[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 14, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H589-H591]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FIRSTENERGY INDICTMENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I rise today to highlight significant 
developments in the ongoing commercial nuclear energy scandal in Ohio, 
the worst in U.S. history.
  It involves FirstEnergy Corporation's conspiracy, wire fraud, and 
bribery of the highest level of Ohio public officials in return for a 
legislative bailout of its flagging nuclear plants.
  Bribed public officials made sure that the company's debts were 
dumped on the public as they violated public safety time and again.
  This past Friday, a Summit County, Ohio, grand jury returned the 
indictments against the former CEO of FirstEnergy, the former 
FirstEnergy senior vice president of external affairs, and the former 
chair of the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, each for multiple 
felonies related to their alleged roles in the largest public 
corruption scandal in Ohio's history.
  The indictments by the Summit County prosecutor and Ohio's Attorney 
General aim to bring these corrupt, unethical, and dangerous--yes, 
dangerous--individuals to justice.
  Driven by greed and self-interest, FirstEnergy not only compromised 
the Ohio State legislature and its top leaders in other critical public 
institutions--they were responsible for severely mismanaging time and 
again the operations of inherently dangerous nuclear assets.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article by Toledo Blade 
columnist Tom Henry dating back to 2003, following another dangerous 
incident at that plant, quoting nuclear Navy retired Admiral Joe 
Williams.

                [From the Toledo Blade, Sept. 22, 2003]

               Ex-Official at Besse Links Woes, Managers

                             (By Tom Henry)

       Retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Joe Williams, Jr., who guided 
     Davis-Besse back to service after it was crippled more than 
     18 months in the mid-1980s, has told The Blade he offered in 
     2002 to come back and help guide the troubled nuclear plant 
     back into service again.
       But FirstEnergy Corp. declined, saying it would keep the 
     project ``in-house,'' according to Mr. Williams.
       Now 81 and a resident of an independent living facility in 
     Kennett Square, Pa., near Wilmington, Del., Mr. Williams said 
     he is as strong in his conviction about what needs to be done 
     at Davis-Besse as he was when he was paid $1,500 a day to 
     straighten things out with his no-nonsense approach--one 
     which, as recently as a congressional hearing last fall, has 
     been recalled with admiration by some former employees.
       ``When I left, I had a crew of the best plant engineers,'' 
     Mr. Williams said while claiming that many of his efforts 
     have been undone by a profit-over-safety mentality that some 
     people feel has been the hallmark of the deregulation era of 
     the 1990s.
       ``Like all plants, when they decided they wanted to make a 
     cash cow out of [Davis-Besse], they neglected maintenance. If 
     they would just learn that the only way you make money from a 
     nuclear plant is by keeping it online. And the only way you 
     keep it online is with safe production,'' he said.
       Richard Wilkins, FirstEnergy spokesman, said he is not 
     aware of any discussions to bring back the retired vice 
     admiral in 2002.
       The hiring of Mr. Williams often has been cited as one of 
     the key moves Toledo Edison Co., now a FirstEnergy 
     subsidiary, made in response to its June 9, 1985, incident at 
     Davis-Besse, when a series of pumps and valves failed and 
     caused a temporary loss of coolant water to the reactor core.
       The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has described that 
     incident and the near-rupture of Davis-Besse's reactor head, 
     discovered in March, 2002, as two of the nation's biggest 
     nuclear episodes since the Three Mile Island accident of 
     1979. The two near-mishaps have resulted in the two longest 
     outages in the plant's history, both in excess of 560 days.
       Although the issues are different, Mr. Williams said he 
     sees similarities. He said an underlying problem for years at 
     Davis-Besse has been a general reluctance of employees to 
     come forth with problems they find. Part of the problem these 
     days is a greater reliance on contractors, he said.
       ``They need to rectify that right now. They need to get a 
     staff that's company people and can do their jobs. Go to the 
     expense of hiring good people,'' Mr. Williams said.
       Mr. Williams, a former commander of the U.S. Atlantic 
     submarine fleet and the NATO submarine fleet, did just that 
     in 1985. Shortly after he was brought in on June 18 of that

