Below regulatory concern and enhanced participatory rulemaking : the changing policy process

This thesis explores the federal government’s attempt to establish residual radioactivity standards. In particular, it seeks to explain the failure of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s below regulatory concern (BRC) policy and describes the attempt to set residual radioactivity criteria through enhanced participatory rulemaking. It is the contention of this thesis that BRC failed because of changes in the public policy process. New variables including the growth of government, a diffusion and decentralization of governmental authority, the interest group explosion, the expansion of citizen participation in decision making, the mass media, and a lack of trust in major institutions have made it more difficult than ever before to establish public policies for risk management issues that are both effective and acceptable. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ran headlong into these new forces with its attempts to set residual radioactivity policies and its BRC policy eventually proved to be politically unacceptable. In the end, the NRC attempted a radically new decision making process based upon the idea of stakeholder involvement in order to promulgate effective and acceptable standards.