The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 19 locked in its fee collection levels for the current federal fiscal year.
The agency collects 90% of its annual budget through annual and service fees, with the rest appropriated by Congress.
Lawmakers set the NRC’s budget at $855.6 million for fiscal 2021, which ends on Sept. 30, according to a Federal Register notice on fee recovery. That is down by $55.4 million from the preceding year.
Certain operations are excluded from the fee-take requirement. For 2020 that totals $46.6 million, covering $15.5 million for preparing the regulatory framework for advanced nuclear reactors, $14.5 million for international activities, $14.1 million for “generic” homeland security operations, $1.3 million for Waste Incidental to Reprocessing work, and $1.2 million for NRC inspector general services for the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board.
That leaves $728.1 million to be collected in fees, compared to $780.8 million for fiscal 2019, the Federal Register notice says. Annual fees for licensees would provide $507.9 million, with the remaining $220.2 coming from service fees.
In total, that is down by $400,000 from the $728.5 million in fees proposed in February. At the time, the regulator projected recovering $497.9 million in annual fees and $230.6 million in service fees.
The NRC’s professional hourly rate for services is $279, $1 more than the rate for fiscal 2019. “The slight increase in the FY 2020 professional hourly rate is primarily due to the anticipated decline in number of mission-direct [full-time equivalent employees] compared to FY 2019,” according to the Federal Register notice. That is due to a number of factors, the agency said, including the retirements of three nuclear power reactors and the cancellation of the NRC-regulated Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility project at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
The owners of operational nuclear power reactors will pay by far the most in annual fees, $439 million for fiscal 2020.
Yearly collections from spent fuel storage and decommissioning licensees will total $37.9 million. That grows $2.3 million from $35.6 million last year, due to factors including inspections for four reactors heading into decommissioning.
Perma-Fix Environmental Services said on June 19 it has secured a $7 million contract for cleanup operations at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.
The award covers “remediation, demolition and waste management services,” according to a press release from the Atlanta-based waste management company. That will involve dengmolition of two buildings and remediation of radionuclides, asbestos, and other contaminants, according to the lab.
Work includes structural demolitions of Buildings 7 and 7C. Contaminants include potential radionuclides, asbestos, lead, and other industrial contamina
Lawrence Berkeley issued the contract in April, with funding from the Department of Energy, Perma-Fix spokesman David Waldman said by email Monday. Work is scheduled to begin next month and to conclude in February 2021.
“We are not expecting any extensions on this contract at this time, but based on the COVID-19 impacts, there may be considerations for extensions in the future,” Waldman wrote.
In December, Perma-Fix and ERRG jointly won a separate contract worth no less than $15 million for cleanup services at the Department of Energy facility. That 18-month award covered “demolition of some existing structures, remediation of some existing contamination, and construction of some new support underground utilities,” Joe Morgan, project manager for the lab’s Demolition and Deconstruction Group, said at the time. It might be extended in light of impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, a Lawrence Berkeley spokesperson said by email Friday.
“This award further increases our funded backlog and bolsters our Services Segment revenues beginning in the second quarter of 2020,” Perma-Fix President and CEO Mark Duff said in a press release. “Perma-Fix was able to leverage our recent experience conducting complex remediation and building demolition in radiological environments. This award reflects the success of our project team to establish a technical and management solution that addresses the unique challenges at LBNL to reduce safety risk while meeting the cost and schedule requirements.”
The 200-acre Berkeley Lab in northern California, managed by the University of California under DOE’s Office of Science, conducts unclassified research in a range of fields, including energy, biological and environmental sciences, high energy and nuclear physics, and accelerator science and technology.
Meanwhile, Perma-Fix has scheduled its next annual meeting for July 22. Given the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, the event will be conducted solely online, according to a company filing June 12 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Perma-Fix’s top executives all received raises from the Board of Directors for 2020, the filing says. Duff’s base salary was boosted by $57,400, from $287,000 to $344,400. Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Ben Naccarato received a $44,769 hike, from $35,231 to $280,000. Executive Vice President for Nuclear and Technical Services Andy Lombardo is taking home another $21,338 per year, from $248,662 to $280,000. Finally, former CEO and current Executive Vice President of Strategic Initiatives Louis Centofanti is getting 1.9% more, going from $228,985 to $233,336.
From The Wires
From the Times Argus: Overturned tractor-trailer was carrying empty cask for transporting nuclear waste for the tired Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
From World Nuclear News: French research reactor fully dismantled.
