United States Atomic Energy Commission

The AEC developed a program for sourcing uranium domestically. Before 1947, the main sources for the mineral had been Canada and (what was then) the Belgian Congo, though the Manhattan Project also secretly processed uranium from the tailings of vanadium plants in the US West during World War II. The Colorado Plateau was known to contain veins of carnotite ore, which contains both vanadium and uranium. The AEC developed its program in accordance with the principle of free enterprise.[12] Rather than discovering, mining, and processing the ore itself, the federal government provided geological information, built roads, and set a fixed rate for purchasing ore through one of the mills in the area.[13] This prompted individuals to discover and produce the ore, which the government would then buy. The AEC was the only legal buyer of uranium from the beginning of the program in 1947 through 1966. From 1966 to the end of the program in 1970, the AEC continued to buy uranium to support the market until private industry could develop sufficiently.

Because the government itself was not producing ore, it claimed that it had no obligation to regulate miner safety. A congressional report published in 1995 concluded that, "The government failed to act to require the reduction of the hazard by ventilating the mines, and it failed to adequately warn the miners of the hazard to which they were being exposed."[14] The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 sought to compensate miners and families who developed cancer as a result of exposure to radon gas in uranium mines.

The AEC was connected with the U.S. Department of Defense by a "Military Liaison Committee"'. The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy exercised congressional oversight over the AEC and had considerable power in influencing AEC decisions and policy.[15]

The AEC's far-reaching powers and control over a subject matter which had far-reaching social, public health, and military implications made it an extremely controversial organization. One of the drafters of the McMahon Act, James R. Newman, famously concluded that the bill made "the field of atomic energy [an] island of socialism in the midst of a free-enterprise economy".[16]

Before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was created, nuclear regulation was the responsibility of the AEC, which Congress first established in the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Eight years later, Congress replaced that law with the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which for the first time made the development of commercial nuclear power possible, and resolved a number of other outstanding problems in implementing the first Atomic Energy Act. The act assigned the AEC the functions of both encouraging the use of nuclear power and regulating its safety. The AEC's regulatory programs sought to ensure public health and safety from the hazards of nuclear power without imposing excessive requirements that would inhibit the growth of the industry. This was a difficult goal to achieve, especially in a new industry, and within a short time the AEC's programs stirred considerable controversy. Stephanie Cooke has written that:

the AEC had become an oligarchy controlling all facets of the military and civilian sides of nuclear energy, promoting them and at the same time attempting to regulate them, and it had fallen down on the regulatory side ... a growing legion of critics saw too many inbuilt conflicts of interest.[17]^: 252

The AEC had a history of involvement in experiments involving radioactive iodine. In a 1949 operation called the "Green Run", the AEC released iodine-131 and xenon-133 to the atmosphere which contaminated a 500,000-acre (2,000 km²) area containing three small towns near the Hanford site in Washington.[18]^{: 130–131} In 1953, the AEC ran several studies on the health effects of radioactive iodine in newborns and pregnant women at the University of Iowa. Also in 1953, the AEC sponsored a study to discover if radioactive iodine affected premature babies differently from full-term babies. In the experiment, researchers from Harper Hospital in Detroit orally administered iodine-131 to 65 premature and full-term infants who weighed from 2.1 to 5.5 pounds (0.95 to 2.49 kg).[18]^{: 132–134} In another AEC study, researchers at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine fed iodine-131 to 28 healthy infants through a gastric tube to test the concentration of iodine in the infants' thyroid glands.[18]^{: 132–134}

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission came under fire from opposition concerned with more fundamental ecological problems such as the pollution of air and water.[19]^: 113 Under the Nixon Administration, environmental consciousness grew exponentially and the first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970.[19]^: 113 Along with rising environmental awareness came a growing suspicion of the AEC and public hostility for their projects increased. In the public eye, there was a strong association between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, and even though the AEC had made a push in the late 1960s, to portray their efforts as being geared toward peaceful uses of atomic energy, criticism of the agency grew. The AEC was chiefly held responsible for the health problems of people living near atmospheric test sites from the early 1960s, and there was a strong association of nuclear energy with the radioactive fallout from these tests.[19]^: 115 Around the same time, the AEC was also struggling with opposition to nuclear power plant siting as well as nuclear testing. An organized push was finally made to curb the power held by the AEC, and in 1970 the AEC was forced to prepare an Environmental impact statement (EIS) for a nuclear test in northwestern Colorado as part of the initial preparation for Project Rio Blanco.[20]^: 244

In 1973, the AEC predicted that, by the turn of the century, one thousand reactors would be needed producing electricity for homes and businesses across the United States.[21] However, after 1973, orders for nuclear reactors declined sharply as electricity demand fell and construction costs rose. Some partially completed nuclear power plants in the U.S. were stricken, and many planned nuclear plants were canceled.[17]^: 283

