The members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday received a proposed package of rules for commercial nuclear power reactors making the transition from operations to decommissioning.
“The proposed rule package was signed out by the Office of Executive Director and sent to the Office of the Secretary yesterday, so … the Commission has it,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said by email Tuesday.
The document will be made public within 10 business days, McIntyre said.
The timeline for the commission to approve the staff proposal is not known, Meena Khanna, who heads the NRC’s Reactor Rulemaking and Project Management Branch, said at a nuclear industry event last week.
The rulemaking is intended to reduce the need for nuclear plant operators to request regulatory exemptions or amendments to their licenses for facilities that pose a reduced security and emergency risk once they are no longer operational and have been defueled.
Late last year, NRC staff completed the list of areas for which there was “sufficient justification” for development of new regulations. These were: emergency preparedness, physical security, cyber security, drug and alcohol testing, training requirements for certified fuel handlers, decommissioning trust funds, financial protection requirements and indemnity agreements, and application of the backfit rule.
Staff recommended issuing guidance, but not new regulations, in other areas such as the role of state and local governments in the decommissioning process.
After the commission approves the rules package, it would be made available for a roughly 75-day public comment period, Khanna said last week. Comments would be used to ready the final document, which should go to the commission for a vote in fall 2019. It would become effective in early 2020.
