In this section I have demonstrated the various ways authority argumentation is implicit within risk deliberations. Risk communicators typically represent the source of the proposed risk: typically a risk producer or risk regulator that is perceived as an authority or expert such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Kemeny Commission. The risk communicator, as an authority on the issue, asserts claims to reassure the public that certain risks can be responsibly managed in order to prevent a crisis from occurring. The public, as the experiential expert, plays the role of antagonist: public perceptions are informed by their belief and experience related to the risk activity. I then explained how the reconstruction of authority argumentation must account for the trustworthiness of the risk communicator and introduced Palmieri’s concept of trust argumentation as a solution. I proposed an additional
element of trustworthiness that should be included in effective trust argumentation. In chapter 4, I will demonstrate how trust argumentation unfolds in a critical discussion about risk, by analyzing the Kemeny Report on Three Mile Island.
4 Trust-Repair Strategies in the The Kemeny Commission Report
The aim of this thesis is to consider how institutional authorities responsible for the
regulation of major risk activities earn public confidence. I began with an overview of risk theory, introduced by Ulrich Beck (Beck, 1992) (chapter 2). Risk theory proposes that the technologies that society depends on to produce wealth and generate social and economic opportunity, also present potential harmful consequences, such as pollution, disease, or social inequities. Risk communication was born from this exigence. Risk theory also suggests that society, and our social and political institutions, are increasingly engaged in a debate over the costs and benefits of embracing major risk activities. From this perspective, risk
communication has a role in democratic deliberation. In this thesis, I am concerned with risk communication in the form of argumentation, and specifically, how risk communicators attempt to convince the public to accept or reject certain risks. Public deliberation about risk is often directed by risk producers and risk regulators such as energy companies or
government agencies that, in their position as public authorities and subject experts,
ultimately decide whether and how to pursue a risk-producing activity. Despite this top-down direction of decision-making, risk communicators must defend their decisions to the public.
Often, this defense takes the form of authority arguments or appeals to expertise. However, growing distrust toward experts and authorities requires that risk communicators defend an important implicit standpoint: the decision-maker is a credible and trustworthy source of information. In chapter 3, I explained how trust argumentation is used to reinforce trust claims in risk discourse. I further explained the distinction between ethotic argumentation and expert appeals, and addressed how trust argumentation functions to strengthen and enhance both argument forms. Ability, integrity, and benevolence are features of trustworthiness that an institution must demonstrate in order to prove their credibility as decision-makers on behalf of the public. To this list of trustworthiness qualities, I added “transparency”.
This chapter will demonstrate how trust argumentation unfolds in a foundational example of risk communication: the Kemeny Commission Report on the Accident at Three Mile Island (from here onward ‘the Report’) (Kemeny, et al., 1979; Appendix A). The Report has been analyzed and cited as a case study by a number of communication researchers
(Elliot, 1980; Lanouette, 1980; Kasperson & Covello, 1983; Temples, 1982). First, I provide the context for the public distrust of nuclear energy in the U.S. which erupted into
controversy following the TMI accident (4.1.1) Then, I’ll explain the Report’s utility as an example of risk communication, specifically in the political domain of democratic
deliberation (4.1.2). On the surface, the Report is a post-mortem investigation of the accident at TMI (Kasperson & Covello, 1983), relaying information and recommendations pertinent to public safety. However, many communication scholars understand the Report as a risk assessment with high-level impact on U.S. nuclear energy policy (Elliot, 1980; Lanouette, 1980; Kasperson & Covello, 1983). I will focus on the macro/extra-textual events that influenced the Report and point to intertextual clues that inform the Commission’s ultimate purpose. Once I have described the relevance of the data, I will analyze key excerpts from the Report to illustrate how trust argumentation is employed to advance the U.S. government’s position on nuclear energy and nuclear regulation (4.3). To organize the analysis, I will use the pragma-dialectical model for an ideal critical discussion to briefly define the difference of opinion and identify the standpoints. I will focus on how trust strategies are developed and reinforced in the argumentation stage. This section will be divided into two parts, (4.3.1) Trust claims implicit in authority argumentation and (4.3.2) trust claims defending ethotic argumentation. I will conclude with a discussion about the effectiveness of trust
argumentation in the Kemeny Report on public perception and nuclear policy in the U.S.
