In celebrating the second birthday of our Open Government Plan, we did what any proud parent would do, we made a movie! You can see our story on YouTube.
During the past two years we have successfully begun to use social media services, redesigned the agency’s website, www.nrc.gov, made finding documents easier, and published a significant amount of raw data in formats that enable stakeholders to more easily analyze our information.
We have also provided more opportunities for stakeholder and public engagement and have worked to improve the experience of those who participate. We have provided subscription-based services to keep stakeholders informed, expanded the use of virtual meeting and Web conferencing technologies, increased the agency’s capacity for webcasting from 50 to 100 meetings per year, and introduced new channels for engagement through this blog, our Twitter feed, and our YouTube site.
In addition, we’ve made special efforts to reach out to the public on topics of high interest, such as concerns raised by the events at the Fukushima nuclear plants in Japan and the effects of the Missouri River flooding on the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska. And, to improve the experience of participants, we have expanded our internal meeting best practices website, and our meeting facilitator and advisor program.
But we are not done! On April 9th we published an addendum to our plan to provide the roadmap for the next two years. Over the next two years we will build on our accomplishments by increasing our focus on the use of plain language, continuing to strengthen our use of social media, improving the rulemaking comment process, and furthering collaboration with our state regulatory partners. In addition, we will implement Mobile NRC, a new effort to provide mobile access to key agency content.
Finally, stakeholder feedback helped us formulate our forward plans, and as always, we welcome your thoughts!
Fran Goldberg and Stu Reiter CoChairs, NRC Open Government Advisory Group
U.S. NRC Blog 
Please, the NRC is hardly liberal. But, you’d prefer opaque technical and bureaucratic doublespeak?
The terrible twos refers to the two year old open government rule, but it aptly describes those two plants as well. The Daiichi plant is obviously terrible on a global scale. Have you not heard about the impending collapse of unit 4? And I live less than 30 miles from Isle Ft. Calhoun, don’t try to tell me that a 40 year old plant that has had the very soil beneath it liquified and made unstable is not terrible. It has ben rated as tied for last place of 104 reactors for safety issues for the better part of the last two decades. I’ll bet that since the last time the 0350 process was used was 10 years ago, that it is now certainly the worst. The only way to operate a nuclear plant is to live in perpetual, unrelenting fear. Otherwise, you will become complacent, and in the words of the CEO of Omaha’s Public Power District, you will have ‘lost your edge’.
The NRC uses existing office budgets to support the President’s Open Government mandate, which is overseen by the Deputy Executive Director for Corporate Management. Resources devoted to the Open Government effort are not separately budgeted for and are not specifically identified during the budget process. Support for this initiative is included in the individual activities of offices such as the Office of Public Affairs and the Office of Information Services.
Great question! How many of my tax dollars are paying for liberal media types to come up with eye- catching but unprofessional blog titles? Is NRC is a regulator, or a comic strip?
Regarding your “Terrible Twos” article: How do you think the employees of Fort Calhoun feel about being mentioned as one of TWO plants in the article, titled TERRIBLE TWOS? You are the Regulator. Act respectfully.
How is the ‘open government plan’ being funded?