Nuclear Power: Analysis of Regional Differences and Improved Access to Information Could Strengthen NRC Oversight

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) relies on its staff's professional judgment in implementing its processes for overseeing the safety of U.S. commercial nuclear power reactors. In implementing this oversight, NRC allocates specific roles and responsibilities to resident inspectors assigned to each plant, regional officials at one of four regional offices responsible for most oversight activities, headquarters officials, and the nuclear power industry. NRC also builds into its processes incentives for plant managers to identify concerns about reactor safety, report those concerns to NRC, and take prompt actions to correct them. NRC's processes for identifying and assessing findings and violations are based on prescribed agency procedures and include several points where NRC staff must exercise their professional judgment, such as determining whether issues of concern identified during physical inspections constitute findings or violations and the risk significance of any findings or the severity of any violations, among other things.