Just two days after officially completing the reorganization of its nuclear materials office, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday announced it had combined two offices that provide oversight for nuclear power reactors.
As of Sunday, the federal agency has merged its Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation with its Office of New Reactors. The new branch, still called the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, “will improve internal coordination, better balance the staff’s workload, and provide greater flexibility to respond to evolving issues at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants,” according to a press release.
Details of those anticipated improvements were not immediately available. The NRC also did not provide numbers before deadline regarding the number of personnel and budget at the new office.
In the recently ended 2019 federal budget year, the NRC’s operating reactor business line encompassed $365.2 million in funding and 1,533 full-time equivalent employees. The new reactors program received $94.1 million for 386 full-time equivalents, according to the agency’s latest budget figures.
The merger has been planned for five years, initiated under the NRC’s Project Aim transformation program.
The Office of New Reactors was established in 2008 to manage an increasing number of applications for construction of new power reactors. “With those mostly withdrawn, it was deemed effective to recombine the offices,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said by email. “This is simply positioning us for our anticipated workload as we try to align resources for the future.”
Among the responsibilities of the revamped Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation: licensing of new and operational power reactors, licensing of advanced reactor technologies, regulatory oversight of reactors, incident response for power plants, and managing updates to regulations for reactors.
The operation will be directed by Ho Nieh, who headed the previous iteration of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. He will have three deputies: Mirela Gavrilas, for reactor safety programs and mission support starting in December; Andrea Veil, for engineering programs and mission support starting in December; and Robert Taylor, for new reactors.
The NRC on Sunday also formalized changes to its Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards (NMSS), including combining its Division of Fuel Cycle Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental Review and Division of Spent Fuel Management into a single Division of Fuel Management. “Centers of Excellence” on financial and environmental issues have also been established within NMSS.
In a report filed in May, NRC staff said the changes to NMSS “will lead to resource savings and anticipated efficiencies in workload distribution, collaboration, knowledge transfer, agility of critical skill sets, decision-making, and cross-office standardization,” according to an Oct. 10 letter from the agency to state and tribal officials. That report has not been made public.
