NRC Division Director Larry Camper Offers Perspective on Rulemaking
Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/16/2015
Following the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s direction for staff to complete a decommissioning rulemaking, NRC Division Director Larry Camper suggested this week that the 2019 completion date would be a challenge to meet. In remarks at the Institute for Nuclear Materials Management’s 30th Spent Fuel management Seminar in Washington, D.C., Camper said the 2019 completion date directed by the Commission its Staff Related Memorandum would be difficult to meet considering the complexity of the rulemaking. “The Commission wants us to provide information on the anticipated schedule, the resources needed for the rulemaking, and the Commission has specifically directed in the SRM that it wants that rulemaking completed by 2019,” Camper, Director of the Division of Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs, said. “Now there are two ways to look at 2019. It’s four years from now, that’s a long time, or four years from now for a rulemaking that will be this complex as it relates to the public in particular is not a long time. It will be interesting to see if the staff will be able to complete it by 2019. Many public meetings, many comments provided by stakeholders, it will be a very interesting rulemaking to watch, and it will be a rulemaking you will want to actively participate.”
Camper also honed in on the 60 year time frame the NRC allows in its decommissioning timeline. In its SRM, the Commission directed staff to look at the three forms of decommissioning (Decon, Entombment, and SAFESTOR) and consider if any changes are needed to those regulations. “What that assignment is really about is the 60 year timeframe,” Camper said. “There was concern from some of our commissioners that 60 years is too long. There are stakeholders who have raised concerns about the 60 year timeline. There is a very good, strong technical basis for why it is 60 years, but it’s a long time. And by the way, almost none of the reactors that have actually completed the decommissioning have taken the full 60 years.” He later added, “Most of these sites where the utilities are they realize that the jobs are gone, the tax revenue is gone, it’s the end of a cycle, it’s a legacy issue. Take it away, that’s what we hear.”
Commission Directed Staff to Look at Regs for Reactor Decommissioning
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission directed its staff last week to begin a rulemaking to better address the NRC’s role in regulating decommissioning power plants, with an end date tentatively set for 2019. Currently, the NRC does not have regulations that reflect the decreased security and safety threat posed by a reactor undergoing decommissioning. Instead, a series of license amendments is needed to exempt the plants, a step that can prove costly and timely for both utilities and the NRC. The NRC has already approved exemptions for the Kewaunee Power Station, and in a Staff Related Memorandum issued last month, the Commission approved the exemptions reducing security and emergency preparedness requirements requested by Duke Energy Florida for the Crystal River Power Station. According to the SRM, the Staff should focus on a wide variety of issues in its rulemaking that affect decommissioning plants, including the appropriate amount of NRC involvement in the Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activity Report, as well as the role of state and local government in the process, among other things.
