By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power regulator voted last week to phase out agency-led security inspections at operating reactors, a move a safety advocate said represents a failure in the government's responsibility to protect Americans from attacks on the plants.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted to phase out "force-on-force" inspection programs, it said on its website on Friday, a program of mock commando-style attacks under control of the agency to probe
potential weaknesses at nuclear plants.
The NRC has led the inspections since 1991, and Congress strengthened the program after the September 11, 2001, attacks to require them at every nuclear plant every three years.
The move comes as the administration of President Donald Trump puts pressure on the NRC to quickly approve permits for a quadrupling of the U.S. nuclear power capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050 to meet power demand rising from artificial intelligence and data centers, electrification of transportation and cryptocurrencies.
Edward Lyman, a nuclear physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the move was concerning amid ongoing security threats to U.S. infrastructure, including those arising from the Iran conflict.
The move will replace the program with a "dog-and-pony show, akin to a professional wrestling match, in which the NRC will only be allowed to passively observe exercises staged entirely by the plant managers and personnel," Lyman said.
The NRC said its update to the program "reflects the strong safety and security already in place at U.S. nuclear plants." Agency-led drills will continue through 2028, after which the plants will conduct the exercises with independent agency oversight, it said.
Lyman said changes make it unlikely that the program will comply with congressional mandates to mitigate any potential conflict of interest in the drills.
The NRC said as the program shifts from a pass/fail model to a training-focused approach, "potential conflict of interest concerns are significantly reduced."
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Andrea Ricci )
