Up & Atom

The NRC recently issued Regulatory Issue Summary (RIS) 2025-02, which asks reactor licensees to voluntarily provide information about their plans for power-uprate licensing submittals. The NRC will use this information to set future budgets and project resource needs to review these anticipated applications. The anticipated spate of power uprates stems primarily from significant increases in power demand projections propelled by data centers, electrification, and other economic drivers. Although responses are voluntary, applicants who provide advance notice will receive priority in the NRC review process.

The US Department of Energy’s failure to transport and store spent nuclear fuel (SNF) pursuant to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act has required the government to reimburse the industry for substantial storage costs, and future payments are expected to increase. The DOE expects that its SNF liability has increased approximately 10% within the past year. While there are no expectations for a spent fuel storage solution in the United States anytime soon, other countries are establishing nuclear waste repositories.

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) requires federal agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), to evaluate the potential environmental impacts of their proposed actions. That statute also established the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), which was tasked with issuing NEPA implementation guidelines.

The US Supreme Court’s recent Loper Bright decision overturned its 1984 Chevron decision, which, over the last 40 years, had become a fundamental doctrine in administrative law. That doctrine, known as the “Chevron deference,” instructed reviewing courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory provisions if a permissible construction of the statute. While many agencies relied on Chevron deference to defend challenges to their rulemakings and other regulatory actions, the NRC has rarely needed to do so.

The NRC’s Acting Executive Director for Operations recently issued the results from the NRC staff’s annual Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) self-assessment for calendar year 2023. Out of the 17 metrics it evaluated, the NRC staff found that two did not meet or exceed expected performance, resulting in “yellow” findings. This is an overall improvement from the 2022 self-assessment, which had two “yellow” and two “red” findings due, in part, to continuing challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the staff concluded that the “ROP remained effective in achieving its goals of being objective, risk-informed, understandable, and predictable, as well as in supporting the agency’s strategic goals.”

The House Subcommittee on Energy, Climate, and Grid Security held a hearing on April 10, 2024 to examine federal responsibility for the permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF), along with opportunities for mitigating disposal challenges—such as through reprocessing and recycling fuel—to advance nuclear energy for the nation.

With the change of a single number, Congress has provided continued support for the nuclear power industry by renewing the Price-Anderson Act. Congress amended Section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (commonly known as the Price-Anderson Act or PAA) by changing its expiration date to December 31, 2065 from December 31, 2025. Congress also increased fourfold the liability coverage for DOE contractors for a nuclear incident occurring outside the United States to $2 billion from $500 million. Finally, Congress revised the definition of “nuclear incident” to remove requirements for the underlying nuclear material.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has published a final rule increasing civil monetary penalties (CMPs) for unintentional violations of 10 CFR Part 810 (Part 810). The rule, which took effect on January 9, 2024, increases the maximum CMP from $120,816 to $124,732 per violation per day. The increased penalty aligns with DOE’s mandate to annually adjust CMPs for inflation.

In a final rule published in the Federal Register on October 19, 2023, the NRC amended its regulations at 10 CFR 140.11 to increase the amount of third-party liability coverage required under the Price-Anderson Act, Section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act (42 USC 2210) (Price-Anderson) for large reactor licensees (i.e., reactors with a rated capacity of ≥100 MWe) from $450 million to $500 million per incident.

Over the course of 2023, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has started to develop a regulatory framework for fusion energy systems. Significantly, and as we previously reported, NRC decided to modify the existing process for licensing the use of byproduct materials contained in 10 CFR Part 30 to regulate nuclear fusion. NRC has now issued preliminary proposed rule language for the licensing and oversight of a broad array of fusion systems currently under development.