Nuclear Regulation

Efforts To Ensure Nuclear Power Plant Safety Can Be Strengthened Gao ID: RCED-87-141 August 13, 1987

In response to a congressional request, GAO assessed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) efforts to provide the public with reasonable assurance that nuclear power plants operate safely, specifically how NRC: (1) minimizes the risks associated with operating the plants; (2) enforces its safety standards; and (3) finds violations of the standards.

GAO found that: (1) although the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 allows NRC to shut plants down for safety reasons, NRC lacks guidelines to determine when to shut plants down; (2) NRC ordered some plants to shut down, but did not take action on other plants with similar problems; (3) as of December 1986, NRC had a backlog of 163 unresolved generic safety issues, including 32 considered to pose a significant risk to public health and safety; (4) during fiscal years 1985 and 1986, NRC identified 41 safety issues, but resolved only 32; and (5) NRC takes from several months to 10 or more years to resolve safety issues. GAO also found that, between 1981 and 1986, NRC found 12,170 safety violations through plant inspections, but did not consolidate the regional information concerning the corrective actions the utilities took for program management purposes.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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