Changes that Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have labeled as significant could be coming to the agency’s environmental review regulations if its proposed rule on National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures moves forward.

With notable changes potentially incoming—such as no longer requiring draft environmental impact statements and the addition of new categorical exclusions—NRC staff shared additional details on these and other proposals during a July 23 meeting on the NEPA proposed rule.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing changes to its environmental review regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that agency officials call the most significant in decades.

The proposed rule—published in the Federal Register on Tuesday—streamlines 10 CFR Part 51 and calls for no longer requiring draft environmental impact statements (EIS), adding new categorical exclusions that exempt licensing actions from NEPA review, and reducing the regulatory burden in its environmental reviews, among other things. The NRC will accept public comments on the proposed rulemaking until August 21, with plans to hold a public hearing during the comment period.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified five categories of action to add to its list of categorical exclusions to reduce its documentation work under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures.

These revisions are included in the final rule, “Categorical exclusions from environmental review,” which was published in the Federal Register on March 30. The final rule will become effective on April 29.

The Department of Energy has announced that it is establishing a categorical exclusion for the application of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) procedures to the authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning of advanced nuclear reactors.

According to the DOE, this significant change, which goes into effect today, “is based on the experience of DOE and other federal agencies, current technologies, regulatory requirements, and accepted industry practice.”