For Bradley Crowell, the phrase ‘corner office’ has taken on a double meaning in recent months.
The newest commissioner at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission occupies an office near the top floor of the agency’s Rockville, Md., headquarters in a jarringly angular concrete building that tapers off into a near 45-degree angle along the front wall. The odd layout was probably a challenge for an interior decorator, but the five sets of windows in his office provide great natural light, Crowell said during an exclusive interview with RadWaste Monitor this week.
Navigating the 80s-vintage architecture hasn’t been the only learning experience for Crowell, the newest of five NRC commissioners as of August.
“It’s been educational, in one word,” he said.
NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md.
Crowell, a native of Carson City, Nev., who was most recently director of the Silver State’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, joined NRC at a time when nuclear energy appears to be having something of a moment among policymakers.
The Joe Biden (D) administration has said that nuclear power is among the “clean energy” technologies the U.S. needs to achieve its lofty goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 — a statement of policy that drove a multi-billion-dollar federal bailout for economically troubled nuclear power plants and tax credits for the entire operating fleet.
Interest in advanced nuclear technology is also growing. NRC in January approved a design for the U.S.’s first small modular reactor (SMR) project, and private companies such as New Jersey-based Holtec International have said that SMRs could be built at the sites of decommissioned nuclear plants.
The nuclear-waste deadlock of course remains. There is no permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel and no sign from the federal government that one is coming — but private actors in New Mexico and Texas have appeared with proposals that could change the status quo for the first time in decades.
And the NRC is in the middle of the action.
The commission, which licensed one commercial interim storage site in 2021, is about a month away from making a final licensing decision on another proposed storage facility for civilian spent fuel. Neither would take the place of a permanent nuclear waste repository — the Biden administration has said it will not fund Yucca Mountain in Crowell’s home state, the only congressionally authorized, permanent disposal site — but either would offer plant owners an alternative to storing the fuel on their own property.
When Crowell looks at these developments, he sees the potential for another shot at the “nuclear renaissance” that never came to pass at the turn of the century. “I see the recipe,” he said. “All the ingredients are there for a real, lasting nuclear renaissance this time, unlike past false starts.
“We’re not going to solve climate change without nuclear power,” Crowell said, but the urgency now is dire.
“If nuclear doesn’t take hold this time,” he said, “then it’s not ever going to, in my opinion.”
RadWaste Monitor sat down with Crowell at NRC headquarters to talk about those issues and more in a 30-minute interview.
RWM: Let’s start with some questions best suited for a Nevadan. Then-Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) in September asked NRC to re-open the agency’s dormant licensing proceedings for the Yucca Mountain repository so that the state can move to end the process once and for all. Has the new governor, Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), signaled that he will keep that inquiry open?
Crowell: Not that I’m aware of. Given that it’s an issue in adjudication, I can’t comment on it much further, but I don’t know any of the state’s plans currently, after the change in administration.
Do you think that NRC should consider reopening the docket, even if it means that Nevada will move to cancel the whole thing?
I’m really constrained from talking about that while it’s under adjudication, unfortunately.
Okay. Any idea when that adjudication will wrap up? When will we know about NRC’s decision on that?
It’s a good question. You’re probably asking the wrong person, though, since I’m the new guy around here. Historically, some proceedings have moved very quickly, and others have taken longer. The chair [Christopher Hanson] will probably give a nod when it’s time to move forward or not, but it’s amongst many competing priorities. At this point, I don’t know the timing.
As someone who spent the last several years working at the state level in Nevada, is there any reality in which the Yucca Mountain licensing process actually restarts? Is that a realistic proposition?
Speaking as a Nevadan, I don’t see any increased appetite in the state of Nevada to be the host of a high-level nuclear waste repository. There are pockets of support in Nevada at the county level, but I don’t think that the position has changed in any significant way statewide. There are statewide officials, both Democrats and Republicans, that have the same position on the repository. So, I don’t think it’s going to change.
More importantly, I think, the dynamic in Nevada is instructive for how we move forward on the issue broadly, and speaks to the importance of public involvement and consent in finding a workable solution.
Can you expand on that a little bit?
Yucca Mountain was, so to speak, the opposite of how you should go about something like this. You’re dictating one location without having done the upfront work to find consent and agreement with the host community and the state. I think we have all broadly recognized that lesson.
How you define consent, and how you find public support, is subjective at some level, but it has to be where this conversation starts if we’re ever going to get to siting a permanent repository. I think DOE is on the right track. They’re starting from scratch and trying to do consent, and hopefully, that process can result in finding a community that is both open to a realistic version of consent, and that also corresponds with the geology that is suitable for such a repository.
