WHO WILL REGULATE DOE?

Abstract

The Department of Energy's progress in ending a half century of selfregulation of nuclear and worker safety was criticized in late May in a General Accounting Office (GAO) report and at congressional hearings. The department was hit for stalling on commitments made in 1996 by former Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary to bring DOE's far-flung facilities under regulation by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) within 10 years. At first blush, the hearings before subcommittees of the House Science and House Commerce Committees appear to plow familiar fields—a discussion of the long-running battle to drag DOE out of the shadow of national security and into the bright sunlight of environmental, nuclear, and worker safety regulations that are common to all U.S. industries. DOE first succumbed to environmental regulators in the late 1980s, following Congress' realization of a mammoth $100 billion-plus cleanup bill due to DOE excesses, in large ...