[4] The origins and development of NRC regulatory processes and policies are explained in five volumes of history published by the University of California Press.

NRC conducts audits and training inspections, observes the National Nuclear Accrediting Board meetings, and nominates some members.

The 1980 Kemeny Commission's report[20] after the Three Mile Island accident recommended that the nuclear energy industry "set and police its own standards of excellence".

The industry through INPO created the 'National Academy for Nuclear Training Program' either as early as 1980[22] or in September 1985 per the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Regulatory capture can be countered only by vigorous public scrutiny and Congressional oversight, but in the 32 years since Three Mile Island, interest in nuclear regulation has declined precipitously.

[48] An article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists stated that many forms of NRC regulatory failure exist, including regulations ignored by the common consent of NRC and industry: A worker (named George Galatis) at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut kept warning management, that the spent fuel rods were being put too quickly into the spent storage pool and that the number of rods in the pool exceeded specifications.

[50][51][52] In March 2007, undercover investigators from the Government Accountability Office set up a false company and obtained a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that would have allowed them to buy the radioactive materials needed for a dirty bomb.

A spokesman for the NRC said that the agency considered the radioactive devices a "lower-level threat"; a bomb built with the materials could have contaminated an area about the length of a city block but would not have presented an immediate health hazard.

[2] To cite three examples:A 1986 Congressional report found that NRC staff had provided valuable technical assistance to the utility seeking an operating license for the controversial Seabrook plant.

Finally, critics charge that the NRC has ceded important aspects of regulatory authority to the industry's own Institute for Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), an organization formed by utilities in response to the Three Mile Island Accident.

[55] It also found that the NRC management had significantly underestimated the risk and consequences posed by a severe reactor accident such as a full-scale nuclear meltdown.

NRC management asserted, without scientific evidence, that the risk of such accidents were so "Small" that the impacts could be dismissed and therefore no analysis of human and environmental was even performed.

Another finding was that NRC had concealed the risk posed to the public at large by disregarding one of the most important EIS requirements, mandating that cumulative impacts be assessed (40 Code of Federal Regulations §1508.7).

These findings were corroborated in a final report prepared by a special Washington State Legislature Nuclear Power Task Force, titled, "Doesn't NRC Address Consequences of Severe Accidents in EISs for re-licensing?

[59] In April 2011, Reuters reported that diplomatic cables showed NRC sometimes being used as a sales tool to help push American technology to foreign governments, when "lobbying for the purchase of equipment made by Westinghouse Electric Company and other domestic manufacturers".

[60][independent source needed] In 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami led to unprecedented damage and flooding of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster led to an uncontrolled release of radioactive contamination, and forced the Japanese Government to evacuate approximately 100,000 citizens.

[64] In 2011 Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, criticized the NRC's response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the decision-making on the proposed Westinghouse AP1000 reactor design.

In addition, the petition asks the NRC to halt proceedings to approve the standardized AP1000 and Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor designs.

[67]The petitioners asked the NRC to supplement its own investigation by establishing an independent commission comparable to that set up in the wake of the less severe 1979 Three Mile Island accident.

The petitioners included Public Citizen, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, and San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.

[67] Following the Fukushima disaster, the NRC prepared a report in 2011 to examine the risk that dam failures posed on the nation's fleet of nuclear reactors.

The leaked version of the report concluded that one-third of the U.S. nuclear fleet (34 plants) may face flooding hazards greater than they were designed to withstand.

This criticism is corroborated by two NRC whistleblowers who accused their management of deliberately covering up information concerning the vulnerability of flooding, and of failing to take corrective actions despite being aware of these risks for years.

It goes on to state that "NRC staff expressed concerns that Duke has not demonstrated that the [null Oconee Nuclear Station] units will be adequately protected.

NRC officials stated in June 2011 that US nuclear safety rules do not adequately weigh the risk of a single event that would knock out electricity from the grid and from emergency generators, as a quake and tsunami did in Japan.

The recommendations include "new standards aimed at strengthening operators' ability to deal with a complete loss of power, ensuring plants can withstand floods and earthquakes and improving emergency response capabilities".

[73] In November 2011[update], Jaczko warned power companies against complacency and said the agency must "push ahead with new rules prompted by the nuclear crisis in Japan, while also resolving long-running issues involving fire protection and a new analysis of earthquake risks".

At the U.N.'s Glasgow Climate Change Conference in November, NuScale contracted with a Romanian energy company to deploy its SMR technology in that country by 2028.

[75] In September 2021 the NRC issued a license for a privately operated temporary consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) for spent nuclear fuel in Andrews County, Texas.