(4.4).
4.1. Background on the public debate over nuclear regulation
4.1.1 A brief history of risk discourse on nuclear energy in the U.S.
Some context is necessary in order to understand the role the TMI accident and the subsequent Kemeny Commission’s investigation played in political debate over the development of nuclear energy in the U.S.
The American public was introduced to nuclear technology through the development of the atom bomb (Zaretsky, 2017; Jones, 1985). The U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 claimed between 129,000 and 226,000 lives, mostly casualties (RERF, 2007). Half of the deaths resulted from the immediate explosion, while the other half of the
victims succumbed to radiation poisoning and burns in the days following. The decimation of the area, including access to food, water, and medicine, claimed many more lives in the months to follow. Reports of increased rates of cancers, birth defects, and severe genetic defects such as microcephaly, followed in the preceding months and years (Krimsky &
Shorett, 2005). While future studies left some debate as to whether the generational impacts were the direct results of nuclear radiation (RERF, 2007), the association between nuclear technology and total destruction had already taken root in the collective imagination (Zaretsky, 2017; Kasperson, 1982).
During the Cold War nuclear arms race, the U.S. government dedicated its
infrastructure to the atom bomb. Zaretsky describes the U.S. as a bomb-making factory at the time:
Between 1946 and 1963, this factory kept busy: the government conducted nearly six hundred atomic tests (many above ground), produced more than seventy thousand nuclear warheads (more than all the other nuclear states combined), and set in motion a series of slow-motion disasters in the form of cancer epidemics at testing sites and munitions factories. (2017, 15).
These slow motion disasters were also reported to the American public by the media, further reinforcing catastrophic associations with nuclear technology.
The Cold War arms race extended into an energy race. Heavily reliant on foreign oil production, the U.S. was determined to pursue nuclear power in order to achieve energy independence. The U.S. already had the infrastructure and technology, now they needed public support (Zaretsky, 2017; Kasperson, 1979; 1980). In 1946, the Atomic Energy
Commission was established to research “civilian applications of atomic power and transition U.S. infrastructure for nuclear power development (Zaretsky, 2017, 18). The Eisenhower Administration promoted nuclear energy to the public with the express aim of dissociating American’s perception of nuclear energy from nuclear weapons through their mascot, The Peaceful Atom (ibid.). Enter the Atoms for Peace Program, a national campaign developed by nuclear utilities such as MetEd, enlisting scientists to testify for the safety and value of
domesticating atomic energy. As Zaretsky put it, “This required the celebration of the atom’s generative potential and an amnesic suppression of its dangers” (Zaretsky, 2017, 18). Over the course of two decades, the federal government and the nuclear industry went to great
lengths to promote nuclear energy as an almost utopian technology that would ensure safety, security, and prosperity for all (ibid.).
The accident at Three Mile Island is associated with the demise of commercial nuclear energy in the U.S. Although the incident, as an event, is most obviously categorized as a crisis, as I have demonstrated, risk is essentially an unrealized crisis: “What counts is that millions of us, including many experts, were able for the first time to see clearly the anatomy of a major nuclear nightmare”(Kasperson, 1983, 20). When Reactor Unit II at Three Mile Island suffered a near melt-down, the magnitude and reality of the potential harm to the local community ignited a debate over whether affordable nuclear energy was worth the potential catastrophic consequences that the technology posed. In this sense, the crisis exposed the risks of pursuing nuclear energy as an alternative energy source in the U.S. The public had been persuaded that a nuclear accident was veritably impossible and that nuclear radiation was harmless domestic helper, zipping through the electrical grid into the safest place imaginable, our homes (ibid.)
The immediate aftermath of the accident at TMI was nothing short of chaotic.
Information provided to the public was spare and inconsistent due to communication breakdowns between Metropolitan Edison, the NRC and the media. The public received conflicting reports from the NRC, MetEd, news media, and the Governor’s office about the extent and magnitude of the harms posed, the timeline for containment, and emergency response (Lanouette, 1980; Zaretsky, 2017; Kemeny, et al, 1979). Needless to say, the public was not impressed with how the crisis was managed, nor with those in charge of managing such a “complex” situation (ibid.). When disaster struck, not only was nuclear energy up for debate, but so was the credibility and trustworthiness of those responsible for producing and managing it.
