subject of this proceeding.

The Union of Concerned Scientists is a non-profit, publicinterest organization, representing a coalition of scientists, engineers, and professionals, supported by over 80,000 members of the public. Its principal place of business is 1208 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with an additional office in Washington, D. C.

The Sierra Club, whose principal place of business is at 530 Bush Street, San Francisco, California 94104, has a membership of approximately 180,000 persons, including persons residing in

67 foreign countries.

APPENDIX 2

STATEMENT OF SEVERINA RIVERA-DREW, DIRECTOR, CONGRESS

EDUCATION PROJECT, FRIENDS OF THE FILIPINO PEOPLE

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is in the process of deciding whether it is within its jurisdiction to consider foreign health, safety and environmental questions in relation to nuclear exports. The specific issue under consideration is an export license application requested by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the purpose of exporting nuclear material for a proposed reactor in the Philippines.

Because the NRC is subject to review by the U.S. Congress, and because the main financier for the Westinghouse reactor is a U.S. government corporation, the Export-Import Bank, we urge you to be involved in this crucial stage of NRC's decisionmaking on this issue of unprecedented significance.

The Friends of the Filipino People has submitted a brief to the NRC, upon their invitation. We have asked that the NRC deny the Westinghouse export license in question for the following reasons:

1. This defective reactor is located alongside a volcanic and earthquake belt. The proposed Westinghouse reactor, based on a defective earlier model, is located on the slope of an active volcano. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said July 1978 that the eruption of Mt. Natib is a "credible event." The same IAEA report also states that the reactor site is located along a geological fault and subject to earthquakes. An earthquake of magnitude 8 could produce up and down ground waves at the site with 50 percent of the force of gravity. The plant is only designed to withstand ground vibrations up to 40 percent gravity.

Should a meltdown occur as a result of a major accident or natural disaster, meteorologists assess a 37 percent likelihood that the wind will carry radioactive gases into densely populated Manila and the U.S. bases in Subic and Clark. There are 8 million Filipinos in Manila, thousands around the reactor site, and a total of 27,000 U.S. servicemen and personnel in Clark and Subic bases.

Even the Marcos controlled Philippine Atomic Energy Commission concedes that since the Philippines is in a volcanic belt, it cannot provide for the longterm disposal of radioactive wastes to be produced by the plant.

2. Any proposed export must not be inimical to the common defense and security of the United States.

The NRC, under 42 U.S.C. 2133 and 2155(a) (1), must not grant an export license unless it finds that the proposed export would not be "inimical to the common defense and security of the United States." This is a broad standard encompassing all phases of the national defense and security.

Clearly, the long term "common defense and security" of the United States is based heavily on maintaining good relations and friendship with the peoples of other countries. The substantial and unreasonable health and safety threat to the Filipino people that would be created by the proposed Westinghouse reactor can only place in jeopardy the goodwill between the peoples of the Philippines and the United States.

3. The health and safety of Filipinos is not a principal concern of the Marcos regime.

While "common defense and security" is defined in the Atomic Energy Act to mean the common defense and security of the United States, the phrase "public health and safety" is nowhere defined in the Act. The NRC, however, has several times interpreted that phase to refer to the health and safety of the U.S. or its citizens. These interpretations, while ostensibly based on a formal deference to another sovereign government, is in fact implicitly grounded on a presumption that the foreign government involved, through an existing democratic process, is fully aware of the health and safety risks involved, and also will be properly and sufficiently protective of the health and safety of its citizenry.

(137)

This presumption becomes merely a legal fiction however, when, as here, the Philippine government is a martial-law dictatorship found by the U.S. State Department to deny its citizens the most basic democratic rights and to maintain itself in power through force and electoral fraud; when, as here, the Philippine government has suppressed opposition to the proposed nuclear facility; and when, as here, the health and safety risks are so gross and apparent; and when, as here, the U.S.-based corporation seeking an export license appears to have bought its way into the Philippines.

4. The Westinghouse project was secured by bribes and corrupt practices. An article in the New York Times of January 14, 1978 quoted bankers involved in financing the reactor. They estimated that Westinghouse had given a relative of Philippine President Marcos, Herminio Disini, a "commission" of from $4 M to $30 M for securing the contract against General Electric. Disini's own construction firm was awarded the plant construction and the contract for plant insurance to another of his firms. In addition, he became the Westinghouse distributor in the Philippines.

