During the early years of the Cold War, McMahon became the Senate's most prominent expert on atomic energy matters and as chairman exercised considerable influence towards increasing the focus on nuclear weapons as being essential to the American national interest.
This enabled the JCAE to act as a co-decision maker with the executive branch rather than only providing congressional oversight of actions that had already occurred.
The Ash Council addressed its resistance to interference by proposing to only transfer over to the new agency the responsibilities of setting radiation standards outside of nuclear power plants.
[5] The JCAE had various subcommittees including Agreements for Cooperation, Communities, Legislation, Military Application, National Security, Raw Materials, Radiation (Special), and Research and Development.
This article incorporates public domain material from 9/11 Commission Recommendations: Joint Committee on Atomic Energy — A Model for Congressional Oversight?