The safety of U.S. nuclear infrastructure has attracted greater public attention because of an increasing awareness of possible acts of terrorism and a series of high-profile safety breaches.

The security of nuclear and chemical facilities has been the subject of several recent bills in Congress and found its way into presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's campaign speech Wednesday in Seattle, where he asked, "Why is it that chemical plants and nuclear facilities still don't have the plans in place, and the protections in place that are necessary?"

Diaz strongly contradicted that characterization.

Still, several recent incidents have raised questions about the safety of U.S. nuclear infrastructure.

A report released Tuesday by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, questions the NRC's oversight of the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio.

A boric-acid leak at Davis-Besse caused what has been called the most serious nuclear-safety concern in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. Although no radioactive material was released in the Davis-Besse incident, the NRC estimated that a situation similar to the one at Three Mile Island could have occurred within 60 days if the corrosion caused by the acid had not been detected.

The GAO report faulted the NRC for failing to notice the weakness of the so-called safety culture present at the Davis-Besse plant. The report defines safety culture to include the priority given to safety measures and the attitude with which safety is addressed.

"This degradation (of safety culture) had allowed the incident to occur with no forewarning because NRC's inspections and performance indicators do not directly assess safety culture," the GAO report said.

Diaz rejected the GAO report accusations, however, saying, "We require our licensees to have a very good safety culture." He added, however, that attempting to micromanage each plant would make the NRC less effective overall.

In addition to the Davis-Besse report, further nuclear-security questions were raised May 20 when the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico confirmed that computer equipment potentially containing classified information was missing. The laboratory denied that the loss could represent a major security concern, but critics said the problem was in fact quite major.

While security concerns have always been an issue for nuclear facilities, the threat of terrorism has changed the range of concerns and the way the NRC goes about addressing them.

In addition to the problems the NRC has traditionally combated -- like the corrosion at Davis-Besse -- the commission is charged with preparing against terror attacks of all kinds.

"We are now a safety, security and preparedness agency; each one reinforces the others," Diaz said.

One of the first preparedness tasks the NRC undertook after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was assessing the danger posed to U.S. nuclear facilities by an attack with a hijacked airplane.

"We are a lot better now than we were" with respect to such an attack, Diaz said. "We have answers; we have actual plans."

Diaz said that detailed assessments of the potential effects of an aircraft attack on a nuclear facility show such an attack would not likely pose a significant danger to the public.

"The combination of systems is so robust that even if something severe happens, we have plenty of time," he said. "In all cases there is time to protect the American people."

Diaz said nuclear plants located on large bodies of water have also prepared for the possibility of a ship-borne attack.

The potential for a coordinated ground attack by armed terrorists has also drawn considerable attention.

The private guard forces currently stationed at U.S. nuclear facilities have come in for significant criticism after being involved in several scandals, including allegedly cheating on security evaluations.

Controversy over private guards led Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to announce this month that he would consider federalizing the guard service at some more sensitive nuclear sites.

But Diaz said Abraham's statement only referred to guards at Department of Energy sites containing military materials, not to civilian sites.

A variety of sites will be subject to so-called emergency-response exercises. The NRC is planning 25 such exercises this year, with the first to take place June 8 at the Indian Point nuclear power plant in upstate New York.

Diaz said the Indian Point exercise will include a major force-on-force test, tabletop exercises involving state, local and federal agencies and a comprehensive preparedness exercise for the response to a terrorist attack.

"I think it will be a very tough test," he said.

Despite concerns, Diaz said U.S. nuclear infrastructure is safe and has solid plans for an attack by terrorists.

He added, however, that good planning is no substitute for conservative policies and procedures.

He said when a large attack or safety concern does come, "It's always the one that you have not identified."

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