Talk:Gregory Jaczko

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Nbauman in topic Needs more on his policy issues

question from Poland : edit

Is he (his family) of Polish origin ?

Answer: who cares? what we do know is that he is an unqualified twit. And he looks like Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.176.16.8 (talk) 19:06, 21 May 2012 (UTC)Reply


Allegations of controversial behavior towards the staff of the NRC edit

I wonder if it would be helpful to update this page with a section on his position on Yucca Mountain? Mountrue14 (talk) 13:11, 10 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
They require You to subscribe to their online service before You can continue reading. In the beginning of the text that is accessible for everybody is not specified in how far Jaczko should have withheld information from his colleagues in a controversial manner. So, probably this is not so massive an issue. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 17:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your feedback, Mr. Dunkelberg. I think that additions will probably be warranted as this issue is advanced in relation to his recent testimony before the US Congress and as discussion of Yucca Mountain in general advances. I appreciate and agree with your feedback. Mountrue14 (talk) 15:27, 16 June 2011 (UTC)Reply

Needs more on his policy issues edit

This article emphasizes the criticism of his "personal style" and personality. It should pay more attention to his policy differences, like this NYT story. The important question is not whether he reduced his staff members to tears, but whether these 104 reactors are safe.

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/us/gregory-jaczko-to-resign-as-nrc-chairman-after-stormy-tenure.html
Chairman of N.R.C. to Resign Under Fire
By John M. Broder and Matthew L. Wald
May 21, 2012

... Dr. Jaczko, chairman since May 2009 and the longest-serving member of the five-member commission, was an outsider and a maverick when he joined the panel more than seven years ago. He has drawn sharp criticism for helping to end the government’s consideration of a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert and for assuming some emergency powers at the commission after the triple meltdown of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi reactors in March 2011.

He sought to address some longstanding safety problems at the 104 nuclear power reactors in the United States, but with a background in nuclear physics and nuclear policy and not in the nuclear industry, Dr. Jaczko was viewed with skepticism and mistrust by some industry insiders.

... Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, praised Dr. Jaczko, a former Markey adviser.

“Greg has led a Sisyphean fight against some of the nuclear industry’s most entrenched opponents of strong, lasting safety regulations, often serving as the lone vote in support of much-needed safety upgrades recommended by the commission’s safety staff,” Mr. Markey said in a statement.

But beyond friction with his fellow commissioners, he often found himself the lone dissenting vote on important issues. Among them were the speed with which American reactors should be reanalyzed and improved to incorporate the lessons learned from Fukushima Daiichi and whether licenses should be granted for new reactors before those changes were in the pipeline. --Nbauman (talk) 21:35, 7 July 2021 (UTC)Reply

I just did a search of Science magazine for Jaczko and there were a lot of articles about him. Here's a review of his book, which goes into his arguments in more detail than we have here:
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/books/2019/01/15/confessions-of-a-rogue-nuclear-regulator/
Deference to industry trumps nuclear safety in the U.S., warns a controversial former regulator
By Jacob Darwin Hamblin
15 January, 2019
.... The ensuing political fracas convinced Jaczko that the nuclear industry used the NRC as a tool for promoting rather than regulating nuclear power. He believes that a national repository for radioactive waste puts too much responsibility on the taxpayer. “No other industry is able to complain so loudly that someone else has failed to take care of its waste,” he laments.
... One internal NRC report drafted after Fukushima criticized the practice of relying on voluntary industry initiative to address safety concerns. Jaczko’s descriptions of other commissioners’ attempts to quash or edit the report provide a disturbing glimpse of the dynamic of trust and betrayal within the agency.
...The problem that plagued the old Atomic Energy Commission—that the promoters and regulators were too cozy with each other—is clearly alive and well. Jaczko describes the relationship as a “corrupt, toxic environment.” It may be a hard warning to hear, but it comes from one who had a fuller view of the nuclear regulatory landscape than most. --Nbauman (talk) 21:47, 7 July 2021 (UTC)Reply