Indiana in April planned to start the process of taking over regulation of some radioactive materials from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to a letter the commission posted online Tuesday.
The state planned to submit a draft application around April 1, NRC’s Adelaide Giantelli wrote in a Feb. 23 letter to Courtney Eckstein, radiation control program director in the office of the state fire marshal in the Indiana Department of Homeland security.
“Once the application is submitted, a review team will be designated and ready to review the Indiana draft application,” Giantelli wrote. “The NRC welcomes Indiana’s interest in becoming an Agreement State and looks forward to working with you.”
Giantelli is NRC’s chief of the state agreement and liaison programs branch division of materials safety, security, state, and tribal programs in NRC’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
Indiana was as of Tuesday one of 10 U.S. jurisdictions that did not have an agreement under Section 274b of the Atomic Energy Act to take over some regulatory authority from the NRC. To get such an agreement, states must have standards at least as strict as the federal agency’s.