Another nuclear plant closure is partly to blame for a slight increase in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s proposed decommissioning budget for the 2023 fiscal year, the agency said in a budget justification document published this week.
Projected spending for NRC’s decommissioning and low-level waste program was up to around $23.9 million for 2023, according to the budget justification published Monday. That figure represents a year-over-year increase of roughly 4% from the $22.8 million in early March’s omnibus appropriations bill.
The requested increase is partly related to “licensing activities for one additional power reactor in decommissioning,” NRC said. The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan is slated to close in May.
An increased number of nuclear reactors in active decommissioning as well as a more widespread use of accelerated decommissioning schedules were also reasons for upping proposed spending, the agency said.
The proposed top line for NRC’s nuclear materials and waste safety business line, which encompasses all of the commission’s back-end regulatory activities such as decommissioning and spent fuel storage, was around $135 million for 2023, up about 4% year-over-year from $130 million. Among other things, NRC attributed the funding increase to supporting the development of the commission’s Part 53 advanced reactors rulemaking as well as for technical reviews of several advanced reactor license applications.
Agency-wide, proposed funding for 2023 was around $929 million, up about 4.5% from the $887.7 million NRC got in the 2022 omnibus. That figure should be offset by around $792 million in fees collected from agency licensees, leaving a net appropriations request of around $137 million.
