AG: Pilgrim Needs More Review Before Relicensing

The state's attorney general is urging federal regulators to consider the Fukushima nuclear disaster when they review the relicensing request from . 

On Friday, Martha Coakley's office sent an appeal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to a report in the Boston Globe. She asked regulators to look more closely at the fallout in Japan following an earthquake and tsunami near the Fukushima Daiichi reactors, which are similar in design to the Pilgrim plant. 

After the Fukushima disaster, Coakley's office asked the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (which operates under the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) to postpone a relicensing approval until it could look at new data from Japan. Coakley said problems in Japan were related to issues she noted at Pilgrim in an earlier appeal in 2006. 

But the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board denied her petition. As such, she took her plea to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week. The commission has the ultimate word on relicensing.