Union of Concerned Scientists

• Scientific Integrity
• Global Warming
• Clean Vehicles
• Clean Energy
• Nuclear Power
  • Nuclear Power 101
  • Nuclear Power Technology
  • Nuclear Power Risk
    • Nuclear Power Safety
    • Sabotage and Attacks on Reactors
    • Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism
  • Nuclear Power and Global Warming
  • Nuclear Power Solutions
  • What You Can Do
  • Successes
• Nuclear Weapons & Global Security
• Food & Agriculture
• Invasive Species

Overview: Improving Government Oversight

The Union of Concerned Scientists has monitored safety levels at U.S. nuclear plants for more than 30 years. There have been times when UCS felt that existing regulations did not adequately protect the public and we sought to raise the safety bar. But most of the time, we merely seek to have the existing regulations consistently enforced. Getting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to consistently and effectively regulate is a recurring framework for our efforts.

Consistent enforcement of the regulations by an unwavering regulator provides the best protection of public health and safety. When safety problems are revealed at any plant, UCS pursues two paths: the first being to ensure the problems are promptly corrected at that plant and the second being to learn if there are lessons to be learned by the NRC to allow it to either prevent future safety problems or to find future problems sooner.