Policy

The American Nuclear Society coordinated an effort with eight nongovernmental organizations in asking Congress to update the Environmental Protection Agency’s generic standards for the safe, permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste.

With a new speaker finally seated, the GOP-led House of Representatives recently passed the fiscal year 2024 Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act (H.R. 4394) in a near–party line vote of 210–199. A lone Republican—Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado—opposed the measure, as did all voting Democrats.

At a legislative markup session last week, a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee approved 17 energy bills for consideration by the full E&C committee, including 12 measures to boost and streamline the deployment of nuclear power. The nuclear-related bills cleared the subcommittee by voice vote with bipartisan support.

“Our shared goal in this committee is to advance bipartisan, durable policy that will expand nuclear energy and its benefits for the nation,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.), chair of the E&C’s Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee, in his opening remarks on October 24. “Chair Rodgers, ranking members Pallone and DeGette, and I sent a bipartisan request for information to a variety of stakeholders this past April. Based on feedback from this request and the hearings we’ve had since, it’s clear that more can be done to modernize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Department of Energy to advance nuclear energy in this country.”

Barnard

It’s late March 2023, and freshman state Rep. Stephanie Barnard (R., 8th Dist.) moves quickly through the halls of the capitol building in Olympia, Wash. She enters a room packed with state legislators—both Democrats and Republicans—who are waiting for a meeting to begin.

The event is part of the recently formed Nuclear Energy Caucus, and the featured speaker is Carol Browner, director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy under President Obama and the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Clinton administration. The meeting is a success, with animated discussion following Browner’s address.

The North Carolina General Assembly has overridden Gov. Roy Cooper’s October 2 veto of S.B. 678—a measure aimed at incentivizing the development of nuclear power facilities in the state.

American Nuclear Society Executive Director/CEO Craig Piercy visited One White Flint North, where he sat down with U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission chair Christopher Hanson for a one-on-one interview on September 18, 2023. The interview is available exclusively to ANS members to watch this week before it is released to the public. ANS members won’t want to miss the hour-long discussion, where Hanson opens up about important topics facing the NRC and the nuclear community and what he sees as the big successes during his first term as chair.

Kerry

During a side event held at last week’s Three Seas Initiative Summit in Bucharest, Romania, special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry announced U.S. actions to further the role of new nuclear technologies in accelerating the clean energy transition in Europe.

These actions, according to a September 7 media note from the U.S. State Department, expand on Romania’s leadership role in deploying the first small modular reactor in Europe and in converting a former Romanian coal plant to an SMR facility.

Building on his rollout of the Project Phoenix initiative at last year’s COP27 climate change conference in Egypt, Kerry said that proposals from the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia have been selected to participate in the project and will receive support for coal-to-SMR feasibility studies.

For the second consecutive year, the American Nuclear Society has selected two of its members to receive the Glenn T. Seaborg Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship. The 2024 Congressional Fellows, Emily Caffrey and William Murray, will help the Society fulfill its strategic goal of enhancing nuclear policy by working in the halls of Congress, either in a congressional member’s personal office or with a committee, when their fellowship term begins in January.

Cooper

While a pronuclear energy bill currently under consideration in the North Carolina General Assembly appears to stand a good chance of advancing to Gov. Roy Cooper’s desk, its chances of receiving his signature are less clear.

The legislation, S.B. 678, would replace the term “renewable energy” in state statutes with “clean energy” and specify that the new term includes both nuclear fission and fusion. In addition, the bill would eliminate language impeding the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) from issuing Certificates of Public Convenience and Necessity for nuclear facilities.

According to S.B. 678, “clean energy resource” includes solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass, “waste heat derived from a clean energy source and used to produce electricity or useful, measurable thermal energy at a retail electric customer’s facility,” and “nuclear energy resources, including an uprate to a nuclear energy facility, fusion energy, or hydrogen derived from a clean energy resource.”

