Nuclear regulators try to obstruct Congressional oversight

[kristopher]

3. Nuclear "Regulatory Capture" -- A Global Pattern

Regulatory capture is a form of political corruption that occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or special concerns of interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure; it creates an opening for firms to behave in ways injurious to the public (eg, producing negative externalities). The agencies are called "captured agencies".

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission
According to Frank N. von Hippel, despite the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has often been too timid in ensuring that America's 104 commercial reactors are operated safely:

Nuclear power is a textbook example of the problem of "regulatory capture" — in which an industry gains control of an agency meant to regulate it. Regulatory capture can be countered only by vigorous public scrutiny and Congressional oversight, but in the 32 years since Three Mile Island, interest in nuclear regulation has declined precipitously.

Then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2007 that the five-member NRC had become "captive of the industries that it regulates" and Joe Biden indicated he had absolutely no confidence in the agency...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Nuclear "Regulatory Capture" -- A Global Pattern
Karl GrossmanInvestigative reporter


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...the nuclear regulatory situation in Japan is the rule globally.

In the United States, for example, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, never denied a construction or operating license for a nuclear power plant anywhere, anytime. The NRC has been busy in recent times not only giving the go-ahead to new nuclear power plant construction in the U.S. but extending the operating licenses of most of the 104 existing plants from 40 to 60 years -- although they were only designed to run for 40 years. That's because radioactivity embrittles their metal components and degrades other parts after 40 years, potentially making the plants unsafe to operate. And the NRC is now considering extending their licenses for 80 years.

Moreover, the NRC's chairman, Gregory Jaczko, recently resigned in the face of an assault on him by the nuclear industry and his four fellow NRC members led by William D. Magwood, IV. Magwood is typical of most NRC and AEC commissioners through the decades -- a zealous promoter of nuclear power. He came to the NRC after running Advanced Energy Strategies through which he served as a consultant to various companies involved with nuclear power including many in Japan -- among them Tepco, as revealed by Ryan Grim on The Huffington Post.

Before that, Magwood served as director of nuclear energy for the U.S. Department of Energy. He "led the creation," according to his NRC biography, of DOE programs pushing nuclear power, "Nuclear Power 2010" and "Generation IV." Prior to that, he worked for the Edison Electric Institute and Westinghouse, a major nuclear power plant manufacturer.

Jaczko, although a supporter of nuclear power, with a Ph.D. in physics, repeatedly called for the NRC to apply "lessons learned" from the Fukushima disaster to its rules and actions -- upsetting the industry and the other four NRC commissioners. As Jaczko declared in February as the other four NRC commissioners first approved the construction of new nuclear plants since Fukushima, giving the go-ahead to two plants in Georgia: "I cannot support issuing this license as if Fukushima had never happened."

The NRC was set up to be an independent regulator of nuclear power to ...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karl-grossman/nuclear-regulatory-captur_b_1664340.html