The Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have the staff it needs to license new nuclear reactor designs and needs to take another look at its hiring programs before that can change, according to a recent report from the Government Accountability Office.
The agency, which regulates civilian nuclear power plants and the waste they produce, has done well modifying its licensing process in anticipation of an influx of new applications, but the regulatory reform might mean nothing if the agency can’t plug the holes in its staff, according to the report, “NRC Needs to Take Additional Actions to Prepare to License Advanced Reactors.”
“Without measures and benchmarks to assess its recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives and recruitment strategies, NRC is unable to determine the effectiveness of its efforts to ensure that it has sufficient numbers of knowledgeable staff needed to conduct licensing reviews in the coming years,” the Government Accountability Office wrote in the report.
Taking into account the number of people projected to leave the agency and the number of new people needed to cope with a potential influx of applications for so-called advanced reactors, the NRC estimates that it needs 57 more people than it has to keep these applications moving smoothly through the regulatory pipe, according to GAO’s report.
Amid the climate change policies of the Joe Biden (D) administration and an increased awareness of energy autonomy fueled in part by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the industry and many lawmakers in Washington have pushed in recent years for another nuclear renaissance.
This year, as bipartisan cooperation has pushed major nuclear energy reforms close to law, the NRC’s workforce and its morale have come under scrutiny in Congress, with one influential Maryland lawmaker taking the commission’s chairman to task for the agency’s poor performance in employee satisfaction surveys.