By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that Congress decided to abolish the agency. Supporters and critics of nuclear power agreed that the promotional and regulatory duties of the AEC should be assigned to different agencies. The Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 transferred the regulatory functions of the AEC to the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which began operations on January 19, 1975. Promotional functions went to the Energy Research and Development Administration which was later incorporated into the United States Department of Energy.[22]

Lasting through the mid-1970s, the AEC, along with other entities including the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the Manhattan Project, and various universities funded or conducted human radiation experiments.[23] The government covered up most of these radiation mishaps until 1993, when President Bill Clinton ordered a change of policy. Nuclear radiation was known to be dangerous and deadly (from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945), and the experiments were designed to ascertain the detailed effect of radiation on human health.[23][24] In Oregon, 67 prisoners with inadequate consent to vasectomies had their testicles exposed to irradiation.[25] In Chicago, 102 volunteers with unclear consent received injections of strontium and cesium solutions to simulate radioactive fallout.[23]

For many years, the AEC provided the most conspicuous example of the benefit of atomic age technologies to biology and medicine.[26]^{: 649–684} Shortly after the Atomic Energy Commission was established, its Division of Biology and Medicine began supporting diverse programs of research in the life sciences, mainly the fields of genetics, physiology, and ecology.[27] Specifically concerning the AEC's relationship with the field of ecology, one of the first approved funding grants went to Eugene Odum in 1951.[27] This grant sought to observe and document the effects of radiation emission on the environment from a recently built nuclear facility on the Savannah River in South Carolina. Odum, a professor at the University of Georgia, initially submitted a proposal requesting annual funding of $267,000, but the AEC rejected the proposal and instead offered to fund a $10,000 project to observe local animal populations and the effects of secondary succession on abandoned farmland around the nuclear plant.[27]

In 1961, AEC chairman Glenn T. Seaborg established the Technical Analysis Branch (to be directed by Hal Hollister) to study the long-term biological and ecological effects of nuclear war.[28] Throughout the early 1960s, this group of scientists conducted several studies to determine nuclear weapons' ecological consequences and their implications for human life. As a result, during the 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. government placed emphasis on the development and potential use of "clean" nuclear weapons to mitigate these effects.[28]

In later years, the AEC began providing increased research opportunities to scientists by approving funding for ecological studies at various nuclear testing sites, most notably at Eniwetok, which was part of the Marshall Islands. Through their support of nuclear testing, the AEC gave ecologists a unique opportunity to study the effects of radiation on whole populations and entire ecological systems in the field.[27] Prior to 1954, no one had investigated a complete ecosystem with the intent to measure its overall metabolism, but the AEC provided the means as well as the funding to do so. Ecological development was further spurred by environmental concerns about radioactive waste from nuclear energy and postwar atomic weapons production. In the 1950s, such concerns led the AEC to build a large ecology research group at their Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was instrumental in the development of radioecology. A wide variety of research efforts in biology and medicine took place under the umbrella of the AEC at national laboratories and at some universities with agency sponsorship and funding.[26]^{: 649–684} As a result of increased funding as well as the increased opportunities given to scientists and the field of ecology in general, a plethora of new techniques were developed which led to rapid growth and expansion of the field as a whole. One of these techniques afforded to ecologists involved the use of radiation, namely in ecological dating and to study the effects of stresses on the environment.[27]

In 1969, the AEC's relationship with science and the environment was brought to the forefront of a growing public controversy that had been building since 1965. In search for an ideal location for a large-yield nuclear test, the AEC settled upon the island of Amchitka, part of the Aleutian Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.[20]^: 246 The main public concern was about their location choice, as there was a large colony of endangered sea otters in close proximity. To help diffuse the issue, the AEC sought a formal agreement with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. state of Alaska to help transplant the colony of sea otters to other former habitats along the West Coast.[20]^: 247

The AEC played a role in expanding the field of arctic ecology. From 1959 to 1962, the Commission's interest in this type of research peaked. For the first time, extensive effort was placed by a national agency on funding bio-environmental research in the Arctic. Research took place at Cape Thompson on the northwest coast of Alaska, and was tied to an excavation proposal named Project Chariot.[29]^: 22 The excavation project was to involve a series of underground nuclear detonations that would create an artificial harbor, consisting of a channel and circular terminal basin, which would fill with water. This would have allowed for enhanced ecological research of the area in conjunction with any nuclear testing that might occur, as it essentially would have created a controlled environment where levels and patterns of radioactive fallout resulting from weapons testing could be measured.[29]^: 23 The proposal never went through, but it evidenced the AEC's interest in Arctic research and development.

The simplicity of biotic compositions and ecological processes in the arctic regions of the globe made ideal locations in which to pursue ecological research, especially since at the time there was minimal human modification of the landscape.[29]^: 25 All investigations conducted by the AEC produced new data from the Arctic, but few or none of them were supported solely on that basis.[29]^: 25 While the development of ecology and other sciences was not always the primary objective of the AEC, support was often given to research in these fields indirectly as an extension of their efforts for peaceful applications of nuclear energy.