The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s finalized fee plan for the current budget year features a nearly 12 percent reduction in the annual fee for spent fuel storage and reactor decommissioning licensees.
The final rule was published Friday in the Federal Register, and announced Monday in an NRC press release.
The agency collects 90 percent of its annual budget from fees, with the remaining 10 percent covered by congressional appropriations. For fiscal 2016, the NRC must collect $882.9 million in fees, subsequent to billing and collection adjustments, with 38 percent ($332.7 million) coming from costs for specific services to license applicants and holders under CFR Part 170 and 62 percent ($550.7 million) from annual fees to licensees under CFR Part 171.
The annual fee for spent fuel storage and reactor decommissioning would be paid by 122 facilities, both operational and closed, according to an NRC press release. The collected amount per licensee would drop by 11.7 percent, from $223,000 in fiscal 2015 to $197,000 in the current budget year. The total amount collected would be down by a nearly identical percentage, from $27.2 million to $24.0 million.
“In comparison to FY 2015, the annual fee decreased due to a decline in budgetary resources for rulemaking security guidance and waste research,” according to the Federal Register notice. “This decrease if partially offset by the slight increase in 10 CFR part 170 billings, due to work on the consolidated storage facility with Waste Control Specialists and renewal work with Transnuclear.”
The NRC is considering the license application filed in April by Waste Control Specialists for an interim consolidated facility in Andrews County, Texas, for spent reactor fuel now stored at power plants around the nation. The NRC work “would include pre-application interactions, our acceptance review and plans to commence a technical review of the application,’ NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley said by email on Tuesday.
Fees would also drop year over year for operating reactors, fuel facilities, and research and test reactors, but would rise for the majority of uranium recovery licensees.
The fee reductions are largely the result of a lower NRC budget authority for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 — $1.002 billion, down 1.3 percent from $1.015 billion in fiscal 2015. The reduction is due to a tightening budget environment, lower workload, and decreased staffing, Conley said.