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Coziness between regulators and business laid bare
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
10/30/09 11:12 AM EDT
In my mind, the only extraordinary about this story, exposed by the Project on Government Oversight, is that we found out about it:
recently departed Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield disregarded advice from the NRC’s General Counsel and voted on two matters that “could have potentially” financially benefited three companies—Shaw Group, Westinghouse, and General Electric—during the time he was directly involved in employment negotiations with those companies. The IG investigation found that in the two months before accepting a job created for him at the Shaw Group, Commissioner Merrifield voted both to approve China’s purchase of AP 1000 reactors (in which the Shaw Group had a financial interest) and to change criteria of emergency cooling systems that would directly benefit Westinghouse (of which the Shaw Group owned a 20 percent interest).
I've written about the Westinghouse sale of AP1000s to China in the past, here and here, for instance.
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