NRC forecasts up to $5.5M in ADVANCE Act pay increases over two years

Hiring new employees and upping the compensation of existing ones will cost between $2.3 million and $5.5 million, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a recent report to Congress.

The commission made the 10-page report available on its website on Dec. 26. The NRC sent the report to Congress on Dec. 17, as it was required to do by the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy (ADVANCE) Act of 2024: a major nuclear-policy reform law signed in July.

The ADVANCE Act aimed, among other things, to streamline the licensing of new nuclear reactors, particularly the sort of non-light-water reactors that fall into the legal category of advanced reactors.

To help do that, the law gave the NRC permission to increase compensation for some existing employees, including with new inventive bonuses, and to hire new people into term-limited positions and pay them hiring bonuses.

Employees affected by the new compensation authority in the ADVANCE Act are limited to an annual salary that, for fiscal year 2024, may not exceed $204,000.