A group of nuclear critics Monday publicly denounced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) proposed rulemaking to review Department of Energy and Pentagon-approved reactor designs.
In a joint press release, the 13 organizations, including Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Beyond Nuclear, said the proposed rule violates aspects of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. The organizations submitted a joint 17-page comment document under NRC’s April 2 Federal Register notice of the proposed rule.
In a Monday emailed statement to Exchange Monitor, NRC said:
“NRC is America’s nuclear safety regulator. We make our own rules and regulatory findings. NRC will consider all comments that go through the public comment process as the agency continues its rulemaking focusing on reviewing analysis of DOE/DOW [Department of War] demonstration projects.”
NRC’s proposed rule seeks to create an additional licensing pathway for DOE and Pentagon-approved test reactors that are pursuing commercial use. The rule would revise Title 10 Code of Federal Regulations Part 50 and Part 53 to provide a third expedited pathway, building off the previous authorization work from DOE and the Pentagon.
The proposed rule received over 700 comments, according to the notice.
According to the nuclear critics’ May 4 filing, the change violates the Atomic Energy Act by “allowing the NRC to approve license applications under the vague standard of ‘safe’” and allowing it to accept safety findings from other agencies without verifying whether those findings are correct.
“The White House is trying to create a ‘regulatory tunnel’ around NRC’s safety regulations,” Tim Judson, NIRS executive director, said in the release. “That would mean DOE’s biases and obviously false assumptions about the safety of nuclear power plants become the new normal, exposing the public to unacceptable dangers to our health and safety.”