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The Nuclear Energy Institute is the organization that sets policies for the nuclear technology and energy industry and takes part in policy making both nationally and globally. The objective of the Nuclear Energy Institute is ensuring formation of policies that use nuclear energy safely and beneficially in the U.S. and worldwide.

Founded in 1994, the Nuclear Energy Institute was a merging of several associations, one that had been in existence for decades. NEI combined the resources of the Nuclear Utility Management and Resources Council (NUMARC0, which had been tasked with overseeing nuclear energy technical and regulatory issues; the U.S. Council for Energy Awareness (USCEA), which deals with communications on nuclear energy on a grand scale; The American Nuclear Energy Council (ANEC,) the government affairs agency for nuclear energy-related tasks; and the nuclear department of the Edison Electric Energy Council (EEI), whose responsibility it had been to oversee handling of nuclear fuel management with regards to used energy, the supply of nuclear fuel and its economics.

AIF had been created in 1953, and two years later it was followed by an international nuclear energy conference called "Atoms for Peace. Held in Geneva, this 1955 gathering was touted as heralding in the start of the nuclear age.

NEI and its nuclear energy enthusiast members, develop legislative and regulatory policy on nuclear energy issues. NEI is the personification of the voice of the nuclear industry and appears before the United States Congress, before agencies of the U.S. executive branch of government, before representatives of federal regulatory agencies, and before pertinent international organizations. NEI also gives its members and others interested in nuclear energy a forum in which they can resolve business and technical problems and issues for the nuclear industry. Another task of NEI is to inform its members, legislators and policymakers, the media and the public in a timely and accurate manner about nuclear energy including recent advancements and safety concerns.

250 corporate representatives in 13 countries belong to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Member firms include nuclear power plant owners, engineering and design companies, fuel supply vendors and service firms, companies that work in nuclear medicine, research and industrial application, radiopharmaceutical and radionuclide business, research laboratories including universities, and labor unions. NEI programs and activities regularly have more than 6000 industry professional participants.

Washington DC is the headquarters of NEI. It has a staff of 132. The nuclear energy industry that these folks and NEI members represent and serve cover the gamut of nuclear related industries such as nuclear medicine, commercial generation of electricity, therapy and diagnostics, agriculture and food processing, manufacturing and other industrial uses, uranium mines, the manufacture of nuclear fuel and the management of nuclear waste.