If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s budget request for the 2023 fiscal year is approved by Congress, the agency’s nuclear decommissioning oversight activities would get a small increase, according to budget justification documents published Monday.
NRC’s request for its decommissioning and low-level waste segment was around $24 million for fiscal 2023, according to budget tables the agency posted Monday. That’s just around a 4% increase from the roughly $23 million appropriated by Congress for the current fiscal year in a bipartisan spending package passed in early March.
Meanwhile, the agency requested around $135 million for its nuclear materials and waste safety activities, up roughly 25% from the roughly $107 million that segment got for fiscal 2022. As in the current fiscal year, NRC’s nuclear reactor safety program would receive the lion’s share of federal funds under the agency’s spending plan — around $491 million, or about 3% more year-over-year compared to $477 million.
Overall, the White House proposed just under $930 million for NRC in fiscal year 2023, which would be a roughly 4.5% increase from $887.7 million in 2022. The commission said in a press release Monday that it would recuperate about $792 million from licensees in fiscal 2023, leaving its net appropriation at about $137 million.
NRC is the U.S.’s autonomous civilian nuclear power regulator.
Updated 3/30/2022 9:20 a.m. Eastern time to reflect that NRC’s 2022 top-line budget was $887.7 million.