4.1.2 Description of Data: The Kemeny Commission Report as a critical discussion I have established the context for Three Mile Island as a catalyst for public debate over the risks of embracing nuclear energy in the United States. I suggested that the debate over nuclear energy extends to the credibility and trustworthiness of the institutions tasked with managing the risks. In this section, I will explain how the Kemeny Commission’s assessment
of the accident at Three Mile Island presents a strong example of trust argumentation in risk discourse.
The Kemeny Commission report is widely cited by risk management and risk communication scholars (Elliot, 1980; Lanouette, 1980; Kasperson, Covello, V. T. et al.
(eds.), 1983). Additionally, The Commission’s activities were covered daily in newspapers across the country and the final report was one of the most highly anticipated federal reports in history, igniting a blaze of media coverage and op-eds in the months after its release (Lanouette, 1980; Zaretsky, 2017). It also significantly impacted the future of commercial nuclear energy development (Zaretsky, 2017).
After the crisis, a number of assessments were conducted by the utility and nuclear regulators to determine the conditions that lead to the accident and to assess the risk the nuclear power plant posed if it was reopened (ibid.). However, given the calamitous handling of the event by those same entities, President Carter ordered an independent commission.
Convened in April 1979. The President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, was given six months to conduct hearings, gather testimony, and collect and evaluate documentation of the plant’s operations and response (Kemeny, et al., 1979, 155). The committee was intentionally composed of twelve panelists with a neutral view on nuclear energy, led by John G. Kemeny, the president of Dartmouth College (Kemeny, et al., 1979, 1, 169). The commissioners represented expertise in the fields of public policy, theoretical science, business management, sociology, labor, health sciences, civilian technology and military technology, and one local resident. But importantly, none had any connection or expertise in commercial nuclear energy (ibid.). Following their investigation, the
Commission was mandated to present their conclusions about the factors that contributed to the TMI accident, and provide recommendations to prevent future nuclear power accidents.
The commission's final report, issued on October 30, 1979, was 178 pages, broken down into the following sections: Preface, Overview, Commission Findings, Commission
Recommendations, Account of the Accident, and Appendices (documentation and evidence).
The report also includes the Original Executive Order, The Commission Operations &
Methodology, the Commissioners Biographies, as well as a staff list and Glossary. I will limit my analysis of the critical discussion presented in the report’s Overview section (Kemeny, et al., 1979). As a summary of the commission’s findings, the Overview is structured for public consumption and is therefore the most referenced section of the report in the media at the
time. When necessary, I will reference the other sections to provide textual support or evidence for my findings.
The Report was the biggest news story of the time (Kasperson, 1979; Lanouette, 1980). Regarding deliberation about the risks of nuclear energy, “Among the most significant results of the commission’s report will be having the public attention focused, for the first time, on the problems and dangers inherent in poor management of this unique technology”
(Lanouette, 1980, 23). Interestingly, the media’s interpretation of the report was divided, with pro-nuclear advocates describing it as a stamp of approval and anti-nuclear advocates
describing it as a nail in the coffin (Lanouette, 1980, 22). It was widely considered to be the final judgement on the future of nuclear energy in the U.S (Elliot, 1980; Lanouette, 1980;
Kasperson, Covello, et al. (eds.), 1983). All agreed on one central point: The report was a scathing rebuke of the NRC’s regulatory authority. Ultimately, this rebuke undermined public support for nuclear power in the U.S. For the next three decades, no new power plants were approved for construction in the U.S. Those nuclear facilities that were already under
construction ultimately succumbed to divestment and delays following public opposition and exodus of capital investment (Zaretsky, 2017).
