The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is moving to the next step in its congressionally-mandated effort to amend a rule about financial assurances for decommissioning nuclear power plants by stripping out references to credit ratings, the agency said this week.
NRC’s proposed rules change, published in the Federal Register Tuesday, is aimed at bringing the agency’s financial regulations in line with the more-than-decade-old 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the commission said.
The changes focus on “approved financial assurance mechanisms for decommissioning, specifically for parent and self-company guarantees that require bond ratings issued by credit rating agencies,” according to the proposed rule.
According to NRC, the Dodd-Frank act found that credit ratings have proven to be inaccurate, and that such inaccuracies contribute to investor risk mismanagement and overall economic malaise. The law directed federal agencies to review their respective guidelines for establishing creditworthiness and remove “any reference to or requirement of reliance on credit ratings.”
Agencies were also instructed to come up with other means of determining credit-worthiness.
If made final, NRC’s proposed rulemaking would strike credit ratings from its decommissioning financial assurance guidelines, the agency said Tuesday. In place of that scheme, the commission would “perform an independent review to evaluate a licensee’s creditworthiness,” it said.
NRC didn’t totally shut the door on credit ratings, though, saying that its independent credit review “could include evaluation of financial data available from the licensee, open sources, and third parties, and may include credit ratings.”
The commission is accepting public comments on the proposed rules change until March 20.
NRC has been working to get its decommissioning financial assurance regulations in line with Dodd-Frank for several years. In June 2020, the agency discussed updating its rule language to do away with credit rating requirements.
