Nuclear Energy Institute Chief Executive Officer Maria Korsnick voiced support Tuesday for President Donald Trump’s new executive order curtailing federal regulations in order to increase flexibility for businesses.
The so-called “one-in, two-out” plan requires that federal agencies designate two regulations to abolish for every new regulation approved. Korsnick, who spoke on a panel at the United States Energy Association’s State of the Energy Industry Forum in Washington, D.C., said there is a way to reduce regulations on the nuclear industry without threatening safety at power plants.
“(The nuclear industry is) rife with regulation, and just look over the years and years and years, the tendency is just to continue to add regulation, and so I think that we are a great candidate to take a look at smartly lessening regulation,” Korsnick said. “I don’t think any deregulation should just be done casually, and may have unintended consequences, but I think there is a lot of folks that have been in this industry for many years that can see the ways to reduce regulation that wouldn’t nearly touch anything relative to safety.”
Korsnick has been addressing issues concerning America’s operating nuclear fleet and nuclear waste this year since succeeding Marvin Fertel as CEO of the nuclear industry’s lobbying arm. On Tuesday, she was asked how NEI is gearing up for a potential resumption of Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing proceedings for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Korsnick said she anticipates activity in Congress, indirectly mentioning the retirement of Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who almost singlehandedly killed the repository project during his long tenure.
“Clearly used fuel will be a discussion at some point in this Congress, likely because we had some folks who really did not want a used fuel conversation, and they have left the building,” Korsnick said. “We’re very interested to further that, but NEI’s position is that we want progress on Yucca, and we want interim storage [of spent nuclear fuel]. We think that as we look over the long term, both of those components are going to be important. Even if Yucca were to restart today, it’s still going to be several years, and we look at progress on Yucca and interim storage as a combined, best solution.”
