Unanimously and without discussion, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday recommended confirmation of Department of Justice attorney Robert Feitel as the new inspector general for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Feitel would succeed Hubert Bell, who retired last December after more than 22 years as NRC inspector general.
“We cannot be complacent when it comes to nuclear safety, and we need to ensure that our nation’s nuclear industry is held to the highest standard,” committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) said in his opening statement to the business meeting. “That means we need a strong and independent NRC inspector general. I believe Mr. Feitel is well qualified and prepared to take on this important responsibility.”
The NRC inspector general manages an office, funded at about $13 million annually, that provides audits and investigations “to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness within the NRC, and to prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement in agency programs and operations,” according to the agency. The office also serves as the inspector general for the federal Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the health-and-safety monitor for nuclear sites managed by the Department of Energy.
Feitel has since August 2014 served in the Justice Department’s Capital Case Section, which primarily assists the Attorney General’s Review Committee on Capital Cases in determining whether to recommend the death penalty in capital cases. The section also aids U.S. attorneys in investigations and prosecutions of capital cases, among other duties.
Beforehand, Feitel worked for close to 12 years as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, detailed from 2010 to 2011 to the Counterterrorism Unit at the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence. He also spent 10 months on the President’s Guantanamo Detainee Review Task Force during the early Obama administration and seven years as assistant general counsel for the FBI.
Feitel appeared before the committee on Dec. 3 for his nomination hearing. The panel’s vote Tuesday sent the nomination to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for a 20-day period.
Northern States Power Co. is requesting permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to expand its dry storage capacity for used nuclear fuel at its Prairie Island nuclear power plant in Welch, Minn. This proposed expansion would include building a new concrete pad to hold the extra fuel.
Prairie Island’s two reactors have operated for more than four decades, and their extended NRC licenses are respectively due to expire in August 2033 and October 2034.
The plant currently has the capacity to hold 48 casks totaling 1,920 spent nuclear fuel assemblies. Northern States wants to expand its capacity to hold up to 64 spent fuel casks containing 2,560 fuel assemblies, parent company Xcel Energy said a July 26 letter and accompanying report to the NRC.
In Monday’s Federal Register, the NRC said it found the application to be acceptable in October for a full technical review expected to wrap up in August 2020. That evaluation will include an environmental assessment, which will be announced in a future issue of the Federal Register. The technical review will also cover engineering, safety, and security matters.
The existing storage pad, built in the 1990s, currently holds 44 storage casks. Northern States hopes to begin construction on the expansion in 2021.
The spent fuel site is on a Mississippi River floodplain, which has been a longtime concern to the nearby Prairie Island Indian Community, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Tribal lands in the area were flooded earlier this year.
Individuals and organizations have until Feb. 21, 2020, to request a hearing on the amendment to Prairie Island’s spent-fuel storage license, according to Monday’s notice.
Energy technology firm Holtec International said Thursday it has sealed an extended deal with United Kingdom power company EDF Energy to provide spent fuel containers and loading services for the Sizewell B nuclear power plant.in Suffolk.
The agreement covers 70 casks and loading campaigns for used fuel assemblies into dry storage at intervals of several years, according to a Holtec press release. That should cover the U.K.’s sole pressurized water reactor through to its anticipated decommissioning in 2035, the Camden, N.J., company said.
Holtec is not releasing the value of the contract, a spokesman said Friday.
The first loading campaign at Sizewell B was completed in 2017, at a new dry-storage pad that features Holtec multipurpose storage canisters and seven of the company’s HI-STORM MIC casks.
Washington Department of Ecology Deputy Director Polly Zehm is retiring from state service at the end of January, just a month after her boss, agency spokesman Randy Bradbury said Monday.
Zehm served more than 22 years with the agency, about eight of them as deputy director, according to an online biography. She sent an internal email within Ecology in early December, around the time Director Maia Bellon announced her own departure by the end of 2019.
Before coming to headquarters in Olympia in late 2003, Zehm worked at the agency’s regional office in Yakima. She was a regional director for Ecology from 1997 to 2003, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Prior to her state career, Zehm worked for the cities of Olympia and Ellensburg and is a former wastewater treatment plant manager.
The Ecology Department is the state’s regulator for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hanford Site near the city of Richland, along with commercial radioactive waste operations within its borders. Between 70 and 80 people work at Ecology’s Nuclear Waste Program.
Gov. Jay Inslee (D) has yet to announce a replacement for Bellon, who plans to go into private legal practice.
From The Wires
From The Guardian: A new form of uranium could affect disposal of nuclear waste.
From the Sofia Globe: Accident at planned nuclear waste site in Bulgaria kills two.
From Swissinfo: Switzerland’s Mühleberg nuclear power plant closed after 47 years of operation.