I’m glad that you brought up the DOE interim storage inquiry. Where, if at all, do you see NRC’s role in that process?
To give support to communities and help to find consent. NRC is in more of a monitoring and observing role for that effort. But, it’s very important, from my perspective, that the NRC be actively monitoring and observing that so that we are prepared to move when federal interim storage becomes within our jurisdiction. We can also use this process to learn lessons about how to engage the public on nuclear issues, whether it’s the front end, back end or generation part of the cycle.
In a similar vein, let’s talk about the two private interim storage sites that are already under NRC’s jurisdiction: Holtec’s proposed site in New Mexico and Interim Storage Partners’ proposed site in Texas. How is the agency approaching public engagement with those projects?
We have a defined licensing process for these facilities. We’ve used that process, and it involves public engagement. That process has led to, in one instance, a licensing decision in Texas and in another, [Holtec’s] a decision is likely to happen this calendar year.
But, we also need to be continually mindful of the views of the state and local communities in both Texas and New Mexico. There seems to be a mix of views.
One of the ways the public can engage with NRC is through administrative contentions — which calls to mind the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ January ruling in which it sided with NRC’s decision to reject an environmental group’s agency-level contentions against the proposed interim storage sites, even though commission staff had said they could be admissible. While there were deficiencies in the petitioners’ case, it poses a broader question: how does NRC square its goal of public engagement with its power to unilaterally shoot down potentially admissible public contentions?
I think admissible contentions and public engagement are not synonymous. Admissible contentions are specifically defined and have criteria for being considered admissible. I don’t think the NRC should see just the contention process as the full suite of public engagement.
There’s plenty of work to do with the public on constant communication about process status, seeking input from the communities, et cetera — things that exist outside of the contention process. That being said, the court did side with the [NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing] Board.
The way it seems to me is that agency contentions are the main way for the public to mount a legal challenge to NRC administrative processes. Can allowing the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to do its own thing, even if that means ignoring suggestions from NRC staff, affect the public’s ability to legally challenge the commission?
The Board was created designed to do just this: it writes a review, takes the staff opinion, and comes up with the course of action that they see as appropriate and most defensible under the law. That’s what happened in this case.
Again, I don’t think that the contention process is the full suite of public engagement options. But, certainly, if you have a party that has standing, and they’ve met the requirements for admissible contention by identifying an issue and supporting it with technical information, you should be admitted, in my opinion.
Can you expand on what other options are in the “full suite” of public engagement avenues, beyond administrative contentions?
I’m still in the learning process, and figuring out all the ways in which the NRC engages the public. From what I can tell, there are some differences in how they do it, depending on the topic: licensing decisions, decommissioning decisions, early site permits or mining and cleanup type decisions.
I think there needs to be a broad standard of robust public engagement across all of those issues. There’s been discussion in Congress about creating an office of public engagement at the NRC. If they want the NRC to have an institutionalized concept and construct of sufficient public engagement, such that they need to create a specific office to do so, then I’m amenable to something like that.
From a big picture perspective, I don’t see a nuclear renaissance in the United States taking hold without commensurate trust from the public that the NRC is doing what is in their best interest, with safety in mind. Public trust and engagement is a precursor to everything else that we hope to succeed in doing at the agency.
So, you support a more structured approach to public engagement at NRC that’s universally applicable to all agency activities?
Yes, more structured, or just more pervasive throughout the agency. It’s tough for the general public to understand how the NRC works and the language that is used when talking about commercial nuclear power. It’s a challenge for everyday people. I see it as incumbent upon the agency as a public agency, and all of us as public servants, to help distill that information for the public so they have an understanding of what’s going on in their neighborhood or their country.
NRC licensed the proposed Interim Storage Partners site before you arrived at the agency. How do you think NRC did engaging with the public on that project? What could it have done better?
I haven’t analyzed all the twists and turns of how we did public engagement in those proceedings, so I can’t answer that in a robust way.
It’s a good reminder to go back and look at that, and see what lessons were learned and where we could have done more. I think every time we engage with the public, we learn ways to more effectively engage with them — when to do so and how to do so, and with a broader set of stakeholders than just the ones we’ve dealt with in the past.
The Texas licensing process, as you know, resulted in a lot of state-level opposition. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a law in 2021 banning storage of spent fuel in Texas and there are multiple pending lawsuits against NRC over its licensing decision. Is there a way to pursue these sort of licensing activities without incurring that kind of resistance?