[[Page H590]]

     year--a mere nine days after the near-accident occurred--he 
     took the helm under the title of senior vice president in 
     charge of nuclear operations and was given wide latitude in 
     decisions. Among other things, Davis-Besse's manpower was 
     expanded to 890 employees, up from 644. Salaries were boosted 
     to attract talent. There was less reliance on contractors.
       ``They need to get back to what we were doing in 1987,'' 
     Mr. Williams said. After leaving in the spring of that year, 
     he garnered a rate of $2,000 a day as an expert witness in 
     court cases involving nuclear plants. Discussions about his 
     coming back to Davis-Besse in 2002 never got serious enough 
     for a fee to be discussed, he said.
       But he told The Blade he was absolutely serious about 
     returning. ``I'm capable of coming out there and getting that 
     [facility] back online,'' he said.
       Mr. Williams said the reactor head would not have become so 
     dilapidated if he had heard about the containment air filters 
     getting clogged by rust every other day, a telltale sign of a 
     problem that had gone on for nearly 18 months.
       FirstEnergy claimed it did not make a connection between 
     rusty filters and a problem inside the containment building. 
     Such filters are normally changed once a month.
       ``I would have shut the plant down. That's criminal. No 
     system engineer could have possibly, possibly supported 
     [continued operation],'' Mr. Williams said.
       ``I'll tell you one thing: if my filters had those 
     problems, I would have ripped the insulation off that head 
     [and looked for corrosion],'' he added.
       As it turned out, the corrosion--the worst in U.S. nuclear 
     history--left a football-shaped cavity in the reactor head. 
     All that was left in that spot was a liner that was less than 
     three-eighths of an inch thick and not designed to hold back 
     the reactor's enormous pressure.
       Mr. Williams said he is familiar with a U.S. Department of 
     Labor complaint filed by former Davis-Besse engineer Andrew 
     Siemaszko, who has sought federal whistleblower protection on 
     the grounds he was illegally fired by FirstEnergy in 
     September, 2002. Mr. Siemaszko alleges his termination stems 
     from his insistence on having expensive maintenance done on 
     each of the plant's four reactor coolant pumps.
       The Siemaszko case, dismissed in June and now on appeal, 
     claims that FirstEnergy knowingly operated Davis-Besse for 
     years with a severely rusted head. Among other things, the 
     complaint states that scaffolding was removed one night 
     during an outage in 2000 without Mr. Siemaszko's consent, 
     abruptly ending his efforts to clean the head weeks before 
     the job could be completed.
       ``I think the kid was right,'' Mr. Williams said, referring 
     to Mr. Siemaszko. ``I don't know how many of them [in 
     FirstEnergy] out there ought to be hung.''
       Mr. Williams said he is interested in the outcome of an 
     investigation into possible criminal activity being headed by 
     the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Office of Investigations. 
     The results, which have not yet been made public, could be 
     turned over to the U.S. Department of Justice for 
     prosecution.
       Certain FirstEnergy officials ``ought to go to jail,'' Mr. 
     Williams said. ``There have been enough deliberate acts of 
     management in terms of denial,'' he said.
       Mr. Wilkins said FirstEnergy has addressed most of the 
     concerns cited by the NRC, including problems with Davis-
     Besse's safety culture.
       Recent surveys show employees weren't afraid to come 
     forward but had been reluctant to do so because they felt 
     management had for years stopped taking their concerns 
     seriously, Mr. Wilkins said.
       He said he can't comment on what would have occurred had 
     Mr. Williams been in charge while the problems with the rusty 
     air filters came to light.
       ``We noted in our root cause report that the air filters 
     were one of several missed opportunities,'' Mr. Wilkins said, 
     saying plant officials simply failed to recognize it as a 
     symptom of a problem.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Admiral Williams strongly condemned the malfeasance and 
nuclear endangerment attendant to the top managers and corporate 
chieftains, and that kept on year after year after year.
  As I have cautioned before, corporate nuclear culture influences 
safety culture. We need only look at the troubled history of multiple 
major nuclear safety violations and criminal conduct at FirstEnergy's 
Davis-Besse nuclear plant in our district for evidence of this 
relationship. It is a sad story for America.
  One must ask whether and how the fines and penalties at FirstEnergy 
and its subsidiary, Energy Harbor, have had to pay to avoid criminal 
and civil trials.
  How will America deter future misconduct by the commercial nuclear 
power energy companies? Federal regulators didn't do their job.
  What is clear is that more justice must be achieved to make Ohio 
ratepayers and our communities safe and whole again.
  A class action suit settled by FirstEnergy in August of last year 
netted payments to individual ratepayers--get ready--a mere $10 to $20.
  Moreover, Ohio consumers continue to subsidize FirstEnergy's 
antiquated coal-fired power plants even outside Ohio under the portion 
of HB6 that passed the State legislature that has yet to be repealed.
  Another casualty is the local school district in Oak Harbor, Ohio, 
where the Davis-Besse plant is located. It continues to suffer millions 
and millions of dollars of tax losses due to the incremental 
devaluation of the plant's public utility property values over the 
years.
  I continue to urge the State legislature, State and Federal 
prosecutors, and State and Federal regulators to take bold action.
  Let's right these wrongs, and let's assure Federal authorities 
achieve safe, clean, modern, and responsible nuclear energy production 
in Ohio and in this country. This slipshod, corrupt nuclear energy must 
never, ever, ever happen in America again.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Blade 
titled: ``Reactor Near to a Dismal Record.''

