> you could instead, as a wild supposition, make all representatives live within 20 miles of the plant to align incentives
Isn't it possible this would increase the chance they had financial ties to the nuclear industry? My initial thought was that if you appointed environmental scientists to monitor emissions in areas without nuclear plants, they could also check the work of other assessors in areas with nuclear plants, to make sure their colleagues were honest, when attending board meetings.
So you would get bright people which were otherwise uninvolved to check the work and listen to what was being discussed.
Another option which would not rely on local election, would be to have Congress appoint 50 environmental assessors, one from each state, which were required to be permanent residents of each state they were appointed to represent, rather than employees of a national office. The assessors would then meet once per year to form a national oversight board.
> "Isn't it possible this would increase the chance they had financial ties to the nuclear industry?"
possibly, but i'd guess it's unlikely to be a significantly material effect, since you'd still be aiming to get a diverse group of representatives (many of whom would then have to move to be near one of the many nuclear plants in the state/country). i lived within 20 miles of a nuclear plant for a small part of my life and plenty of people in the area had nothing to do with the plant.
i think the more important bit is having wide and diverse representation and limiting the corruptibility of any individual representative.
Isn't it possible this would increase the chance they had financial ties to the nuclear industry? My initial thought was that if you appointed environmental scientists to monitor emissions in areas without nuclear plants, they could also check the work of other assessors in areas with nuclear plants, to make sure their colleagues were honest, when attending board meetings.
So you would get bright people which were otherwise uninvolved to check the work and listen to what was being discussed.
Another option which would not rely on local election, would be to have Congress appoint 50 environmental assessors, one from each state, which were required to be permanent residents of each state they were appointed to represent, rather than employees of a national office. The assessors would then meet once per year to form a national oversight board.