Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Industry will wait at least until May before seeing the rationale Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff used to justify parts of a coming rule to expand disposal options for Greater-Than-Class-C radioactive waste, officials said Tuesday in an online public meeting. The two-hour, online-only meeting was the latest in a long string of opportunities for the public […]

Media reported this week that the White House did not plan to renominate Jeffrey Baran for another term as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Baran’s nomination was returned Jan. 3 to the White House, like all nominations that did not get a floor vote during the first of two year-long sessions of the […]

Media reported this week that the White House did not plan to renominate Jeffrey Baran for another term as a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Baran’s nomination was returned Jan. 3 to the White House, like all nominations that did not get a floor vote during the first of two year-long sessions of the […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started an environmental review of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s plan to keep California’s last nuclear power plant open until 2030, the agency announced Wednesday. The commission plans an online public meeting about the proposed review on Feb. 1 and an in-person meeting at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis […]

Industry will wait at least until May before seeing the rationale Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff used to justify parts of a coming rule to expand disposal options for Greater-Than-Class-C radioactive waste, officials said Tuesday in an online public meeting. The two-hour, online-only meeting was the latest in a long string of opportunities for the public […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff were scheduled to hold a virtual public meeting Tuesday about the long-awaited combined rulemaking covering low-level and Greater-Than-Class-C radioactive waste. The meeting will stream online with a telephone dial-in option, according to a notice the commission posted on its website. NRC staff once thought they would submit their proposed rule to […]

Tom Bailie, a farmer who lived in the shadow of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state and became an advocate for downwinders affected by nuclear radiation, died at age 76, the Spokane Spokesman-Review newspaper reported Sunday. Born in Pasco, Wash. in 1947, Bailie’s family moved soon afterward to a farm across the […]

Commissioner Annie Caputo on Thursday questioned whether it made sense for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a blanket guidance for detecting buried low-level radioactive waste at power plants undergoing decommissioning. NRC staff plan to finish the guidance by Sept. 30, a commission spokesperson said. Staff opened comments on the draft guidance in December. The […]

Senior officials from the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission were scheduled to testify about nuclear power Thursday before a House Oversight and Accountability subcommittee. Headlining the list of three witnesses is Kathryn Huff, DOE’s assistant secretary for nuclear energy. Huff was scheduled to testify at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time alongside Daniel Dorman, the […]

Jeffrey Baran’s nomination for five more years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was sent back to the White House on Jan. 3, leaving President Joe Biden’s (D) administration with the choice of repeating a hard fight to get Baran through the Senate again or moving on to another candidate. There are two sessions in each […]

Raymond Furstenau will temporarily become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive director on Jan. 27, when Daniel Dorman, the current director is set to retire, the commission announced Wednesday. Furstenau, who leads the NRC’s Office of Research, will act as the commission’s chief operating officer, managing personnel and delegating technical and regulatory work on NRC-licensed facilities […]

Raymond Furstenau will temporarily become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission executive director on Jan. 27, when Daniel Dorman, the current director is set to retire, the commission announced Wednesday. Furstenau, who leads the NRC’s Office of Research, will act as the commission’s chief operating officer, managing personnel and delegating technical and regulatory work on NRC-licensed facilities […]

In the first courtroom action for a lawsuit opposing a life extension of California’s last nuclear plant, federal judges on Wednesday asked if the case belonged in their court and whether keeping it there could unleash a tide of new environmental lawsuits. “I’m trying to decide the floodgate here,” said Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan, an […]

A group of environmentalists trying to block a life extension for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant were scheduled to have their day in court Wednesday. Oral arguments in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena, Calif., were set for 9:00 a.m. Pacific time, or 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. The proceedings were to […]

Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board Chair Joyce Connery repeatedly “undermined” the first board’s executive director of operations in ways “inconsistent” with federal law, according to a report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Office of Inspector General. The 15-page report on “actions inconsistent with the delegation of functions required by the Atomic Energy Act,” and dated […]

