Talk:Nuclear Regulatory Commission

How the commission works

Article has strong structure but little on how the commission works or its scope beyond explaning the difference between NRC and DOE areas. It's hard for me to step back, but it seems as if this article is missing some background on the licensing and regulatory process. (I take for granted what some of these things are, but does everyone?)

Why is there a sentence about guards at Peach Bottom sleeping on the job? This doesn't seem directly relevent to the section or the article. There is already mention of this in the Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station article and it doesn't seem to add anything in this context. If there's no objection, I will delete the sentence in a couple of days. Scotto (talk) 13:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Reference removed. Scotto (talk) 12:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

OPM survey

Is this notable enough to include in the article?

The Office of Personnel Management conducts biennial Human Capital Surveys, surveying federal employees' opinions of their own agencies. Based on the data collected, the OPM rates and ranks each agency in four categories, namely Leadership and Knowledge Management Index, Performance Index, Talent Index, and Job Satisfaction Index. In the 2008 survey, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission ranked number one in all four indexes.

~ Quacks Like a Duck (talk) 18:33, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Commissioners

The chairman and one commissioner have bios on the official web site, and another commissioner whose term has expired also has a bio. Does he continue to serve, or not? There are two vacancies on the five member commission. The article should cover the commissioners, and link to separate bios. --DThomsen8 (talk) 19:36, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Which Region?

Does Region IV include Alaska, where the Galena Nuclear Power Plant is proposed? If so it (and Alaska) could be listed on the Region IV page Hugo999 (talk) 01:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC) Response to whistleblower reports The article's claim that the NRC sends special teams to investigate whistleblowers' reports could not be farther from the truth. Like any other institution or corporation in the nuclear industry, the NRC is interested only in identifying and investigating the whistleblowers themselves, and when the NRC Enforcement Division's "special team" arrives, they make a bit point of refusing to even glance at any information, no matter how urgent the situation. An on-site inspection to verify the reported hazards is out of the question. Their only purpose in response to an offer of whistleblowers' information is to track down the whistleblower, presumably so they can be blacklisted or worse. My claim is based on direct involvement, witnessing how the NRC deals with contacts from whistleblowers.What I found in the article is certainly "true" according to Wiki guidelines, whereas my own experience was "not true" because it wasn't in the New York Times. But I think somethings the normal (non-Wiki) idea of true and false applies. What actually happens in real life, if it's 180º away from what "official" sources claim, should at least give us some doubts about just quoting lies. Chelydra (talk) 01:16, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Edits direct from the NRC

The NRC's Office of Public Affairs has opened a Wikipedia acocunt to provide updates on basic facts about the agency. Please excuse any clumsy editing during the Wiki learning process. NRC OPA (talk) 16:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Public blog

The NRC began a public blog on Jan. 31, 2011. The link has been added to the "External Links" section -- what would be an appropriate place to mention the blog in the body of the entry? NRC OPA (talk) 16:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality concern?

For some reason user CRGreathouse has tagged this entry for an NPOV concern, but no explanation is given. What's the issue? NRC OPA (talk) 17:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Given that there's been no update from CRGreathouse on the NPOV concern, I propose removing the tag. Comments? NRC OPA (talk) 14:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

That would be fine. When a POV tag is placed, the exact nature of the problem must be explained on the Talk page. That clearly hasn't been done here, so the correct thing to do is remove the tag. Johnfos (talk) 02:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Tag removed. NRC OPA (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

The article is biased because the views cited are almost entirely negative. It provides no contrary opinions, so the dialogue is entirely one-sided. It provides no proof for the assertion that the NRC is captured by industry and relies entirely on hearsay. In addition, it fails to note instances when the NRC toughened regulations or made changes opposed by the industry. For example, the NRC required Westinghouse to modify the AP1000 design for better performance against airplane crashes and earthquakes.

It notes that the agency has been accused of regulatory capture by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Barack Obama, Greenpeace,Salon and the Brookings Institute. It does not mention that all of these organizations and people are left-of-center and have a history of both strongly supporting rival technologies and criticizing nuclear energy. It provides no opinions from other organizations or people. Nongkhai (talk) 17:57, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

You seem particularly upset that the NRC has been seen as an example of regulatory capture. But many very credible sources have supported this contention, including Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, and a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton and co-chairman of the International Panel on Fissile Materials [1]. What has the NRC said about the issue? I can't see where they have refuted the allegation. Johnfos (talk) 23:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it is highly biased to accuse the commission of regulatory capture in the opening description. A discussion under the "Criticisms" section or an independent "Regulatory Capture" section would be more appropriate. The introductory paragraph should be limited to discussions of the NRC's form and function. Otherwise it wou.ld be appropriate to include ridiculous bylines in other articles (e.g. "the Democratic party has been accused of being un-American by members of the Republican party") — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.54.93.222 (talk) 02:43, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section does actually say that the lead should summarize the most important points — including any prominent controversies. Johnfos (talk) 05:55, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

At the moment there is no controversy in the article, just uncontroverted criticism. That is a problem. Rwflammang (talk) 13:39, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

As it stands, the article might have been authored by Greenpeace. We can do better than that, can't we? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.103.111.207 (talk) 03:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Badly biased

This article assumes the truth of those who see the agency as being run by the industry. Since "Some observers have criticized the Commission as an example of regulatory capture", where are the opinions of those who disagree? Where is the response of the Commission? Also, the section on the controversy overwhelms the rest of the article; a neutral article would spend most of its space on discussing what the Commission does, its history, etc. Note that the controversy section doesn't simply argue that a lot of people oppose the Commission's actions - instead, it quotes people as evidence for the Commission's lack of independence, "to cite just three examples". This is original research. Also, if we reduced the criticism to a neutral level, the page would look more like an encyclopedia article and less like a news ticker. 2001:18E8:2:1020:749C:5B76:1D8E:3D22 (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree the History section needs expansion, so have added an expansion tag. But without WP:Reliable sources that back up what you say about bias, your comment is mere speculation. Please provide the best and most reputable authoritative sources available to support your concerns. Thanks. Johnfos (talk) 09:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I would love to talk about the NRC in glowing terms, but the sources just aren't there, are they. Here's another recent one [2] which talks about the inadequacies of the NRC. And another one [3] which talks about regulatory capture. This is the unfortunate reality.

-- Johnfos (talk) 05:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC)