The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acceded to a request from three senior members of Congress to delay collection of fees from licensees for 90 days amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision appears to supersede a more limited approach for economic relief previously planned by the industry regulator.
All invoices for annual fees scheduled to be issued for the third quarter of fiscal 2020, April through June, will now go out on July 22, NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki wrote in an April 10 letter to the lawmakers. “The NRC is taking this action to temporarily mitigate the financial impacts and economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced the decision on Monday.
“Deferring annual payments to the NRC by 90 days will not sacrifice the NRC’s nuclear safety mission, but it will give some much needed flexibility to our nation’s nuclear power utilities and the medical facilities that may use nuclear materials for medical purposes,” committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in a press release. “During this crisis, even small changes like the one taken by the NRC today can have huge impacts on the lives of Americans.”
Carper had joined committee Chairman John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Greg Walden (R-Ore.) in making the request in a March 27 letter to Svinicki.
At the time, the lawmakers noted the challenges facing many sectors of the economy during the COVID-19 crisis, including power production. A number of electricity providers have committed to not cut off service to customers who cannot pay their bills during the pandemic, the March letter noted. Medical and industrial operations that hold NRC licenses might also be “facing extreme financial pressure” at this time, according to Barrasso, Carper, and Walden.
Licensees are billed each quarter for their annual fees. Nuclear power companies are projected to pay roughly $4.7 million in yearly fees for each reactor this year, the lawmakers wrote.
In an initial April 3 letter, Svinicki indicated the agency would consider deferral requests on a case-by-case basis from individual or groups of licensees. She wrote at the time that the NRC had evaluated its options on yearly fees and potential room to change the billing schedule, in consultation with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act requires the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to collect 90% of its annual budget from licensee and service fees, the chairman noted. “The NRC would assess the merits of any particular relief request submitted by an individual licensee or group of licensees within the flexibilities provided by these authorities.”
An agency spokesman said Svinicki’s two letters would have to speak for themselves.
“Chairman Barrasso’s letter requested a deferral of all fees for at least 90 days,” Environment and Public Works spokeswoman Sarah Durdaller said by email Tuesday. “Following the Chairman’s letter, the Commission did further analysis and agreed to defer annual fees for 90 days. That analysis came after NRC Chairman Svinicki’s April 3 letter.”
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s budget for the current fiscal 2020 is $855.5 million, down by over $35 million from the preceding federal budget year. The agency said in February it would have to recover $782.5 million in fees through Sept. 30 – $497.9 million in annual fees and $230.6 million in service fees.
The commission levies annual fees for reactor licenses, fuel cycle licenses, and materials licenses.
The agency has taken a number of steps to provide relief to its licensees since the federal government declared a public health emergency on Jan. 31. That includes allowing 60-day exemptions to work-hour limits for nuclear power plant personnel to ensure operations continue in the event of infections within the workforce. As of Friday, the commission had approved at least four exemption requests this month – starting with the Limerick Generating Station in Pennsylvania, where multiple COVID-19 cases were confirmed while the plant underwent refueling and maintenance.
More than 2,400 materials licensees also can request relief from certain administrative requirements as long as they do not undermine safety or security.
In a letter Tuesday, the NRC laid out the criteria for requests for exemptions to the requirement for licensed operators and senior operators at power plants to every two years pass requalification programs and undergo medical exams.
The requalification “exemptions would, if granted, ensure that the requirements for operator requalification scheduling do not conflict with practices recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to limit the spread of the coronavirus,” Ho Nieh, director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, wrote to Jennifer Uhle, a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute. “Requalification tests require operators to gather closely in compact spaces and to touch common surfaces.”
Meanwhile, some plant operators might not be able to schedule a routine medical exam during the health emergency, Nieh noted.
Approved exemptions would remain in effect for 90 days after the end of the pubic health emergency or until Dec. 31 of this year, whichever comes first.
On Wednesday, personnel from the NRC and nuclear industry discussed another planned exemption on the annual requirement for fit-testing and medical checks for use of respiratory protection equipment by power plant employees. The gear is used to protect workers from inhalation of radioactive or other hazardous materials.
“Our objective is to ensure that respiratory protection program requirements do not result in licenses requiring workers to visit medical facilities where increased risk of COVID-19 infection exists, or engage in activities that are contrary to the current social distancing and infection prevention recommendations,” according to Andrea Veil, deputy director for engineering in the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
Most of the other exemptions are focused on work at operating reactors. But this allowance would also cover respirator-using personnel in other NRC-authorized operations, including nuclear reactor decommissioning and spent-fuel storage, Veil said.
The NRC expects to issue a letter on this exemption next week.
