One of the most interesting aspects of the ongoing debate over national energy policy is the political determination to do something to subsidize the revival of nuclear power.

Richard Gordon, however, contends that subsidies are the wrong prescription for the industry’s woes. The real policy problem, he argues, is that the nuclear power industry is burdened by unjustifiably strict edicts from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gordon proposes to eliminate the NRC and its regulatory code and to replace it with a regime of strict liability for nuclear power generators. Peter Bradford, a former commissioner at the NRC, and James Hewlett, a nuclear industry analyst at the Energy Information Administration, will comment.