Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chair Shirley Ann Jackson yesterday said the agency was being reorganized to enable inspectors to spot problems at nuclear power plants earlier and order corrective action sooner (Matthew Wald, N.Y. TIMES).
Jackson said the agency's top two regulatory officials -- James Taylor, exec. dir. for operations, and James Milhoan, deputy for nuclear reactor oversight -- would retire in 1/97 as planned and that NRC regional dir. Leonard Callan would replace Taylor. Under Callan, Jackson said the NRC will have a more streamlined control structure that would separate its internal investigations and oversight units from normal regulatory inspections (W.S. JOURNAL).
Jackson also named Edward Jordan deputy for regulatory effectiveness, a post she described as the new "evaluation focal point" (Wald, N.Y. TIMES). The changes will take effect 1/5/97 (AP/mult.)
David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists said the moves were too "far at the top" to be sufficient (Wald, N.Y. TIMES). However, Angie Howard of the Nuclear Energy Institute called the moves a "meaningful step" toward focusing NRC resources on safety programs (W.S. JOURNAL). (All cites 12/3.)
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