ANS Public Policy Engagement

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.”