That’s the trillion-dollar question, or whatever number you want to put on it. I think that’s part of what DOE is hoping to try and figure out through their consent process, because consent means different things to different people. You can have a consent threshold that is too low, and one that’s too high.
The additional challenge with consent is making sure that it’s enduring, so that it’s not subject to the whims of politics and election cycles. I think that’s going to be the tricky part, finding something that is enduring, because these projects inherently take a long time. They’re going to span the careers of multiple governors and senators and other elected officials. You have to have something that holds up over time, or otherwise, we’re just going to keep reinventing the wheel.
I don’t know if you can ever avoid lawsuits these days, but in an ideal world, you do the consent process such that you don’t encounter a lawsuit.
What about for the proposed Holtec site in New Mexico, which NRC is reviewing?
At this stage, there have been things happening out in New Mexico. The governor has sent letters to the White House, the community has spoken with various perspectives, the state legislature has bills before it on this topic. I think that at this point in time, the NRC’s posture needs to be that if we are asked by any of those entities to engage and provide appropriate insider information, within our jurisdiction, to help inform their discussion at the state level, we should be always willing to engage in those discussions.
Let’s shift gears and talk about the current fleet of reactors. I want to ask about Holtec’s proposal to restart Palisades Nuclear Generating Station. Does NRC have the authority to issue a license to a nuclear power plant to restart after it has ceased operations?
Does it have the authority? If the plant goes through and reapplies for a license, sure, but it’s a different context. It’s not something like a license renewal, given the context that the plant is shut down.
There’s precedent to be set here, it seems. What would it look like for a plant applying for a brand new operating license to restart, from a technical standpoint as well as a regulatory one?
When you have a reactor that has ceased operations, and you’ve offloaded the fuel, that’s a major milestone. To reverse course triggers almost the entire licensing process again — maybe not site selection, but certainly the entire operation of the plant needs to be reassessed.
Once you’ve offloaded fuel, to restart the plant you would need to reload it with fuel and repower it. It’s not the same as a refueling outage, and it’s not the same as license renewal, if the reactor is still running but coming up towards the end of its lifetime.
It sounds like a pretty heavy lift from the regulatory side of things.
Yeah, and from the applicant side of things.
Is NRC, to your knowledge, thinking about the possible regulatory pathways for Holtec or someone else to restart Palisades? Are you starting to get your ducks in a row for that possibility?
I feel like it’s difficult to get our ducks in a row for that, because it changes almost on a monthly basis. They can’t even keep track of whether they’ve decided to restart it, or try to sell it and have someone else restart it, or apply for the DOE funding support.
Right now I understand they are in a posture of wanting to find a buyer to do it and, and that they will apply for the support, but I think at this stage of the game, you’re going to have to start from scratch. It’s unfortunate, for those who are proponents of the plant, that they didn’t move on it earlier.
Meanwhile, NRC is currently weighing a request from Diablo Canyon Power Plant operator Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to grant an exemption allowing the plant to run even after its current license expires. Should the agency allow that?
So, first, Palisades and Diablo are not the same situation. Diablo is obviously still running. PG&E changed course, not because of their own decisions, but because of decisions by the California governor and the state legislature. In this case, it’s still an outstanding question whether to grant them the exception for timely renewal.
I think it’s consistent with past precedent within the agency. But, I can’t preempt, and I don’t know exactly what the staff is going to say about it. They haven’t made a recommendation to the commission yet.
But, precedent shows that there are examples in the past that could be applicable.
I want to ask about NRC’s proposed decommissioning rule. Before you arrived at the agency, there was some controversy on the commission about this, with some members saying the proposed rule tipped the regulatory balance in favor of industry. What’s your perspective on that?
Let me tell you how I view decommissioning, and see if that answers your question.
I see it as incumbent upon the NRC to do just as much public engagement and trust building on a decommissioning site as we would on an operating or new reactor site. If we can’t do decommissioning well — and when I say do it well, I mean do it with the full faith and support of the local community who believes that their health and safety is going to be protected — then we’re not going to have support for maintaining the current fleet, or any buildout of new nuclear generation in the United States.
Whatever we’re doing in the decommissioning space, it is first and foremost to me that we are communicating with the public in a way that shows them that we’re decommissioning with their health and safety in mind. If we follow existing NRC guidance and rules, that’s what we will achieve.
The other point of controversy on the decommissioning rule was that the draft rulemaking did not require NRC to approve licensees’ post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR), which outlines decommissioning procedures and cost estimates. Do you think the final rule should require NRC to approve PSDARs?
