NRC Chairman Jaczko and Congressman Ed Markey, This Nuclear Whistleblower is Skeptical of Your Commitment to Public Safety at America's Nuclear Power Plants
I am a prevailing nuclear safety whistleblower in the Department of Energy (one can google my name for details). I make these public statements consistent with my positive legal duty as a licensed professional engineer (PE) to be truthful and objective. I invite anyone - particularly NRC Chairman Jaczko, Congressman Markey, President Obama or any NRC Commissioner - to file a professional misconduct complaint against me with the Tennessee State Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners - I welcome any opportunity to make my case.
The fundamental objective of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) of 1978 was to create the statutory framework and implementing agencies so that members of the federal civil service could perform their sworn duties to protect the health, safety, security and welfare of the American people per the "merit system principles" while being adequately protected from agency violations of them - such as whistleblower reprisal, unlawful discrimination, nepotism, personal favoritism and other types of "prohibited personnel practices (PPPs)."
By the CSRA, Congress created a complex "regulatory" system so that NRC employees could do their duty - as regulators - to protect public safety. Under the CSRA, one agency, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), is responsible to protect federal employees from PPPs. Agency heads are responsible to "prevent PPPs." Another agency, the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) is responsible to conduct the "special studies" necessary to determine whether OSC and agency heads are complying with their respective duties. Finally, the President is responsible to "take any action....necessary" to ensure this complex system involving multiple independent agencies is working in protecting federal employees from PPPs, so they can do their duties to protect the American people.
I contend, publicly, that OSC is a 34 year-long lawbreaking fraud and MSPB is its 34 year-long lawbreaking enabler. I contend Chairman Jaczko, as a result, is failing to "prevent PPPs" in the NRC. Finally, President Obama is failing to "take any action...necessary" to identify and fix this. I contend Congress - specifically Congressman Markey - is failing to do the necessary oversight of the federal civil service. The overall result? The many times in past 34 years the federal civil service has failed in its duty of protecting the safety, health, security, and welfare of America.
By the CSRA, the "chain" of responsibility for public safety at America's nuclear power plants starts on President Obama's desk and then passes through MSPB and OSC before arriving at NRC. These "links" are broken because Congress fails to do oversight of the overall - and highly complex - system it created. President Obama is failing, OSC is failing, MSPB is failing and Congress are all failing, in my opinion, to do their respective duties for public safety at America's nuclear power plants. I've been a nuclear professional for 36 years and a PE for 28 years - I stake my career on these claims.
Because of all these failures, any NRC employee who puts his duty to protect the public before their self-interest is foolhardy, because the statutory scheme to protect them is broken, broken at the President's desk, broken at MSPB, and broken at OSC, and broken in Congressional oversight. If NRC employees are not safe, can anyone be? NRC Commissioners can talk all they want about NRC's culture, but the 34 year-long lawbreaking I allege at MSPB, OSC, and the White House is simply outside NRC's direct control and Congress does not seem to care.
I have repeatedly documented my concerns to both Chairman Jaczko, Congressman Markey (as well as to the President and many others) in past few years, nothing has come of it. So I stick my neck out, once again, because I really, truly think America is at an unnecessarily risk of a nuclear 9/11 or other catastrophe (such as a Fukushima-like event) because of the 34 year-long "broken covenant" of the CSRA.
If anyone is interested in the mind-numbing details of the civil service law upon which this op-ed is based, then http://www.broken-covenant.org or http://mspbwatch.net are good resources.
Joseph Carson, PE,
Knoxville, TN
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