The new congressional omnibus budget proposal for fiscal 2017 would reduce fees and appropriations for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by about $65 million from its requested amount. That doesn’t mean the agency necessarily faces a drastic belt tightening for the remainder of this budget year, partly thanks to unspent funds it is authorized to carry over from year to year.
The NRC requested $970.2 million in funding for salaries and expenses in the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1; $851.2 million would come via fees from the nuclear industry and the remaining $119 million from Congress. The spending plan out Monday from Capitol Hill, though, would max out at $905 million: $794.6 million from licensing fees, inspection services, and other revenue streams; and up to $110.4 million in appropriations.
The NRC Inspector General’s Office would receive just over $12.1 million in separate funding, which is in line with the original request. In both proposals, $10 million would come from fees and the rest from congressional appropriations.
The agency’s total budget plan covers 3,525 full-time equivalent personnel, down by 90 FTEs from the enacted fiscal 2016 budget. It would encompass licensing and oversight operations for more than 100 operational nuclear power reactors and corresponding work at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station and other plants being decommissioned.
In the nuclear materials and waste safety segment, the NRC planned to spend $37.2 million on spent fuel storage and transportation operations and $41.6 million on oversight of decommissioning and low-level waste.
Along with use of carryover funds, the NRC also seeks via “rebaselining” to identify operations that can be halted or conducted with fewer resources without a loss of efficiency. Per the congressional explanatory statement covering NRC funding: “The agreement reflects additional savings identified by the Commission as part of its rebaselining efforts. The agreement does not include the savings from the rebaselining proposai to reduce resources devoted to maintaining expertise in deep geological repository analysis.”
Congress is expected to approve the omnibus spending plan this week, ahead of the expiration Friday of the latest continuing budget resolution that is keeping the government open.
