Nuclear Regulatory Commission | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is an independent agency of the federal government with a mission to protect public health and safety from the hazards of the civilian use of nuclear energy technology. The NRC oversees nuclear power reactors, radioactive waste disposal, and medical, industrial, and academic uses of nuclear materials. The NRC was created through the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which divided the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC, created in 1947) into the NRC and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA). The ERDA was subsequently subsumed into the Department of Energy (DOE).

Prior to the reorganization, the AEC both regulated and promoted nuclear energy technology as well as managed the nuclear weapons complex. Having both regulatory and promotional functions for nuclear technology within the AEC led many in Congress and in the general public to charge the AEC with a conflict of interest. Recognizing that low public confidence in the AEC to regulate objectively would slow and perhaps paralyze the growth of nuclear technology, Congress created the NRC solely to regulate the nation's civilian nuclear energy activities. The DOE meanwhile had assumed the former AEC nuclear technology promotional functions and its management of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

Five commissioners, with one as chair, lead the NRC. All are presidential appointees who require Senate confirmation to staggered five-year terms. In addition to the staff officers who perform the daily work of the NRC, there is the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel (ASLBP), which is the adjudicatory arm that conducts public hearings primarily on licensing and enforcement actions.

When a reactor license holder decides to decommission a reactor and terminate the license, any member of the potentially impacted public may request an adjudicatory hearing. Depending on the regulatory action, a formal or informal hearing may be held. Formal hearings are trial-like proceedings with discovery of evidence, sworn testimony, and cross-examination. The determination of whether a hearing will be informal or formal is codified in NRC rules, Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 2, but there is allowance for some discretion. Although ASLBP members are employees of the NRC, there are rules under the Administrative Procedures Act that enable panel members' judicial independence. There are some stakeholders, however, who believe that the ASLBP cannot truly preside over an unbiased hearing because it is part of the NRC. ASLBP decisions ultimately may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. There also exist three external advisory committees to the NRC, one on reactor safeguards, one on nuclear waste, and one on the medical uses of isotopes. These committees are made up of nuclear professionals from industry, academia, and government.

The NRC also regulates the production and use of source, special, and by-product nuclear materials. Source materials are the elements of thorium and uranium not enriched in the isotope uranium-235. Source material may be converted into special nuclear material, which is capable of undergoing the fission reaction (splitting of the atom). Special nuclear materials are uranium isotopes 233 and 235 and plutonium. By-product materials are made in the process of producing or using special nuclear material. By-product materials are used in medical, industrial, or research applications, such as carbon-14 for radioactive dating. By-product materials are also wastes from reactor operations, such as spent nuclear fuel, and from mining operations, which are called mill tailings. Collectively, source, special, and by-product materials are referred to as AEA (Atomic Energy Act) materials.

To produce or use AEA materials requires an NRC license. In general licenses may be considered either reactor or material licenses. For instance, a nuclear power plant owner holds at least two licenses, a reactor license for the operation of the power plant and a material license for possession of the fuel. The NRC regulates all aspects of a license, from initial licensing through termination. It is primarily license fees that fund the NRC. The NRC also has a fee-based certification and quality assurance program. In lieu of issuing a license, the NRC will certify some products, such as spent-fuel shipping casks. NRC certification then enables the potential user of these products to begin using them as long as the product meets the certification standards. Certification enables the NRC to expedite the regulatory process because standardization of design assures regulatory compliance without the burden of determining whether an individual case meets its regulatory criteria.

NRC regulations are promulgated through a formal rule-making process. Petitions for rule-makings may come from any of the NRC stakeholders, such as industry, nongovernmental environmental organizations, or individual citizens. The proposed rule is published in the Federal Register, and the public is invited to comment. In promulgating its final rule, also published in the Federal Register, the NRC explains how it had considered the public's comments. In general, the NRC does not hold hearings about proposed rules. Additionally, the NRC has an electronic rule-making forum, RuleForum, where the public may assess information and documents related to a rule, such as the comments of other stakeholders. An electronic reading room that contains all the NRC's public documents is also available. All NRC public documents are physically located in the reading room at headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. The NRC also performs research to support its regulations. Other activities include international cooperation regarding safety and security.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the NRC started to adopt a general regulatory philosophy across all its activities that is more risk-informed as well as performance-based. To implement this philosophy requires the NRC to ask three questions of its regulatory activities, the so-called risk triplet: What may go wrong? What are the consequences? How likely are these consequences to occur? Since its inception, the NRC had focused primarily on the consequences of what may go wrong and had prescribed "defense-in-depth" measures to effectively manage consequences; such measures include redundancy in emergency systems and engineering margins of safety. Asking how likely or probable a technology failure is requires carefully examining the relationships among the constituent elements and considering how each element contributes to the performance of the whole. This process enables the NRC to identify critical areas that may need more attention to safety. It may also find that a marginal decrease in resources in some areas is warranted because the decrease has no measurable effect on safety. This is one way risk information contributes to regulatory decision-making.

Enabling the public to better understand the reasons why the NRC believes a particular course of action poses no undue risk to the public health and safety is a major, continuing challenge. Indeed recognizing that the public's confidence in its regulatory integrity is critically dependent on the transparency of the decision-making process, the NRC continues to explore opportunities for open communication.

Nuclear Ethics;; Three-Mile Island.

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Mazuzan, George T., and J. Samuel Walker. (1985). Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation, 1946–1962. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Walker, J. Samuel. (1992). Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963–1971. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Walker, J. Samuel. (2000). Permissible Dose: A History of Radiation Protection in the Twentieth Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

"U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission." Available from http://www.nrc.gov.

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