The NRC recently issued its
Allegation Program Annual Trends Report. The report analyzes regional, national, and site-specific allegation trends for calendar year 2020. The report’s top-line numbers show that the number of allegations fell approximately 10% from 2019. This reduction continues the decline in allegations seen since 2016; and the number of allegations has fallen by more than 50% over the past five years. But while the overall number of allegations continued to decline in 2020, the rate of decline slowed.
The decline in allegations in 2020 was led by a reduction in allegations involving reactor licensees. But the reason for this decline is not clear and the reduction does not appear to be related to the COVID-19 public health emergency. The NRC recognized that remote work and fewer face-to-face interactions may have contributed to the reduction in allegations from reactor licensees, but found no conclusive data to show that this was, in fact, the case.