Security Boom

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scrapped a program which identifies security shortcomings at nuclear power plants, even though in the seven years it ran it revealed “serious security lapses” in nearly half of the plants in the country. In one case, an NRC team “was able to reach and simulate sabotaging enough equipment to cause a core melt,” an NRC spokesman said. The reason for the program’s cancellation? Each security drill costs $140,000 to $800,000. The same day this news broke, the government announced that the investigation and resulting prosecution of the Oklahoma City, Okla., federal building bombing cost taxpayers $82.5 million, not including rewards, expenses incurred by the CIA, or bomber Timothy McVeigh’s $15 million defense. The value of the destroyed building and its contents was not mentioned. (AP, 2) ...The government has apparently never heard the saying, “Penny wise and pound foolish.”