                 [From the Toledo Blade, Aug. 31, 2003]

                    Reactor Near to a Dismal Record

                             (By Tom Henry)

       Still defending itself from allegations that it may have 
     caused the nation's worst blackout, FirstEnergy Corp. is 
     about to break the previous record for futility at Davis-
     Besse.
       On Wednesday, Davis-Besse will have sat idle for 565 days, 
     setting a plant record for consecutive days without producing 
     electricity. The previous record was 564 consecutive days 
     between June 9, 1985, and Christmas Day, 1986.
       The cost of the current outage is more than $500 million, 
     and is starting to approach the $642 million price tag that 
     it cost to build the plant in 1977.
       The 1985-86 shutdown occurred after a series of pumps and 
     valves failed, causing a loss of coolant water to the reactor 
     core of the plant. In circumstances that sound strikingly 
     similar to the current shutdown, the Nuclear Regulatory 
     Commission referred to the 1985 accident as the worst since 
     Three Mile Island in 1979. It resulted in an extensive 
     investigation into the operation and management of the plant, 
     30 miles east of Toledo near Oak Harbor.
       Although then-operator Toledo Edison Co. restarted the 
     plant on Dec. 22, 1986, the reactor ``tripped'' and shut down 
     after several hours without producing electricity. Three days 
     later, operators restarted the plant on Christmas Day, 1986, 
     and achieved enough power so that electricity could be 
     produced, ending the consecutive-day shutdown streak at 564 
     days.
       However, Davis-Besse continued to struggle with shutdowns 
     on and off into early January, 1987.
       The current shutdown began February 16, 2002, as a normal 
     refueling and maintenance outage. NRC staff wanted 
     FirstEnergy to move up the refueling from its scheduled date 
     in March, 2002, to late fall 2001 so that a check could be 
     conducted on control rod nozzles for cracks like those found 
     at a South Carolina plant with a similar pressurized water 
     design.
       But FirstEnergy balked and the NRC decided to allow 
     FirstEnergy to keep the plant in operation until February 
     16--only about a month earlier than the originally scheduled 
     outage.
       After Davis-Beese was shut down, plant officials found that 
     boric acid had leaked through flanges atop the reactor head 
     and ate a half-foot hole in the carbon steel of the reactor 
     head.
       Only a layer of stainless steel three-eighths of an inch 
     thick prevented the pressure of radioactive steam inside the 
     reactor from leaking into the containment building. The NRC 
     called the corrosion the worst it had ever seen and launched 
     an investigation into what went wrong.
       FirstEnergy originally announced plans to return the plant 
     to service in April, 2002, but that date has repeatedly been 
     pushed back in response to the discovery of other problems 
     and NRC scrutiny--such as concerns about the safety culture 
     among management and employees at the plant.
       There is a sense of deja vu for some NRC and Davis-Besse 
     officials when it comes to the two extended shutdowns and the 
     issues of plant management and regulatory oversight:
       During both outages, the workplace environment has been 
     questioned. ``What was really necessary was a change in 
     attitude, a change in management style,'' Joe Williams, Jr., 
     Toledo Edison Co.'s senior vice president of nuclear 
     operations, was quoted as saying about the 1985 incident in 
     the fall of 1986. ``A lot of the problems went back to Day 
     One.''
       The deep cavity found in Davis-Besse's reactor head has 
     been likewise attributed by the NRC to a lack of questioning 
     attitude on behalf of FirstEnergy management and its 
     workforce.
       Although FirstEnergy has replaced the reactor head with an 
     unused head from a Michigan plant, the NRC has become so 
     concerned about the company's attention to detail that it has 
     subjected the plant to only

