As we close out 2011, readers of this space will likely not be surprised to hear the following:

• The crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility continues and continues to poison the planet;
• Accidents and events at nuclear reactors across the United States continue at a headshaking pace (something goes wrong somewhere pretty much weekly);
• The nuclear industry continues its full-court press against any new safety rules that might spring from lessons learned from Fukushima or the domestic events;
• Industry-friendly regulators continue to help slow-walk new rules while also working with allies in Congress to oust the slightly more safety-minded Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair, Gregory Jaczko;
• Chairman Jaczko continues to hope his faith in a moderate path and a captured regulatory agency will guarantee a safe nuclear future and help save his job; and
• All of this has happened before.

Last point first: Ryan Grim has a great follow-up on this month’s attempted coup at the NRC–where four commissioners, in coordination with members of congress and nuclear industry lobbyists, have gone public with complaints about the NRC chairman, Greg Jaczko. While the commissioners have stopped short of calling for Jaczko to step down, several GOP congressmen are pressing for just that result.

As Grim reports in the Huffington Post, the effort to oust Jaczko not only continues in the wake of two congressional hearings on the matter, the whole ugly putsch closely resembles moves in the 1990s to discredit another regulation-minded nuclear regulator. And the stories even include some of the same players. [cont’d.]