Thoughts on the NRC Mess

This Nuclear Regulatory Commission thing sure is a mess, isn’t it?

I’m pretty confident that the NRC as a whole is going to be just fine – its not just these dysfunctional 5 people, but it is a whole bureaucracy who actually are some of the best federal workers in the government. I know several of them, and they seem to just be going about their job without regard here to fate of Jaczko.

Some people might ask, why doesn't the President just ask some people to resign? But - it doesn’t surprise me that no one will be asked to resign, because the NRC is almost a unique institution here in Washington. It actually is more like the Federal Election Commission than a government agency like the DoE. It is nominally an independent agency of the federal government, so I’m not even sure that the President could fire anyone, even if he wanted to.

It is extraordinary that this is happening publicly, but it seems like that’s a factor of Issa’s releasing the letter, not a desire to fight this in the court of public opinion.

I don’t think this will ultimately mean anything for the big fights the NRC has going on now that you mention, but it may be a symptom of those fights. If Jaczko is a proxy for the anti-nuclear crowd, and the rest of the commissioners get painted as pro-industry, as they seem to be, then it seems that there is some very big fault-lines that need to be worked-out before these decisions are made.

Finally – while it seems like the NRC is having problems – they’re nothing compared to the regulatory problems that Japanese utilities are undergoing right now. They can’t even get functioning nuclear plants back online after routine maintenance, due to public opposition and uncertain regulation. So – we can be thankful for the relative stability we’ve got here.