The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on May 17 announced it would collect $782.5 million in licensee fees for the current federal fiscal 2019 budget year, a slight bump up from the amount proposed earlier in the year.
The final fee rule will take effect on July 16, according to a notice in the Federal Register.
By law, 90% of the NRC’s annual funding must come through licensee fees. The remaining 10% is provided by congressional appropriation. The nuclear industry regulator is funded at $911 million for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, an $11 million reduction from the prior budget.
The proposed fee rule, issued in January, had set the anticipated fee level at $781.9 million.
Of the $782.5 million total, roughly $530.5 million is expected to be claimed under annual fees on licensees, with the rest recovered through service fees for licensees and applicants, according to an NRC press release.
“Compared to FY 2018, the FY 2019 annual fees will increase for operating reactors, research and test reactors, and some materials users,” the release says. “Annual fees will decrease for spent fuel storage/reactor decommissioning, fuel facilities, select materials users, the Department of Energy transportation activities, and the DOE Uranium Mill Tailings Radiation Control Act Program.”
The hourly professional rate of NRC work for licensees and applicants will rise from $275 in fiscal 2018 to $278 in the current budget year.
Nearly 3,000 licensees are expected to pay annual fees this year, covering 98 operational commercial power reactors, four test reactors, 122 spent fuel storage pad and decommissioning reactor sites, several fuel cycle plants, one uranium recovery facility, and roughly 2,600 nuclear materials operations.
Total budgeted resources for spent fuel storage and reactor decommissioning activities did not change from the proposal to the final rule: $35.6 million. That is up from $33.8 million in fiscal 2018.
The year-over-year increase is due to “(1) An increase in the number of financial reviews and licensing actions associated with operating power reactors undergoing decommissioning, (2) the ongoing licensing reviews for two consolidated interim storage facility license applications including the development of environmental impact statements, and (3) the independent spent fuel storage installation license renewal for Three Mile Island-2, Trojan, and Rancho Seco and the associated environmental assessments,” according to the Federal Register notice.
Two corporate teams have applied for 40-year NRC licenses to build and operate temporary storage sites for spent fuel now held on-site at nuclear power plants around the nation. Agency staff expects in mid-2020 to complete the technical reviews, after which the agency would rule on the applications for the operations in Texas and New Mexico.
Agency operations on the decommissioning side include oversight by a project manager for two to three plants each, ensuring they meet regulatory requirements for reporting and radiological decontamination, an NRC spokesman said.
The annual fee for each of 122 spent fuel storage licensees will be $152,000, dropping from $198,000 in fiscal 2018. That was made possible by an increase in billings linked to the two CISF license applications and reactor decommissionings.
Receipts from those billings are due to increase from $10.2 million to $17.8 million. Meanwhile, total annual fees are lowered from $24.2 million to $18.6 million.
The current-year final annual fee figure is a $1.3 million reduction from the $19.9 million proposed in the January draft fee schedule. That would have resulted in an $163,000 annual fee for each of the 122 licensees.
The Nuclear Energy Institute and nuclear power companies expressed concerns about the draft fee plan during the public comment period earlier this year. Among those was the effectively flat budget for the operating power reactors line item – from $669.9 million in fiscal 2018 to $670.2 million in the current budget – even as the number of active power plants continues to dwindle.
The regulator acknowledged the concerns in the final fee schedule, but said the comments did not generate changes in the rule.
“The NRC continues to proactively review its budget to pursue additional efficiency improvements to ensure that its budgetary request accurately reflects the anticipated workload in light of anticipated operating power plant closures,” the fee schedule says.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the Washington, D.C.-based trade group for the nuclear industry, acknowledged that its comments were not addressed in the 2019 final fee rule. “While most of our comments won’t affect the final rule this year, we hope that they will consider these comments in the future. We’ve found that to be the case in previous years,” a spokesperson said by email.