4.2 Data analysis of trust argumentation in The Kemeny Commission Report
4.2.1 Pragma-dialectical analysis of trust each stage of a critical discussion In order to understand the purpose of trust argumentation in the Kemeny Report, I will analyze it as an ideal critical discussion by identifying key stages of the argumentative discourse, according to the pragma-dialectic method. Then I will telescope my analysis to the argumentation stage in order to demonstrate the function of trust argumentation. The ideal model of a critical discussion is useful for identifying the means a speaker uses to reasonably defend their standpoints (Van Eemeren & Snoeck Henkemans, 2017, 19). I will divide my analysis of the argumentation into two sections, trust for ethotic argumentation (The Kemeny Commission), and trust in authority argumentation (NRC). Although the Kemeny Report pointed the finger at the failures of multiple agencies, I will focus my analysis on the Report’s treatment of the NRC. If trust argumentation is essential toward persuading the public to
accept risks associated with pursuing nuclear energy, it would make sense for the subject of trustworthiness to be the agency responsible for regulating the nuclear industry.
Figure 2. Confrontation Stage (bold and underline from original). (Full text in Appendix A).
In the confrontation stage (figure 2.), the difference of opinion is established and a standpoint is advanced by the speaker (Van Eemeren, Snoeck Henkemans, 2017, 19). The Report achieves this task in the opening paragraphs under the heading “Overall Conclusions”.
First, the authors quote the mandate received by President Carter, to “make recommendations to enable us to prevent any future nuclear accidents” (line 6). Interestingly, the full text of the order limits the Kemeny Commission’s mandate to investigate Three Mile Island specifically, clearly defining the Commission as “an independent forum to investigate and explain the recent accident at the nuclear power facility at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania…”
(Kemeny, et al., 1979, 151). The mandate does not explicitly call for the evaluation of the nuclear industry as a whole. However, the Kemeny Commission recognized the wider implications of their report, based on two critical components: 1) the public debate over nuclear energy represented in popular media following the TMI accident, and 2) the specific investigatory tasks they were assigned in the language of the Executive Order.
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the central issue in the Kemeny Report went beyond the bounds of the isolated nuclear accident at Three Mile Island to encompass the nuclear energy enterprise as a whole. Elliot noted how previous nuclear energy
assessments such as the NRC’s Rasmussen report (1975) were used by the nuclear industry to promote nuclear power as a safe, low-risk energy alternative. When the Rasmussen report began to receive heavy media scrutiny for assessment errors, the industry promptly dropped the report as a promotional tool (Elliot, 1980, 871). Lanouette references competing op-eds in
major media outlets, describing the Kemeny Report as either a vindication of nuclear power or a scathing rebuke, depending on which side of the debate the authors ascribed to (1980, 22). We can see then there are at least three positions on the issue of nuclear energy, pro- and anti-, as well as undecided. Therefore, the difference of opinion is mixed.
To achieve the goals mandated by the president, the Executive Order lists the following specific functions of the Commission:
“1-2. Functions.
1-201.The Commission shall conduct a comprehensive study and investigation of the recent accident involving the nuclear power facility on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The study and investigation shall include:
(a) a technical assessment of the events and their causes;
(b) an analysis of the role of the managing utility;
(c) an assessment of the emergency preparedness and response of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other Federal, state and local authorities;
(d) an evaluation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing,
inspection, operation and enforcement procedures as applied to this facility;
(e) an assessment of how the public's right to information concerning the events at Three Mile Island was served and of the steps which should be taken during similar emergencies to provide the public with accurate,
comprehensible and timely information; and
(f)appropriate recommendations based upon the Commission's findings.
1-202. The Commission shall prepare and transmit to the President and to the Secretaries of Energy and Health, Education and Welfare a final report of its findings and recommendations.” (Kemeny, et al., 1979, 151-152)
The emphasis placed on the NRC underscores that the findings of the report will have major implications beyond the safety at TMI alone. As the primary federal agency
responsible for overseeing and regulating nuclear power across the U.S., any indication that the NRC is not able to carry out its safety mission, compromises public faith in the safety of
the entire nuclear enterprise. In other words, if the agency in charge of managing the risks of nuclear energy fails to do so, then they are not capable of managing the risks posed by the technology anywhere, at all.
