“The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created as an independent agency by Congress in 1974 to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials for beneficial civilian purposes while protecting people and the environment. The NRC regulates commercial nuclear power plants and other uses of nuclear materials, such as in nuclear medicine, through licensing, inspection and enforcement of its requirements.” NRC website.
In 2000, the NRC changed its process for inspecting nuclear power plants. The new process was referred to as the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) and is much better than previous oversight processes. The NRC decided that the refinement of the ROP would be an ongoing process with periodic reviews and revisions. This year the NRC carried out a formal review of the ROP. One recommendation that came out of the review was to change the ROP so that the same number of items could be inspected with fewer actual visits to the power plants.
The nuclear industry had its own recommendations about how to change the ROP to make it more effective and efficient. Industry groups suggested that the NRC engineering inspection visits be eliminated. In place of NRC visits, the nuclear industry suggested that the operators of power plants carry out the necessary inspections themselves and send reports to the NRC.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a civic watch-dog group, carried out their own comparison of the number of engineering problems turned up by self-review with the number of engineering problems turned up by NRC inspections. The USC concluded that “that the NRC’s engineering inspections are necessary for nuclear safety and that public health and safety will be compromised by replacing them with self-assessments by industry.” This finding is consistent with the fact that there have been many instances of operators of nuclear power plants failing to follow government regulations in the construction and/or operation of nuclear power plants. In addition, they have lied and falsified records in order to hide their violations.
One big concern about government regulation of industries is the possibility that the agency that should be in charge of guaranteeing that companies obey government regulations is actually working with the company to the detriment of the public. There have been many cases where a regulatory agency colluded with a regulated company to conceal violation of regulations. While there are some regulations that are unnecessary and burdensome, many regulations were put in place explicitly because companies violated good business practices and posed a threat to public health and safety.
Of all the regulations that should be rigorously followed by commercial enterprises in the U.S., the nuclear regulations are some of the most critical. Failure to follow regulations could lead to a major accident at a nuclear power plant that could threaten the well-being of millions of citizens.
The NRC has a mediocre record with respect to enforcement of regulations at nuclear power plants. It is absolutely critical that the NRC carry out periodic and thorough inspections at every operation nuclear power plant in the U.S. The companies that operate those plants cannot be trusted to honestly report all the problems that they may be aware of at their plants. In addition, the NRC itself must be subjected to periodic inspections to prevent detect, halt and prevent regulatory capture.
