The NRC proposed a paltry $65,000 fine against the owner of Peach Bottom nuclear plant, where investigators found that security guards routinely napped on the job. The NRC last year issued a color-coded "white" finding - a low-to-moderate safety violation - for the incident.

The agency's actions seem more like a slap on the wrist for Chicago-based Exelon, rather than a strong message about safety and accountability. Exelon says it plans to pay the fine for the NRC's findings, which were confirmed by its internal investigation at the York County nuclear power facility.

It took the utility and its regulators more than a year to reach this disappointing conclusion to what should have been an open-and-shut case, with indisputable evidence.

The investigations were launched in September 2007, but only after a videotape of the sleeping guards had surfaced. After receiving a tip in a letter from a former employee at the nuclear plant, the NRC allowed Exelon to do its own investigation of the allegations. Talk about the fox guarding the hen house!

It came as no surprise that Exelon initially found no evidence of guards napping. That quickly changed when the video became public.

Exelon took the unusual step of announcing its inquiry before regulators took any action, but it disclosed only that it was investigating reports that its guards were "inattentive" to their duties.

That must be code language for sleeping, far different from the less serious daydreaming or distracted state suggested by "inattentive."

And it gets worse. Several guards were found sleeping on more than one occasion in a plant "ready room" that served as a break room.

Plant supervisors were not informed about the incidents, according to the NRC. There were missed opportunities as well to identify the behavior earlier.

At a Senate committee hearing in February, company officials tried to downplay the risk posed by the dozing guards. They said the guards were not at a guard post but were in a staging area where they were supposed to be ready to assist in the event of an incident.

The thought of trying to rouse sleeping guards to respond to an emergency is not reassuring, especially in the post-9/11 era.

Exelon did fire the Wackenhut Corp. as its provider of security guards at Peach Bottom and its other plants and reactors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Illinois, and replaced it with an in-house security detail.

But a justified fear of nuclear accidents has been an obstacle to greater reliance on nuclear power in this nation. If that is to change, the NRC must issue stiffer sanctions even in response to low-level risks.