NRC cuts fees by 50 percent for advanced reactor applicants
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced it has amended regulations for the licensing, inspection, special projects, and annual fees it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year 2025.
The FY 2025 final fee rule, which was published in the June 24 Federal Register, includes a reduced hourly rate of $148 per hour for advanced nuclear reactor applicants and preapplicants for certain activities. According to the NRC, this represents a more than 50 percent reduction from the full-cost professional hourly rate of $318 per hour.
The reduced hourly rate is required by the ADVANCE Act of 2024 and will take effect on October 1.
Budget details: The FY 2025 fee rule reflects a total budget authority of $944.1 million, the same as FY 2024. Under the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, the NRC is required to recover, to the maximum extent practicable, approximately 100 percent of its total budget authority for FY 2025, less the budget authority for excluded activities.
A proposed fee rule was published for public comment on February 19.
After accounting for the exclusions from the fee-recovery requirement and net billing adjustments, the NRC must recover approximately $808.8 million in fees in FY 2025. The NRC assesses two types of fees: service fees, established in 10 CFR part 170, to recover the NRC’s costs of providing specific benefits to identifiable recipients (such as licensing work, inspections, and special projects); and annual fees, established in 10 CFR part 171, to recover generic and other regulatory costs not otherwise recovered.
For FY 2025, approximately $205.4 million will be recovered through service fees under 10 CFR Part 170, and $603.4 million will be recovered through annual fees under 10 CFR Part 171.
Compared to FY 2024, annual fees are decreasing for the operating power reactors fee class, fuel facilities fee class, nonpower production or utilization facilities fee class, the uranium recovery facilities fee class, and five materials users fee categories. Annual fees are increasing for most materials users’ fee categories, and annual fees remain stable for the spent fuel storage/reactor decommissioning fee class.
