The Union of Concerned Scientists believes that the record of the first decade demonstrates that the NRC's primary and instinctive allegiance is still to the industry it regulates. Such newer regulatory bodies as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were born out of a movement to protect the public health and environmental quality; the NRC's historical roots are far different. The AEC's primary task was to bring a civilian nuclear power program into being, to show that the technology invented only for destruction could be adapted to peaceful uses. The regulatory side of that mission was always a stepdaughter.
The two most consistent patterns of NRC behavior throughout its first decade illustrate the continuance of that mind-set: the agency's disinclination to resolve safety problems and its resolute hostility to public participation. The one period when this pattern was briefly broken was in the aftermath of ...
