Effects of Deregulation on Safety. V. Bier, University of Wisconsin-Madison; J. Joosten, Connect-USA; and D. Glyer, M. Welsh, and J. Tracey, Christensen Associates
Economic deregulation of the U.S. electricity industry will cause major restructuring in the near future. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has only recently begun to grapple with the possible effects of that restructuring on the safety of U.S. commercial nuclear power plants. It is reasonable to believe that the effects of deregulation will be seen across a broad spectrum of safety-related areas such as organization, equipment, and safety programs. Deregulation-induced changes need not necessarily cause an increase in safety-related equipment failures or human errors if done effectively. For example, the U.S. nuclear power industry has achieved good safety performance in the last few years even while it was cutting costs. However, both licensees and the NRC must be attentive and ready to respond to adverse impacts on safety performance. The potential negative impacts of some changes may be only temporary; other effects of deregulation are likely to be permanent in a restructured and more competitive nuclear power industry, at least at some plants. The purposes of this project are to identify the effects of economic deregulation on safety in various industries, to identify possible strategies to manage adverse effects of deregulation, and to assess the safety implications of those effects for the U.S. nuclear power industry. This will be accomplished using case studies of other deregulated industries (including the aviation, rail, and United Kingdom electricity industries). This approach should allow us to move beyond speculation about the possible adverse safety consequences of deregulation to identify situations in which particular consequences actually occurred.
This paper was prepared with the support of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) under Award No. NRC-04-97-064. The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NRC.
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