[[Page H591]]

     its second formal ``safety culture'' review. The only other 
     site to have undergone such a review is the Millstone nuclear 
     plant in Connecticut, where NRC officials have said they 
     believe workers were harassed and intimidated if they tried 
     to report problems.
       FirstEnergy is to make a lengthy presentation about its 
     progress September 18 at the NRC's Midwest regional office in 
     Lisle, Ill. The agency will take FirstEnergy's presentation 
     under consideration, then hold at least one more meeting on 
     the topic to give the company feedback before restart, Jan 
     Strasma, NRC spokesman, said.
       During both outages, the NRC has had its own credibility 
     questioned by members of Congress and other high-powered 
     officials in Washington.
       U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo), after hearing about 
     the reactor head corrosion 18 months ago, questioned the 
     capability of the NRC, an agency she accused of being weak 
     and ineffective with its handling of Davis-Besse's 1985 
     incident. Although Miss Kaptur called for Davis-Besse to be 
     shut permanently in 2002, she has not been as outspoken in 
     recent months as has U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D., 
     Cleveland).
       Earlier this year, Congressman Kucinich petitioned the NRC 
     to revoke FirstEnergy's operating license at Davis-Besse. 
     More recently, in response to finger-pointing alleging 
     FirstEnergy may have responsibility for the nation's worst 
     blackout, he petitioned the Public Utilities Commission of 
     Ohio to revoke the utility's right to do business in Ohio.
       A long paper trail of records reviewed by The Blade shows 
     others have shared their skepticism about Davis-Besse.
       A report prepared for the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy 
     Conservation and Power just days after the June 9, 1985, 
     event suggested that the coolant-water episode at Davis-Besse 
     should not have surprised the NRC. The report said 48 
     problems concerning Davis-Besse's auxiliary feed-water system 
     had been reported by Toledo Edison since July, 1979. The 
     plant unexpectedly shut down 40 times between 1980 and 1985--
     at least half of those times because of hardware problems and 
     at least nine times because of human error.
       In April, 1987, former U.S. Sen. John Glenn (D., Ohio) 
     introduced a bill that ultimately led to the creation of the 
     NRC's Office of Inspector General. Senator Glenn said at the 
     time that the NRC is ``supposed to be a watchdog, not a 
     lapdog.''
       Earlier this year, that same Office of Inspector General 
     accused the NRC of putting profits ahead of safety when it 
     allowed Davis-Besse to wait until February, 2002, to shut 
     down for refueling and the safety inspection for control rod 
     cracks.
       Former NRC Chairman Richard Meserve vehemently denied that 
     charge.
       George Mulley, the inspector general's senior level 
     assistant for investigative operations, told The Blade that a 
     follow-up probe into the NRC's oversight performance at 
     Davis-Besse will likely be released this month.
       Part of the criticism the NRC received following its 1985-
     86 probe of Davis-Besse stemmed from its decision to back off 
     from a proposed $900,000 fine against Toledo Edison.
       The agency originally said it would impose the penalty 
     because of a ``long history of ineffective and inadequate 
     attention and direction in the operation and maintenance of 
     the Davis-Besse facility.''
       But in 1987, the NRC cut the fine amount to $450,000. The 
     agency explained that it had changed its mind because it was 
     impressed by Toledo Edison's aggressiveness toward 
     establishing ``a long-range, in-depth corrective action 
     program to address the problems that existed at Davis-
     Besse.''
       No fine has been issued in connection with the current 
     problems at Davis-Besse. A decision on any civil penalty 
