Members of the public are getting even more time to leave comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s planned agency-wide environmental justice review, according to a notice published this week.
The new deadline for community input on NRC’s review is Oct. 29, according to a Federal Register notice published Friday morning. This is the agency’s second extension of the comment period — the deadline was moved last month to Sep. 22.
NRC is seeking “input on how the agency is addressing environmental justice, considering the agency’s mission and statutory authority,” according to a Federal Register notice published August 10. The commission has already put together an environmental justice review team led by Gregory Suber, deputy director of NRC’s operating reactor licensing division within the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR).
The review team has already started work and should wrap things up by next February, NRC has said.
Environmental justice has been a recurring theme in the Joe Biden administration’s energy and climate agenda. In a January executive order, Biden established the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, charged with “confronting longstanding environmental injustices and to ensuring that historically marginalized and polluted, overburdened communities have greater input on federal policies and decisions,” according to a March press release.
The administration also created the Justice40 initiative, a program aimed at ensuring that 40% of the nation’s environmental improvements benefit underserved communities and those most impacted by the effects of climate change.
