FYI: "Our Gang"...

[Jim Muckerheide <jmuckerheide@delphi.com>]

...that can't shoot straight, strikes again. :-(

Good grief.

Regards, Jim
muckerheide@mediaone.net
========================

NUCLEAR COMMISSION ACCUSED OF LETTING INDUSTRY SHAPE POLICY

 WASHINGTON, DC, March 10, 2000 (ENS) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) invited a nuclear industry group to help shape policy and later misled a
congressman about the matter, the U.S. Inspector General's office reports. The
report reinforces the contention that the NRC does the bidding of the industry
at the expense of the public, says the consumer group Public Citizen. The
report, released to the public on Thursday, found that the NRC misled
Congressman Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, regarding the release of
an internal commission policy paper to the industry group Nuclear Energy
Institute (NEI). The NRC shared the paper, which addressed the NRC's policy
governing generic communications, with the NEI and provided the institute with
an exclusive opportunity to review and comment on it. The NRC told Markey's
office that the draft was simultaneously made available to the public when in
fact it was not, the Inspector General's office said. In fact, the NRC never
solicited public comment on the document. 

 "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has abdicated its regulatory
responsibility to the nuclear industry and excluded the public from the
process," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass
Energy Project. "The NRC is supposed to be regulating the nuclear industry,
not the other way around." Because these policy papers are the primary
decision-making tool of the commission, Public Citizen believes that it is
improper for the nuclear industry to have an exclusive opportunity to review
and alter their contents. Allowing NEI to review and alter NRC's policy papers
is in direct conflict with at least two of the NRC's "principles of good
regulation," which include independence and openness, Hauter said. The NRC
should withdraw the document unless and until all interested parties have an
opportunity to review it and provide comment, she said. The Inspector
Generals' report is available at:
http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/nuclearsafety/misleadingNRC.htm 

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