     depends on whether the NRC's Office of Investigations 
     believes there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing to turn 
     over to the Justice Department for prosecution.
       ``The criminal process would take precedence over the civil 
     process,'' Mr. Strasma said.
       Although the two extended outages appear to have some 
     parallels in terms of oversight, the country's mood toward 
     nuclear power at the time they each began was likely very 
     different.
       Early last year, in the weeks before the reactor head 
     corrosion was discovered at Davis-Besse, the nuclear industry 
     had the best reason for optimism since before the Three Mile 
     Island accident.
       After 23 years of doldrums, nuclear energy was embraced by 
     the White House as a solution to energy problems. Congress in 
     2002 eventually eliminated one of the nuclear industry's most 
     nagging obstacles to expansion when it designated Nevada's 
     Yucca Mountain as a burial site for spent reactor fuel.
       Contrast that with how most people felt about nuclear power 
     when Toledo Edison restarted Davis-Besse in December, 1986. 
     Several months earlier, on April 26, 1986, the world's worst 
     nuclear accident had occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear 
     complex near Kiev, Ukraine. Thousands died, either 
     immediately from the blast or from radiation-related 
     sicknesses in the following years.
       As Davis-Besse moved closer to restart, Toledo Edison's Joe 
     Williams, Jr., sought to allay fears. On Sept. 7, 1986, the 
     retired U.S. Navy vice admiral devoted nearly an entire page 
     in The Blade to a 2,000-word letter in which he explained 
     what happened at Davis-Besse, Three Mile Island, and 
     Chernobyl.
       ``A Chernobyl simply cannot happen here for a variety of 
     reasons,'' Mr. Williams wrote, citing the containment at U.S. 
     nuclear plants among those reasons.
       The hiring of Mr. Williams has been seen as one of the key 
     moves Toledo Edison made in response to Davis-Besse's 1985 
     shutdown.
       A former commander of the U.S. Atlantic submarine fleet and 
     the NATO submarine fleet, he was brought in on June 18, 1985, 
     nine days after the shutdown began. He took the helm under 
     the title of senior vice president in charge of nuclear 
     operations, and was given wide latitude in decisions.
       Davis-Besse's manpower was expanded to 890 employees in 
     1986, up from 644 in 1985. There was less reliance on 
     contractors.
       Compare that with the current workforce at Davis-Besse, 
     which totals 725 full-time employees in a deregulated, more 
     competitive market. FirstEnergy spokesman Richard Wilkins 
     acknowledges there are far fewer employees today and that the 
     trend has been to bring in more contractors to do specialized 
     work.
       Lew Myers, chief operating officer of FirstEnergy's nuclear 
     subsidiary, has told the NRC that he has put a renewed 
     emphasis on training.
       Yet employees fear burnout: Some have privately complained 
     about working in excess of 72 hours a week throughout much of 
     the 18-month outage.
       A number of key positions, including some in Davis-Besse's 
     engineering department, have been filled by employees from 
     FirstEnergy's Perry nuclear plant near Cleveland and the 
     Beaver Valley nuclear station at Shippingport, Pa.
       Howard Whitcomb, a Toledo lawyer and former NRC resident 
     inspector in South Carolina who worked under Mr. Williams at 
     Davis-Besse after the 1985 incident, has said he believes 
     many of the workplace issues that exist at Davis-Besse today 
     would not have been tolerated under the former vice admiral's 
     reign.
       ``You've had a few really close calls at Davis-Besse,'' 
     said Jim Riccio, Greenpeace nuclear policy analyst in 
     Washington, citing the two extended outages and a 1998 
     tornado which narrowly missed the plant.
       ``I'm wondering when luck is going to run out.''

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