I have blogged in past posts about regulatory capture which is basically the take-over of a government agency by the industry that it is supposed to regulate. This can result in industry involvement writing the rules for regulation or failure of the agency to enforce regulations on industry. There is also the problem of a revolving door where people move back and forth between positions in the regulatory agency and positions in industry. Conflict of interest is a constant problem which may include the same person having both regulatory authority and also promoting the interests of a regulated industry. The standard way of dealing with such a situation is to have the person recuse themselves from the regulatory decision making process when it might be influenced by their private agenda.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has often been accused of regulatory capture with good reason. The U.S. nuclear industry has been given far too much latitude with respect to following NRC regulations. Now a group of thirty four non-profit organizations including Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Sierra Club have drafted a letter demanding that one of the NRC Commissioners be forced to resign immediately due to a conflict of interest.
Commissioner William D. Magwood recently applied for and was given a job with the international Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA). The NEA is dedicated to promoting the use of nuclear power and the economic interests of member governments. The concern of the group of non-profits is that Magwood continued to participate in making decisions on regulations for the nuclear industry while he was applying and being hired for the NEA job. They say that he should have recused himself from helping to make decisions which would impact the implementation of nuclear power being promoted by the NEA.
In part, the letter said that Magwood's seeking and obtaining a nuclear promotion job while sitting on the NRC is "antithetical to the basic principles of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 that safety, not economics, must be the NRC's paramount consideration and that promotional policies shall be left to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)."
The letter pointed out that allowing Magwood to retain his seat on the NRC would be a violation of federal laws that deal with the impartiality of judges. "Commissioner Magwood should resign because a reasonable person would question his independence and objectivity in applying NRC safety requirements or judging the significance of safety issues. Mr. Magwood has a conflict of interest whenever he is forced to consider a solution to a safety issue that could significantly increase the cost of nuclear power production and thus limit its viability in the marketplace."
In addition, the non-profit group wants Magwood to retroactively recuse himself from decisions that he participated during the nine months between his application for the NEA job and his hiring for the job. During that time, the NRC was reviewing and voting on two nuclear safety related projects. The NRC was considering funding research into the adequacy of their safety regulations and research into supporting the movement of spent fuel rods from cooling pools to dry cask storage. Both of these proposals were voted down with Magwood casting negative votes. If these projects had been funded, the cost of construction and operation of nuclear power plants in the United States would have increased. This would have been in direct opposition to the stated goals of the NEA. A reasonable person would have to conclude that Magwood could have voted as he did to improve his chances of getting the NEA job.
NRC Commissioner William D. Magwood:
