The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission just last month issued an updated contingency plan for a lapse in funding, fortuitous timing as the federal government appeared on the precipice of a shutdown Friday afternoon.
The latest in a series of short-term congressional spending plans, which have kept the federal government open since the current fiscal year began on Oct. 1, expires at midnight Friday. The House of Representatives on Thursday approved another continuing resolution to fund the government through Feb. 16, but the Senate process is mired in disputes over immigration and other issues.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters Friday morning that plans are being made for a shutdown. While President Donald Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) were in talks at the White House at press time Friday, the specter remained that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and all other federal agencies would begin to ramp down operations this weekend.
The NRC declined to discuss specifics of its planning for limited operations during a shutdown, referring questions to the Office of Management and Budget, which did not respond by deadline for RadWaste Monitor.
The regulator, which licenses and oversees nuclear power and nuclear waste activities nationwide, currently employs 3,191 full-time equivalent positions, on an annual budget of roughly $1 billion. (Coincidentally, Friday is the 43rd anniversary of the NRC’s founding.)
In the event of a funding lapse, the agency’s chief financial officer determines the amount of carryover funds available to maintain operations, and how long they will last, according to the NRC contingency plan updated in December.
The plan notes the availability of “no-year” funds that “can be used to fund the agency’s necessary activities in periods of lapsed appropriations. Further, NRC has received some appropriations with 2-year limitations, resulting in a limited availability of prior-year funds during periods of lapsed appropriations.”
Politico reported Friday that the NRC has sufficient funding to maintain operations for roughly seven business days, citing an email message to personnel from the executive director for operations. Once the money runs out, all but 300 of the agency’s staffers would be furloughed. Contractors could also be subject to stop work orders.
NRC commissioners – currently three of the five positions are filled – are among those who carry out “excepted functions” not subject to furlough, as are the agency’s inspector general and resident inspectors.
The NRC contingency plan provides a long list of functions that would be maintained even after funding has dried up. These include: event notification, the capacity to take calls regarding emergencies at nuclear power plant or other NRC licensees; emergency response, including deploying response teams to an event; resident inspections at licensed sites; enforcement; and security and safeguards for site nuclear reactors and materials.
The contingency plan also lays out a detailed timetable for implementing a shutdown, starting with notifying employees of a potential lapse in funding 10 days before money runs out and stretching as long as needed, with dropping staffing numbers, until new funding is appropriated.
The federal government last shut down in October 2013, for 16 days. During that period, the NRC had about 10 days of funding, after which it began shutting down and furloughing employees – also minus the roughly 300 who were needed to conduct excepted functions.
It canceled several public meetings before funding resumed, and suspended work on pending licensing and enforcement actions. Any number of NRC projects could be affected in similar circumstances this time around, from staff’s work on finalizing the rulemaking for decommissioning nuclear power plants to the acceptance review of the license application from Holtec International to build and operate an interim spent fuel storage facility in New Mexico.
Activities related to the NRC’s proceedings on the Department of Energy license application for the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada were not suspended in 2013, as that work is funded separately through the federal Nuclear Waste Fund rather than general appropriations. The Obama administration had stopped work on Yucca Mountain, but a federal judge in August 2013 ordered the NRC to resume licensing proceedings.
The agency still has more than $500,000 available in its Nuclear Waste Fund balance for Yucca proceedings, which are currently focused on determining the future of the retired digital database of documents related to the suspended NRC license adjudication.
The Trump administration had requested $30 million for the NRC, and $120 million for DOE, to resume licensing in fiscal 2018. The continuing resolutions approved to date, which mostly froze federal funding at fiscal 2017 levels, provided no money for Yucca Mountain.