The Air Force’s mishandling and possibly inadequate monitoring of radioactive material over several years at the Kirtland Air Force Base is still on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radar, a Christmas-week regulatory filing shows. Though the Air Force has dealt with half the 14 apparent violations identified in 2022 by NRC at the base near Albuquerque, […]

The Air Force’s mishandling and possibly inadequate monitoring of radioactive material over several years at the Kirtland Air Force Base is still on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s radar, a Christmas-week regulatory filing shows. Though the Air Force has dealt with half the 14 apparent violations identified in 2022 by NRC at the base near Albuquerque, […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week said it accepted Pacific Gas & Electric’s application to extend the operating license of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California. The decision, announced in a Federal Register notice, officially begins what could be a contentious, year-long, federal review of California’s plan to keep nuclear power alive in the Golden […]

A group of lawmakers recently urged the Department of Energy to speed up its consideration of Holtec International’s request for a large federal loan to restart the Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan. “[W]e urge the Department of Energy to give its fair, full, and swift consideration to the application,” the bipartisan, nine-member bloc of […]

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will review environmentalists’ claims that Holtec Decommissioning International illegally paid for the upkeep of Michigan’s Palisades Nuclear Plant with funds intended to pay for the plant’s teardown, the commission said this week. The NRC the referred groups’ “concerns that Holtec has misused the decommissioning trust fund to the Executive Director for […]

S&K Logistics, a tribally-owned government contractor, has won a potential three-year, $24-million award for support services at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract for professional services, ranging from liquid waste cleanup to legal support, at Savannah River runs from Dec. 12, 2023 through Dec. 11, […]

Holtec International this week asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to dismiss an antinuclear group’s attempt to block regulatory action needed to restart the Palisades Nuclear Plant. Holtec on Monday asked the commission secretary to deny a Dec. 5 petition by three antinuclear groups who want a hearing about the company’s Sept. 28 request for an […]

Texas on Monday told a federal court not to convene all of its judges to rehear a case that this summer effectively killed commercial interim storage of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. In a 24 page brief filed with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, opposed a rehearing […]

Nuclear policy reforms that hitched a ride on an annual must-past defense bill are in trouble in the House, the bill’s sponsor said Monday at a meeting of nuclear professionals. “[W]e’ve really hit a stumbling block if not just a whole wall in the House,” Sen. Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.) said in a morning speech to […]

A 66-year-old Arkansas man who allegedly drove his car through an outer gate at Duke Power’s Oconee nuclear plant in South Carolina and tried to run over security staff was arrested and charged with attempted murder, local law enforcement said over the weekend. Doyle Wayne Whisenhunt, of Lockesburg, Ark., was arrested Saturday evening, at an […]

While it remains a critic of nuclear energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed Wednesday it is scaling back its legal work on nuclear issues. “While NRDC is paring back our nuclear litigation work, we will continue to advocate for better, safer, cheaper solutions to climate change,” Mark Drajem, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission discontinued efforts to get more insight into whether nuclear power plant owners are obeying agency rules about which investments are allowed in decommissioning trust funds, commission staff told the agency’s inspector general. Staff made the decision official in September, according to a memo dated Oct. 26 and uploaded to the NRC’s […]

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. announced this week it applied with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operating license of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. In line with expectations, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) wants to keep the reactors on until 2030, according to a Tuesday press release. The NRC license renewal the utility […]

Holtec and the Nuclear Energy Institute appeared in court to have their say in a two year-old lawsuit that could determine the future of commercially operated storage of spent nuclear fuel. The company and the industry’s Washington-based advocacy group filed friend-of-the-court briefs last week with the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where Interim Storage […]

While it remains a critic of nuclear energy, the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed Wednesday it is scaling back its legal work on nuclear issues. “While NRDC is paring back our nuclear litigation work, we will continue to advocate for better, safer, cheaper solutions to climate change,” Mark Drajem, a spokesperson for the Natural Resources […]