The final version of the next volume in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s long-awaited reactor decommissioning guidance is expected to be published “sometime next year,” an agency official said Monday.

The NRC’s second of three rulemakings for decommissioning nuclear reactors is currently in the public comments phase, said Cynthia Barr, a senior analyst at the agency’s risk tech analysis branch during a webinar Monday. The commission will accept comments from interested parties until April 8.

This section of the commission’s decommissioning guidance establishes rules for the safety and environmental management aspects of dismantling nuclear power plants. The first volume, which is designed to streamline the regulatory process for decommissioning nuclear power plants, is set to be published this year, Barr said during the NRC’s Regulatory Information Conference last week.

The last update to the guidance’s third volume was in 2012.