NRC's services don't necessarily need to be free. But they should be reasonable, both in fees, and in the process. They are a service run by government.
being in service of the public good is not offering a service. Their job is to regulate industry, not offer it a service.
If you want a service you hire someone to fulfill it. The US government created the 'service' but not for industry, but for the regulation of industry. The 'service' isn't offered to industry for the good of industry. It's the opposite of a normal understanding of service.
If you are regulated have no choice whether to take the service or not, and your say in their 'services' is extremely limited.
Calling it a service is an activity in intentionally misleading what an organization like the NCR does. They are not a service. They are a regulator.
You are intentionally conflating two disparate definitions of service ('they offer a service' vs 'they are in the service of') and really for no gain except to come up with your own mandate for an NCR that already has one, and doesn't care about your opinion because they receive their mandate from government and not from you and your intentionally misleading arguments.
At home, I have a water pressure regulator. It came welded shut by the manufacturer because, no water flowing at all means no risk of overpressure at all.
Regulation doesn't means only hindering the industry, but accompanying its development safely through overseeing.
I think the point is a valid one. Not all nuclear regulators are as blinkered as the NRC. Canada, for example, has a very effective regulatory regime, while being much friendlier to new technology. Terrestrial Energy, a molten salt reactor company in Canada, is making good progress and has spoken highly of their regulators. But I don't think anyone would say that Canada makes unsafe reactors.
It seems strange to me that they'd want that rather than finding out up-front before they spent a much greater amount of money actually building something which might be rejected.
