A Short History of Nuclear Regulation, 1946–2024 (NUREG/BR-0175, Revision 3)

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Publication Information

Date Published: July 2024

Prepared by:
J. Samuel Walker and 
Thomas R. Wellock

History Staff
Office of the Secretary
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

Preface

"History," automobile maker Henry Ford once said, "is more or less…bunk." Philosopher George Santayana was more upbeat in his assessment of this discipline when he declared that "those who fail to study the past are condemned to repeat it." In a sense, both Ford and Santayana were right. Much of the past has little meaning or importance for the present and deservedly remains forgotten in the dustbins of history. However, other parts of the past need to be remembered and studied for us to make sense of the present. Understanding the history of any given problem is essential to approaching it knowledgeably. It is the task of the historian to gather evidence, to separate what is important from what is not, and to explain key events and decisions of the past.

This history of nuclear regulation provides a brief overview of the most significant events in the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC's) past. It is drawn from the NRC's six-volume history series published with the University of California Press. Because of space limitations, not all important events are included, and those included are covered in abbreviated form. The first chapter of this account is taken from George T. Mazuzan and J. Samuel Walker, Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation, 1946–1962 (1984). The second chapter is largely based on J. Samuel Walker, Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment, 1963–1971 (1992). The third chapter is adopted in significant part from J. Samuel Walker, Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective (2004). The text in this third revision has been supplemented throughout by material from Thomas R. Wellock, Safe Enough? A History of Nuclear Power and Accident Risk (2021).

It has been 70 years since the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 launched the civilian nuclear power era, 50 years since the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 created the NRC, and over 30 years since A Short History of Nuclear Regulation was first published. Much has changed in the last several decades; nevertheless, the full sweep of our history remains pertinent to the issues the NRC confronts today. While this third revision of A Short History adds enough new material that readers might suggest deleting "short" from the title, we hope it demonstrates that, far from being "bunk," nuclear history offers valuable insights for the present and the future.