Based on the heightened public anticipation of the report, and the President’s emphasis on the NRC, the Report correctly recognizes that the difference of opinion they have been asked to resolve is whether nuclear energy can be safely regulated. Thus, the report recognizes that the issue of nuclear safety pivots around the credibility of the NRC. There are two propositions at stake, making the difference of opinion multiple. Therefore, the Report adopts the explicit standpoint:
To prevent nuclear accidents as serious as Three Mile Island, fundamental changes will be necessary in the organization, procedures, and practices--and above all -- in the attitudes of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and, to the extent that the institutions we investigated are typical, of the nuclear industry.
(9-12; bold and underline in the original.)
The language in the standpoint unfolds from the specific example of TMI to the larger conclusions at stake: the future of the nuclear industry. Embedded in the standpoint is the prescription for achieving nuclear safety, “fundamental changes will be necessary in the organization, procedures, and practices--and above all--in the attitudes of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission” (lines 9-11). The problem areas the report identifies are directly related to perceptions of trustworthiness. “Organization, procedures, and practices” are the structural conditions that determine the agency’s ability to carry out its function. The organization of the agency also has a bearing on its integrity: how decisions are made and who benefits. Finally, the report emphasizes the problem with the NRC’s “attitude”. The assessment is that the NRC’s current attitude has limited their ability to effectively regulate the industry. Based on the premises of effective organization and appropriate attitude, we can summarize the standpoint as a position on the credibility, or trustworthiness of the NRC as an institutional authority. In order to precisely assess the trust claims in the Report, we can substitute the language of explicit standpoint, into a simplified formulation, as follows:
1. Currently, the NRC is not a trustworthy regulatory agency.
Now that the difference of opinion has been established and the standpoint has been identified, we can move onto the opening stage where the parameters of the discussion will be framed.
The opening stage (figure 3) lays out the framework for how the argumentation will proceed, within the boundaries of the communication activity. The burden of proof is
assigned and material and procedural starting points are established as a point of departure for the defense. The beauty of a commissioned report such as this, is that the methodology is clearly established in the language of the Executive Order and in the Methodology appendix.
While other material starting points are represented throughout the text, which are also products of the opening stage, I will limit my focus to lines 15-45, since my primary concern is the relationship between the burden of proof and trust argumentation.
Figure 3. Opening Stage (Full Text in Appendix A).
It is taken for granted that the Report’s authors were assigned the burden of proof when the president mandated the Commission to make their recommendations. In the
confrontation stage, the Commission asserted that nuclear energy was only feasible under the management of a credible regulatory authority, the NRC. They adopted the standpoint that the NRC was not trustworthy in its current form. By taking this position, the commissioners accepted the burden of proof. However, in the opening stage lines 14-39, the report further defines the bounds of their defense. On the one hand, the pursuit of nuclear energy in the U.S.
had been ramping up for decades. With all of this infrastructure already in place, and with the establishment of the NRC in 1975, the acceptability of nuclear energy and the credibility of the NRC represented the status quo. When a party advances a standpoint that argues against the status quo position, they assume an even greater responsibility for the burden of proof.
However, the commission was intentionally designed to exclude any individuals with connection to the nuclear industry or prevalent opinions on the efficacy of nuclear energy policy. The purpose of this was to avoid any perceived conflicts of interest that could undermine the integrity of the Commission’s recommendations. Therefore, they had to balance high expectations of burden of proof with a degree of perceived neutrality. This balancing act is most clearly demonstrated in lines 26-31. As a neutral party, the report asserts, “Our findings do not, standing alone, require the conclusion that nuclear power is inherently too dangerous to permit it to continue and expand as a form of power generation.
Neither do they suggest that the nation should move forward aggressively to develop additional commercial nuclear power” (26-28). The authors express a reluctance to take a position which would require them to defend the U.S.’ pursuit of nuclear energy writ large.
Instead, “They simply state that if the country wishes, for larger reasons, to confront the risks that are inherently associated with nuclear power, fundamental changes are necessary if those risks are to be kept within tolerable limits” (29-31). By minimizing the intentions of the report, they limit their standpoint to defining “necessary fundamental changes” and therefore anchor their defense in improvements to nuclear safety. Nuclear safety is the domain of the NRC.
Further, while the panelist had a variety of expertise in areas such as policy, sociology, and health, none of them were experts on nuclear technology. This required the Commission