ABSTRACT
Oversight is the link in the chain of institutional checks that is supposed to protect the public against health hazards resulting from nuclear malfunctions. Owing to the tediousness of the process that must be followed in order to establish whether a regulatory breakdown has created a real danger, the interest of oversight committee members tends to wane well before the investigatory process has run its course. The regulators also had a tendency to believe that their critics were acting on the basis of irrational fears. At times the regulators made known their belief that, for reasons unspecified, the nuclear critics' real purpose was to disable the nuclear enterprise in order to cause an erosion of the national security. A properly managed Congressional oversight process would play critical role in keeping the nuclear risk at or below level that the majority of Congresspeople believe to be acceptable. Some in Congress would of course set much stricter standards than would others.