The FFP maintains that when, as here, gross health and safety risks coincide with martial law repression of opposition to the proposed nuclear facility along with the taint of corruption connected with the contractual arrangements for the reactor, then the NRC is the only available safeguard (either in the Philippines or in the United States) that can effectively guard against an irresponsible export of life-endangering nuclear material and a potential catastrophic tragedy. 5. The Westinghouse reactor is unsafe, high-profit technology dumped on the Philippines to revive the dying U.S. nuclear industry.

On October 2, 1979, the Washington Post reported "Sources said one reason the administration approved the Philippine export is the health of the U.S. atomic power industry. Only one U.S. utility has ordered a nuclear power plant in the last 3 years."

Since Westinghouse cannot sell its unsafe nuclear technology in the U.S. where freedom of speech is relatively effective, it seeks to dump these in countries like the Philippines whose people are muzzled by dictatorship.

6. The Westinghouse reactor project represents a distortion of Philippine national development.

William Cummings, a professional ecologist and former USAID adviser in the Philippines, notes that the reactor was from its inception not rationally based on energy or development policies, but rather was "a decision made in response to commercial concerns external to the Philippines." In a nation where millions live in absolute poverty, where human needs cry out for attention, where resources are destroyed for lack of government support for environmental protection, the diversion of more than a billion dollars in development capital to a single project of questionable benefit is pure misdevelopment.

In addition, the $1.1 B reactor, if constructed, would add considerably to the Philippine foreign debt burden of $8 M-already the second largest in Asia.

Appropriate and alternative energy sources exist in the Philippines, including methanol from sugar cane, low-head hydro-electric power provided by a multitude of streams and rivers, and a vast supply of geo-thermal energy. Geo-thermal sources in particular would provide energy at much less cost than nuclear power, and the very volcanic conditions that make nuclear power unsafe, make geothermal power possible.

7. The Westinghouse reactor project is falling prey to expediencies of an election year.

On August 8, 1979, President Carter wrote Chairman Robert E. Kirby of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, expressing his regret that the export license had been held up for so long. On September 28th, the State Department recommended the granting of an export license to Westinghouse for this project.

Domestic and foreign policy political considerations always enter into Executive branch decisionmaking. This is particularly acute in an election year. It is for reasons such as this that independent agencies, like the NRC have been created. The NRC is mandated to make licensing decisions solely on the basis of national security and on health and safety criteria.

8. The Westinghouse reactor constitutes fiscal waste at the expense of U.S. taxpayers.

The $1.1 B reactor is to be financed by an Export-Import Bank loan to the Philippine government. Ex-Im's share, $600 M, dwarfs every other category of U.S. bilateral or multilateral development aid, making the reactor the major

U.S.-assisted project in the Philippines. This project, however, bears no relation to existing USAID priorities and contradicts their intent in many respects.

Funding the reactor was not a planning decision made on the basis of genuine assessment and evaluation but a decision made in response to commercial concerns of Westinghouse Corporation, a concern clearly external to Philippine needs.

For the above mentioned reasons, the FFP has petitioned the NRC on the following:

(a) that the NRC has both the authority and obligation to examine the health, safety and environmental impacts in the Philippines of the proposed reactor in reaching its licensing determination;

(b) that these issues be examined on their own merits as they relate to the Philippines and the Filipino people and not only as they may be connected with U.S. national security and common defense;

(c) that the examination and consideration of these issues must utilize the same criteria and reflect the same concern for the Philippines and for the Filipino people as if the application were for a domestic license; and

(d) that hearings should be held in this matter which are comprehensive, public and with full participation of both proponents and opponents of the license sought.

We have also urged the NRC to deny the Westinghouse export license. Once again, we urge the Committee and the Congress to express your concerns to the NRC on the above problems. Your participation during this period will be crucial in helping the NRC decide the scope of its jurisdiction and define for itself the life-preserving standards of health, safety and environmental protection it must impose on our nuclear exports.

A full copy of the 43-paged brief we submitted to the NRC is available at the Friends of the Filipino People, 100 Maryland Ave. NE., Washington, D.C. 20002, Telephone 543-1093.