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.
All invoices for annual fees scheduled to be issued for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 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 regulator’s 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.
In their letter, the lawmakers noted the challenges facing many sectors of the economy during the COVID-19 crisis, including power production. A number of power providers are not cutting off service to customers who cannot pay their bills during the crisis, the March letter noted. Medical and industrial operations that also 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 annual fees for each reactor this year, the lawmakers wrote.
