Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
2/2/2015
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is not seeking additional funding next year for the license review for the Yucca Mountain repository project, NRC Chief Financial Officer Maureen Wylie said today during a briefing on the Commission’s FY 2016 budget request. Following the completion of the Safety Evaluation Report, which found that the Yucca Mountain design met most regulatory requirements for safety, the NRC has approximately $4 million remaining of appropriated Nuclear Waste Fund money that needs to be expended, as required by a federal court. That $4 million, though, is not expected to be enough to complete the adjudication process needed before the Commission could grant a construction authorization, but it should cover the supplemental Environmental Impact Statement on groundwater issues, should the Commission direct the Staff to complete it. The Department of Energy had originally said it would complete the supplemental EIS, but last year, it said it would only give the NRC the technical information needed to complete it. Wylie did not say today why the NRC chose not to ask for additional funding to complete the adjudication process.
According to NRC Executive Director for Operations Mark Satorius, the Staff submitted its position paper to the Commission on whether to complete the EIS, and now it’s up to the Commission to make a decision. “This is a matter before the Commission, and the Commission will give us that direction on whether we should move forward,” Satorius said. The Staff paper, though, has not been made public. According to NRC spokesman David McIntyre, that is because the document contains sensitive budgetary information. “As it contains sensitive internal information on budget matters, it is not public at this time,” McIntyre said in an email. “I’m told that once the Commission finalizes a Staff Requirements Memorandum, the paper, without some of its enclosures, will likely be made public. Of course, there’s no telling when that might occur.”
Overall NRC Up from Current Funding Levels, Decommissioning Division Has Uptick
Overall, the NRC is seeking a total of $1.032 billion in FY 2016, up $29 million from current funding levels. Because the NRC charges license fees, most of the money will be made back, resulting in net appropriation request of $122.2 million. The budget includes $793.4 million for nuclear reactor safety and $226.7 million for nuclear materials and waste. “This budget reflects today’s realities and ushers in a new era in enhancing accountability within the NRC for the prudent use of resources,” NRC Chairman Stephen Burns said in a statement.
Of the $226.7 million set aside for nuclear materials and waste, $44.1 million will go toward the decommissioning and low level waste program area, an increase of $4.7 million from the $39.3 million requested in FY2015. According to Wylie, the main reason for the increase is decommissioning. “We also have a small increase in the decommissioning and low level waste program area, and that is primarily associated with an increased focus on decommissioning,” Wylie said during a conference call with reporters today. “We expect the Oyster Creek reactor to close in 2019 because they did not request a license renewal at their last license cycle, and we want to be prepared to support that.”
According to the NRC’s budget justification, the decommissioning work includes extensive work dealing with “licensing reviews and oversight activities for decommissioning power reactors including Kewaunee Power Station, San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Units 2 and 3, and Crystal River 3 Nuclear Power Plant, which are transitioning from the Operating Reactors Business Line to the Decommissioning and LLW Business Line.” The funding will also go towards supporting the rulemaking to revise the regulations for power reactors going through the decommissioning process, as requested by the Commission last month.
For the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation division, the FY2016 request calls for $43.8 million, down from the NRC’s FY 2015 request of $45.3 million. The NRC noted, though, “In Fiscal Year 2016 resources decrease slightly within the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation Business Line; however, this does not represent a significant change in workload,” the NRC said in its budget justification. Among the work planned for FY2016, the Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation division will “review approximately 69 radioactive material transportation package design applications and approximately 20 SNF storage applications to ensure the safe and secure storage of SNF,” the NRC request says. The work will also include conducting research on technical issues associated with extended storage and transportation to support a technical basis for decisions on regulatory revisions by 2018.
