"First, let's kill all the regulators" bill in Congress: Deregulate nuke facilities?

[HiPointDem]

No matter how bad things seem to be, there are always ways for them to become worse. While the campaign against Medicare and Social Security is being couched in the sort of faux inevitability that has become familiar via European austerity measures, other pernicious lame duck session measures are moving forward in the hope no one will notice....

Here we have just been through a wreck-the-economy level global crisis which was in large measure due to deregulation. The measure underway would not only weaken already pathetic regulators like the SEC but for good measure would hobble other ones like the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (after Fukushima, how can anyone with an ounce of sense argue for less stringent oversight of nuclear facilities?)

From Dayen:

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, under the direction of outgoing chair Joe Lieberman, plans to pass the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act, S.3468, out of committee and into a fast track process. Mark Warner, Susan Collins and Rob Portman are the drives forces behind it. Americans for Financial Reform and other groups have raised alarms about it.

The bill would, according to AFR, strip away independence from various regulatory agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, OSHA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the FCC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. These and more agencies would have to submit additional cost-benefit analyses to the executive branch, as well as submitting their rules and regulations for executive branch review. The immediate effect of this would be to slow implementation of things like Dodd-Frank. Review processes take time, and adding an executive branch layer gives Wall Street and other corporate interests another point of attack against various regulations. Heads of all the major regulatory agencies have already complained in a joint letter that the bill would give the executive branch far too much ability to influence their policy decisions...

Lieberman was one of the moving forces behind reducing the SEC from being a competent, even feared, agency to the mainly toothless overseer it is now...

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/another-lame-duck-session-horrorshow-the-first-lets-kill-all-the-regulators-bill.html#LTCtchjSkYDODMQT.99

[Junkdrawer]

1. I was afraid of this. The resurgence of Nuclear Power is only possible if Licensing Costs are cut..

and cut WAY back.

Global warming has called into question all the design bases of our older plants. New analysis and retrofits (if not shut downs) are in order. Instead, we're going to shut our eyes a push full-steam-ahead? Madness.

[HiPointDem]

2. kick