The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is putting together a team to look into how the agency currently addresses environmental justice, according to a press release this week.
The commission’s new Environmental Justice Review Team has already started “reviewing recent Executive Orders and assessing practices of other federal, state and tribal governments,” NRC said in a Thursday press release.
The review team will also take a look at the agency’s 2004 policy statement that set up a framework for dealing with environmental justice in NRC regulatory actions, the press release said. The team will evaluate whether the agency should expand its environmental justice efforts beyond implementation through the National Environmental Policy Act as the policy statement recommends.
The team is led by Gregory Suber, the deputy director of NRC’s operating reactor licensing division within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR), a spokesperson for the agency told RadWaste Monitor via email Thursday.
The commission is also seeking public comments on its environmental justice review, Thursday’s press release said. The review team will hold two public meetings July 15, and the commission will accept comments until August 23, according to a Federal Register notice published Friday.
