The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S. Truman signed the McMahon/Atomic Energy Act on August 1, 1946, transferring the control of atomic energy from military to civilian hands, effective from January 1, 1947.
An increasing number of critics during the 1960s charged that the AEC's regulations were insufficiently rigorous in several important areas, including radiation protection standards, nuclear reactor safety, plant siting, and environmental protection. By 1974, the AEC's regulatory programs had come under such strong attack that Congress decided to abolish the agency. The agency was abolished by the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which assigned its functions to two new agencies: the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Read more about United States Atomic Energy Commission: History, AEC Chairperson
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, atomic, energy and/or commission:
“And hereby hangs a moral highly applicable to our own trustee-ridden universities, if to nothing else. If we really wanted liberty of speech and thought, we could probably get itSpain fifty years ago certainly had a longer tradition of despotism than has the United Statesbut do we want it? In these years we will see.”
—John Dos Passos (18961970)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (18561924)
“Nullification ... means insurrection and war; and the other states have a right to put it down.”
—Andrew Jackson (17671845)
“One has to look out for engineersthey begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb.”
—Marcel Pagnol (18951974)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive ityesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I dont give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (19151984)
“Yesterday the Electoral Commission decided not to go behind the papers filed with the Vice-President in the case of Florida.... I read the arguments in the Congressional Record and cant see how lawyers can differ on the question. But the decision is by a strictly party voteeight Republicans against seven Democrats! It shows the strength of party ties.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18221893)