nuclear-news

USA House and Senate committees approve bills favouring “new nuclear” companies

environmental groups raised concerns with H.R. 4979 in a May 17 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying changes to the NRC’s licensing framework could lead to safety concerns.

Ed Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he had concerns with requiring the Energy Department to split the costs of advanced reactor development, because this ultimately would be borne by taxpayers.

House, Senate Panels OK Advanced Nuclear Reactor Bills Bloomberg BNA,  By Rebecca Kern May 18 — House and Senate committees approved two bills May 18 that would create a new licensing framework at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the review of advanced reactors.

During separate hearings, the House Energy and Commerce Committee favorably reported out the Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act (H.R. 4979), and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (S. 2795)………

NuScale Power LLC will be the first company to submit a licensing application to the NRC by year-end for its advanced small modular reactor that is 50 megawatts and can be transported by rail, truck or barge (95 ECR, 5/17/16).

The bills will next go to the House and Senate floors, although no schedules for votes have been announced.

Dan Schneider, the Energy and Commerce’s press secretary, told Bloomberg BNA May 18 that the committee members look forward to working with the co-sponsors of S. 2795 once the House passes H.R. 4979 to work out differences between the bills.

Environmentalists Cite Concerns

While the nuclear industry lauded committee approval of the bills, environmental groups raised concerns with H.R. 4979 in a May 17 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, saying changes to the NRC’s licensing framework could lead to safety concerns.

“We believe any focus on ‘expediting and streamlining’ NRC licensing for nuclear reactors of any type is misplaced, [and] will do little to facilitate the deployment of advanced reactors in the United States, whatever the well-intentioned purposes of the sponsors of these bills,” the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sierra Club and four other groups said in the letter.

The groups said the House bill’s focus on the NRC developing a “risk-informed” and “performance-based” licensing framework for advanced reactors “could potentially lead to compromises on public safety protections and do grave damage to the agency’s and industry’s environmental obligations.”

House Amendments

The Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously approved Rep. Bob Latta’s (R-Ohio) manager’s amendment to H.R. 4979 in a voice vote. The amendment made several changes, including extending the time, from 270 days to one year, that the NRC would have to submit a report to Congress on its advanced reactor regulatory framework.

The NRDC had raised concerns about the NRC not having enough time to establish this framework in the 270-day period.

Geoffrey Fettus, a senior attorney at NRDC, told Bloomberg BNA in a May 18 interview that he was pleased the NRC was given more time (83 ECR, 4/29/16).

The manager’s amendment also required the NRC to consider options for cost-sharing structures between the federal government and private companies in a phased-licensing review process.

Costs Charged to Taxpayers

Ed Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he had concerns with requiring the Energy Department to split the costs of advanced reactor development, because this ultimately would be borne by taxpayers. “It raises the potential for a significant public subsidy, and that has to be worked out,” he told Bloomberg BNA in a May 18 interview.

Additionally, the manager’s amendment included a provision requiring private companies using Energy Department facilities to build advanced reactors to not enter into such an agreement until the NRC has published a final decision on its application for a permanent high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

Lyman said this provision is a potential “poison pill” because “if any such project has to wait for a Yucca Mountain license and an NRC decision, it could be the show stopper.”

Also, the committee unanimously passed by voice vote an amendment to H.R. 4979 from Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) requiring the NRC to provide the Senate with the status of performance metrics and milestone schedules for advanced nuclear reactors…………

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Kern in Washington atrkern@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Pearl atlpearl@bna.com  http://www.bna.com/house-senate-panels-n57982072652/

May 20, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA