The Department of Energy redentlydefended a 2020 update to a key nuclear safety management regulation but said the agency will work with a federal nuclear watchdog over its “technical concerns” with the final rule — including as it relates to aging nuclear facilities.
The DOE “continues to conclude that its current regulatory framework, as revised by the October 2020 rulemaking, provides adequate protection of public and worker health and safety across the DOE complex,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm wrote in a Sept. 8 letter to Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) Chair Joyce Connery.
“DOE appreciates the Board’s advice and will continue working closely with the Board and its staff to continuously improve DOE’s nuclear safety regulatory framework in a manner that meets our shared objective to ensure the continued safe, effective, and efficient execution of DOE’s mission,” Granholm added.
Likewise, in a nod to the DNFSB, the DOE plans to review facilities now dubbed Hazard Category 3, which pose the least potential danger, are properly classified. Hazard Category 1 is considered to have the most risk. DNFSB last year worried that DOE’s changes to hazard categorization rules might encourage bad behavior by site-management contractors.
The DOE has characterized its 2020 final rule as a modernization of nuclear safety management at the agency, by reducing duplicative tasks without hurting safety.
While it lacks actual regulatory enforcement power, the DNFSB has the authority to make safety recommendations to DOE, which the secretary of energy must then publicly accept or decline.
