"It's kind of like MMS (Minerals Management Service) all over again."

Quote is from this Gambit article which looks at the state of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Burnell says funding for the NRC has ebbed and flowed over the years. It increased during President George W. Bush's second term, reflecting that administration's interest in nuclear power. According to the NRC's website, however, the agency faces an 18 percent cut in net appropriations for 2012, wiping out a $25.6 million increase it received in 2010. The cuts include $8 million from the Nuclear Reactor Safety Program, which is responsible for continuous oversight, licensing and other duties that ensure reactors operate safely; and $20.7 million from the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety Program, tasked with the transportation and extended storage of radioactive waste. It is not immediately clear what impact Congress' cuts will have on the affected programs.

The NRC is dependent on the nuclear industry for 90 percent of its funding. Olson argues that while Congress has an oversight role in approving the budget, "Ultimately the industry pays its regulator, and you tend to work for the people who pay you, and there has not been strong evidence of independence on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, particularly in the last 20 years."

The article also investigates the reliability of back-up power systems at nuclear power facilities in our region. The findings aren't all that bad. For instance, it's noted that there are redundancies in available power generation systems that have performed properly at Waterford during Katrina and at River Bend during Gustav.

On the other hand, this was concerning.

Compared to all other factors that could lead to a meltdown, a "station blackout" at River Bend posed a greater proportion of risk — 88.2 percent — than at any other plant in the country, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's most recent report, published in 2005.

And this was just plain odd.

An Entergy spokesperson says the chance of a meltdown now stands at one event per every 1 million years. Nevertheless, representatives at the NRC and Entergy could not say why the comparative threat of a blackout at River Bend ranked so high in the first place.

A "station blackout" type scenario is the cause of the failure at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi plant which today was upgraded to the highest level designation on an international severity scale for severity of radioactive accidents.