NRC proposes rule for decommissioning timelines, groundwater protection

Public comments: Once the rule has been published in the Federal Register, the public will have 30 days to submit comments via regulations.gov, the federal rulemaking website, using docket ID NRC-2025-1204.

According to the NRC, these proposed changes are needed “to reduce costs for applicants while avoiding premature license terminations that can result from rigid timeline requirements.”

NRC Executive Director for Operations Mike King said, “This proposed rule reflects the NRC’s commitment to protecting public health by putting a framework into place establishing clear, enforceable standards for groundwater safety near uranium recovery sites. At the same time, we are closing the gap in our regulations, improving regulatory efficiency, and providing greater certainty for both communities and facility operators.”

The agency’s analysis indicates that the “proposed rule would result in net cost savings for industry and NRC, which will increase in proportion to the number of affected licensing actions . . . . For each ISR application, industry would save $288,600 and the NRC would save $316,200 due to the more efficient process of the proposed rule. For each power reactor decommissioning exemption request avoided due to the provisions of the proposed rule, industry would save $5,920 and the NRC would save $39,500.”

ISR facility-specific regulations: The first part of the proposed rule focuses on codifying and updating groundwater protection requirements at uranium ISR sites, at which uranium is extracted from underground deposits through the injection of fluids into ore-bearing rock.

Uranium mining rules were originally written for conventional mines and mills, but there are special considerations for in situ mining, which has been the predominant means of extracting uranium in the United States since the 1990s. The proposed changes address these issues.

In one of the most important issues addressed in these proposed changes, the NRC would explicitly recognize the use of alternate concentration limits (ACLs) for ISR groundwater restoration, provided that background levels or standard limits cannot practically be achieved and that the applicant can demonstrate no hazard to human health or the environment.

The uranium recovery industry began expressing concerns to the NRC in the 1990s about “perceived dual regulation between the NRC and the [Environmental Protection Agency] with respect to the protection of groundwater impacted by ISR operations,” the NRC said. “Since that time, there have been a number of efforts at the NRC to address the concerns and increase transparency and clarity regarding NRC’s ISR requirements.”

In the proposed changes, the NRC said it would add “a new criterion 14 that establishes groundwater protection requirements specific to ISR facilities.” It would also make revisions “to clarify that several of the current conventional uranium milling requirements apply to ISR operations, including the use of ACLs.”

In addition, the proposed changes “would revise the current definition of Byproduct Material in 10 CFR 40.4 to include liquid wastes from ISR facilities that may impact groundwater” and would define “the term abandoned uranium mine waste remediation . . . to clarify the difference between abandoned uranium mine waste remediation activities and uranium milling activities,” the NRC said.

Decommissioning-related regulations: The second part of the proposed rule concerns relaxing decommissioning timeliness requirements across multiple classes of NRC licensees, including reactors. Current rules generally trigger decommissioning action after 24 months of inactivity. The NRC is proposing to extend that timeline to 36 months for 10 CFR Part 30 byproduct-material licensees and to 48 months for 10 CFR Parts 40, 70, and 72 licensees, while also creating a streamlined extension process.

According to the agency, the existing 24-month threshold unnecessarily forces some licensees to terminate licenses, seek storage-only licenses, or file exemption requests—even when no safety issue exists.

For power reactors, which are regulated under 10 CFR Parts 50, 52, and 53, the NRC said it will still require decommissioning to be completed within 60 years. However, proposed changes would make it easier to get an exemption for a longer decommissioning timeline. These changes focus on “simplifying and broadening the criteria for requesting an alternative schedule for decommissioning and aligning the request with the well-established specific exemption process familiar to NRC, licensees, and the public,” the NRC said.

In describing the history of its decommissioning requirements, the NRC noted that in 1988, it established the requirement “for a licensee to terminate its license within 60 years of permanent cessation of operations, explaining that the NRC considered a 50-year period sufficient for the benefits of radiological decay and a 10-year period for dismantlement and decontamination activities to be completed.” That 1988 rule also stated that “consideration would be given to a decommissioning alternative which provides for completion of decommissioning beyond 60 years for power reactors only when necessary to protect public health and safety.”

Regarding its several proposed rule changes for decommissioning regulations, the NRC said that “the proposed changes focus on the requirements to initiate timely decommissioning and the process to request an extension to the associated timeframes. The proposed rule would extend the timeframe for notifications related to the initiation of decommissioning, broaden the reasons acceptable for extensions to those timeframes, and streamline the process to request extensions, thereby reducing the regulatory burden on licensees while maintaining public health and safety.”

General policy remains the same: After detailing its proposed rule changes, the NRC emphasized that its policy “has always been, and continues to be, that decontamination should be accomplished and the license terminated as soon as practical. Additionally, the agency continues to believe that timely initiation of decommissioning for nuclear material licensees, with notification and commencement of decommissioning activities when there is a period of no principal activities in a separate building or outdoor area or under the license, is appropriate.”

The NRC also stressed that although it “continues to support the position that nuclear facilities should be decommissioned as soon as practical,” the proposed rule removes the requirement to show that extension requests would not be detrimental to public health and safety and replaces it with “a streamlined process that risk-informs NRC’s review of the extension request by specifically focusing the review on safety-significant elements.”