The citizen-run advisory committee for a shuttered Vermont nuclear power plant was scheduled to consider next week throwing its weight behind a national electrical union’s comments on proposed changes to federal regulations governing reactor decommissioning, according to a meeting agenda.
During its Dec. 12 meeting, the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel planned to discuss a September letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) concerning NRC’s proposed decommissioning rulemaking.
The advisory committee could vote to endorse IBEW’s Sep. 5 comments to NRC, in which union president Lonnie Stephenson told the agency that a final decommissioning rulemaking should require nuclear plant operators to submit “a detailed decommissioning plan that must be approved by the NRC before decommissioning work can begin.”
“The proposed rule’s lasses-faire [sic] requirement of licensees to submit a post-shutdown decommissioning activities report (PSDAR) for NRC acknowledgement of receipt is woefully inadequate,” Stephenson said.
Stephenson’s comments echo concerns raised by other critics of the proposed decommissioning rule, including Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), who told NRC in August that formal approval of a PSDAR “should be the bare minimum of public accountability.”
The decommissioning rule, currently being finalized at NRC, would reduce some agency-mandated physical security and emergency preparedness requirements for companies decommissioning shuttered plants. The commission in November 2021 approved the proposed rule on a 2-1 vote.
The rulemaking has been the subject of controversy within NRC itself. Commissioner Jeff Baran, the dissenting vote in the commission’s approval, was particularly critical of the proposed changes, arguing that they “tip the regulation” in favor of industry.
Vermont Yankee’s citizens’ panel has a history of weighing in on similar regulatory issues. The committee in January told the Department of Energy that it would support “immediate action” to site a federal interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel.
