[[below is total quote from Bonnie - a week ago. does this seem to sum up the situation??]]

"It bothers me a great deal that this new "Interim Enforcement Policy" appears to have FEAR as a motivator. If everything were proceeding with Y2K remediation in the electric industry as well as the public has been told it is, then I can't perceive any reason for the NRC to be concerned at all with whether the nukes are online at rollover or not. The fact that they now seem willing to accept a relaxation of their former regulations in order to facilitate ongoing generation can only be explained if there is a fear (either in higher levels of government and/or the NRC) that doing without some nuclear generation would pose a bigger risk to the nation than relaxing regulations would.

The only other motivation I can think of for the NRC to make this move now, is that they are putting some responsibility for Y2K decisions off on the individual licensees and that is also a fear response. (We don't want to make these tough decisions considering what might be at stake.) I would prefer to think that this reasoning is not applicable, because it implies a kind of bureaucratic cowardice, and in any case, they will not be able to shed all responsibility anyway.

So I am left with only two reasons for these actions. Either the NRC or higher levels of government know there are greater risks to the electrical grids than the public is being told OR those same entities have no assurance from the data they have access to, about what's going to happen one way or the other and are trying to cover all the bases. Unfortunately, either of these reasons is counter to the kinds of government reassurances the public is receiving.

I don't like this at all. There's the possibility it may have as much to do with potential telecommunications failures impacting utilities and contacts between the NRC and licensees, but the public has also been reassured about telecom status, too. Whatever, in my opinion, if the government and/or the NRC were as sure of the situation at rollover as they are leading the public to believe they are, there would be no reason for this Interim Policy to have even been conceived of, let alone see the light of day."

From a nearby post - Rick is -vehemently- against this stance. But what is the alternative? Seems like they're expecting to maybe have to dance between the fire and frying pan. [Thanks to Bonnie, the best person around that translates the bottomlines SO Well.]

-- Anonymous, June 22, 1999