Johnson

Duncan

McMorris Rodgers

A trio of GOP House lawmakers is asking four federal agencies to report on their progress toward implementing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reforms included in the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), signed by President Biden in early June.

Last Friday, House Energy and Commerce Committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.); Energy, Climate, and Grid Security Subcommittee chair Jeff Duncan (R., S.C.); and Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials Subcommittee chair Bill Johnson (R., Ohio) sent letters to the Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Downers Grove, Illinois – The American Nuclear Society (ANS) published a finalized report on recommendations for updating public health and safety standards for the permanent disposal of commercial used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste at future geological repository projects in the United States.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has directed its staff to issue a final rule and associated regulatory guide that applies risk-informed, performance-based emergency preparedness requirements to small modular reactors and other new technologies, the agency announced on August 14. The technologies include non–light water reactors, research and test reactors, and medical radioisotope facilities.

Rezin

Pritzker

Nuclear advocates may have applauded Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker two years ago when he signed legislation providing $694 million to three of the state’s struggling nuclear power plants, but they’re hissing him now: On Friday, Pritzker vetoed S.B. 76, a bill that would have lifted the state’s decades-old moratorium on new nuclear power plant construction.

Introduced in January by Sen. Sue Rezin (R., 38th Dist.), S.B. 76 called for deleting language in the Illinois Public Utilities Act that forbids nuclear plant construction in the state until the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency determines that the federal government “has identified and approved a demonstrable technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste, or until such construction has been specifically approved by a statute enacted by the General Assembly.”

Five pronuclear organizations—the Breakthrough Institute, Clean Air Task Force, ClearPath, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, and Third Way—have together penned a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, calling on the agency to take action on its emergency preparedness for advanced reactors rule—which, despite the explosion of interest in these technologies over the past few years, has yet to be finalized.

Coons

Budd

A bipartisan coalition of 15 senators led by Sens. Ted Budd (R., N.C.) and Chris Coons (D., Del.) is backing a resolution declaring that “in order to maintain geopolitical energy leadership, reduce carbon emissions, and enhance the energy security of the United States, the Senate is committed to embracing and promoting nuclear power as a clean baseload energy source necessary to achieve a reliable, secure, and diversified electric grid.”

The resolution, S. Res. 321, was introduced July 27 and referred to the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Fellow fission fans: Cosponsors of S. Res. 321 include Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Mike Crapo (R., Idaho), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), Pete Ricketts (R., Neb.), Jim Risch (R., Idaho), Kyrsten Sinema (I., Ariz.), Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), Mark Warner (D., Va.), and Roger Wicker (R., Miss.).

In an 86–11 vote yesterday, the Senate passed the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and with it, the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act.

Introduced March 30 by the senatorial trio of Shelley Moore Capito (R., W.Va.), Tom Carper (D., Del.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.), The ADVANCE Act was endorsed by the Environment and Public Works Committee in May in a bipartisan 16–3 vote and was made part of the annual must-pass NDAA earlier this month.

On July 14, the House narrowly passed (219–210) its own version of the NDAA, containing several controversial amendments pushed by GOP conservatives. The two chambers are now faced with reconciling the two measures and producing a compromise version that can be sent to President Biden’s desk.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Ghana Nuclear Regulatory Authority reaffirmed last week its shared commitment to continue cooperation on nuclear safety and regulation for the African nation.

A large, bipartisan group of Capitol Hill lawmakers last Friday wrote a letter to the members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urging them “to carefully review and modify as necessary” the 10 CFR Part 53 draft licensing framework for advanced nuclear reactor technologies.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking comments on three draft documents that would update guidance for U.S. nuclear power plant owners requesting subsequent license renewals for operating reactors.

The deadline for submitting comments is September 11.

Sweden’s parliament, the Riksdag, recently endorsed a proposal in the government’s spring amending budget to change the country’s 2040 climate goal of 100 percent renewable electricity production to 100 percent fossil fuel–free electricity production.