Waste Confidence on Track for the Fall, NRC Chair Says

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission remains on track to issue a final version of its Waste Confidence rulemaking this fall, NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane said yesterday in a speech at the Health Physics Society Annual Meeting. The NRC had previously announced that a final ruling for Waste Confidence would come no later than Oct. 3, and Commissioner William Ostendorff said validated that schedule in remarks last month. “The Waste Confidence rulemaking is still on track to be completed in the fall of 2014,” Macfarlane said. Originally, the NRC had planned to issue the final rulemaking in September, but the government shutdown last year caused delays in the public meeting schedule and led to several meetings having to be rescheduled.

 

The NRC’s proposed waste confidence rulemaking, released last year, found that spent fuel can be stored on site for 60 years past a reactor’s licensed life. When the NRC first issued a revised waste confidence rule in 2010, the Commission extended the length of time assumed to be safe for storage of spent fuel at a reactor site from 30 to 60 years. Last year, though, a federal court found the NRC’s rule deficient and mandated an updated version, along with an environmental impact statement. The public comment period lasted for 98 days, ending on Dec. 20, 2013. The NRC received more than 33,000 written comments along with comments made at 13 public meetings.