I don’t know yet. I’m still digging. When I got to the NRC, there were so many outstanding commission papers to be acted on. I’m methodically making my way through them, and getting staff in place was a huge part of that.
I’m not going to go faster than I feel comfortable doing, but I’m not dragging my feet, either, because I want to clear out this backlog. So, I just haven’t dug into that question enough to give you an answer that I feel comfortable with.
Actually, I was going to ask about that. How have you been settling in at NRC? What are some of your goals as commissioner?
It’s been educational, in one word. I’m absolutely having fun. I enjoy all of my fellow commissioners — three out of five of them I have known for a while. I knew [chair] Chris Hanson when he was at the Department of Energy, and Commissioner [Annie] Caputo and I go back to our Senate Environment and Public Works Committee days. Commissioners Baran and Wright are also great to work with, even with their different perspectives on certain issues.
I think that that collegiality that the commission strives for is there right now. We just have to see if we can maintain it and build on it through some sticky issues.
One of those is making sure that the NRC is not the long pole in the tent for the nuclear renaissance. I see the recipe, and all the ingredients are there for a real, lasting nuclear renaissance this time, unlike past false starts. There’s been recent legislation from Congress that is helping guide NRC’s activities. There’s a suite of financial incentives for nuclear power out there. There’s the need for nuclear energy to address climate change, and there’s a need for nuclear energy to address energy security issues, both domestically and globally.
It’s all there. If nuclear doesn’t take hold this time, then it’s not ever going to, in my opinion. I don’t want the NRC to be the long pole in the tent. I want us to be the reliable safety regulator that we are, but in the context of helping solve a broader issue — and for me, that issue is climate change. We’re not going to solve climate change without nuclear power, and so we just need to do so in a way that maintains our safety mission while doing so on a timeline that is commensurate with what the science calls for in terms of reducing carbon emissions.
This is your return to D.C. — you spent some time on Capitol Hill before moving out to Nevada. What have you learned from working in both the federal government and for a state agency, and how are you bringing those lessons to your work at NRC?
I didn’t realize until coming back to the federal level how valuable that state-level experience was. Being closer to the people you affect through regulations and through your role as a public servant was incredibly valuable to me, and seeing the on-the-ground fruits of your labor was great. It gave me an appreciation for how to talk about technical issues or challenges in a very straightforward way.
I’m trying to maintain that as part of the commission. I’m a pretty candid, plain-spoken person, both on the record and in commission meetings, and I aim to maintain that as much as possible. I don’t want to get trapped into Washington-speak, where I can’t explain to my neighbor who sells cell phones — which he does — what I do for a living and my purpose. If I can’t do that, then I need to reconsider what I’m doing.
Everybody in the NRC needs to be able to explain what they do to their neighbor, in a way that makes sense and puts their work into context. I’ll give you an analogy about something I learned in Nevada that I think is applicable to nuclear power.
When I ran the department of conservation and natural resources, one of the divisions within the department was environmental protection. They had responsibility for regulating the hard-rock mining industry in Nevada, which is a big one. When I first got there, I was told that the environmental protection division had a very good relationship with the mining industry, and my first thought was, ‘oh, boy, what have I inherited?’ I thought I had these people that were rubber-stamping permits for the mining industry.
What I found out was that that was exactly not the case. What they had at the department was a robust set of environmental protections, and they worked early and often with permit applicants so that they understood the rules of the road. The rules were consistently applied to whomever the applicant was — there weren’t constant changes in regulations or laws, it was clear and consistent. It was an engaged process that allowed everyone to know the rules of the road while maintaining the integrity of the agency’s process. It was pleasantly surprising.
That’s how I think the NRC should be operating. If you do operate in that way, then you will have the public’s trust that you’re doing your job well. At the end of the day, that’s a job for all of us at the NRC.
I want to go back to your point about the nuclear renaissance. Do you really think it’s now or never for nuclear power?
Yeah, and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have accepted the opportunity to come to the NRC if I didn’t see it as a forward-looking agency with an opportunity to be part of something that’s bigger. Obviously, the NRC’s safety mission is its core and its priority, but it doesn’t stop there. We are part of broader policy objectives. Climate change and energy security are two of those issues that are only being exacerbated every day, and they need to be addressed.
I want the NRC workforce to feel like they are part of something that’s bigger and generational, in terms of making change and being part of something. We’re not just a myopic safety regulator, but we should also be part of something that is a generational conundrum that we can turn into a generational opportunity.
