In July 2024, President Biden signed the Fire Grants and Safety Act into law. According to DOE, the law is “chalking up a BIG win for our nuclear power industry. Included in the bill is bipartisan legislation known as the ADVANCE Act that will help us build new reactors at a clip that we haven’t seen since the 1970s.”
The ADVANCE Act is short for: ‘‘Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024.”
DOE states, “any of the advanced reactors under development use different coolants than what is currently used in our commercial light-water reactors—making the regulatory process more of a challenge. The ADVANCE Act directs the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reduce certain licensing application fees and authorizes increased staffing for NRC reviews to expedite the process.”
NRC expediting environmental reviews is discussed in Section 506 of Title V.
TITLE V—IMPROVING COMMISSION EFFICIENCY
Sec. 501. Mission alignment. NRC must update mission statement to include “efficient”
Sec. 502. Strengthening the NRC workforce.
Sec. 503. Commission corporate support funding.
Sec. 504. Performance metrics and milestones.
Sec. 505. Nuclear licensing efficiency.
Sec. 506. Modernization of nuclear reactor environmental reviews.
According to Section 506, NRC must submit a report to Congress within 180 days (due January 2025) with planned efforts to “facilitate efficient, timely, and predictable environmental reviews of nuclear reactor applications for a license…through expanded use of categorical exclusions, environmental assessments, and generic environmental impact statements.”
These new mandates are based on changes made to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in section 321 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act in 2023 as discussed in this blog from the American Action Forum. I previously wrote a blog about the history of NEPA and my submitting public comments to NRC.
According to the ADVANCE Act, NRC must report to Congress and consider:
A) Using NEPA documents prepared by other Federal agencies
B) Using previous NEPA documents prepared by NRC
C) Using mitigated findings of no significant impact to reduce proposed impacts
D) Relying on other Federal, State, and local government evaluations
E) Coordinating development of NEPA documents with other Federal agencies
F) Streamlining consultations with other Federal, State, and local agencies
G) Streamlining analyses of alternatives including sites and power alternatives
H) Establishing new categorical exclusions
I) Amending 10 CFR Section 51.20(b) to determine if an EA can replace an EIS
J) Authorizing use of applicant’s EIS as the NRCs draft EIS
K) Adopting online and digital technologies to allow applicant and agency coordination
L) Making other revisions to 10 CFR 51 that may be needed
Yesterday, I attended a virtual public meeting with NRC staff to take comments on the ADVANCE Act directive to be included in the report to Congress. About 60 people attended including 40 members of the public and 20 NRC staff. Some attendees strongly oppose nuclear energy while others represent the industry or academia which made for diverse and lively comments.
About 20 years ago, I worked for NRC conducting environmental reviews for relicensing operating nuclear power plants. Many of us felt the NEPA schedule of about 18 months was very aggressive and there was more than one Christmas-New Year’s holiday “break” we had to work to get the EIS completed on time! Here’s the basic process: the applicant submits an application then NRC issues the notice of intent (NOI) that gets published in the federal register (FRN) which starts the clock on the application process. NRC staff reviews the industry environmental report and starts the scoping process to conduct the NEPA study, site tours and audits, permit reviews, discussions with agencies/tribes and obtain public comments. This provides input into the draft EIS which involves obtaining and addressing public comments to prepare the final EIS. The NEPA review occurs parallel to the safety evaluation report and the total process to grant a license takes about 2 years.
I commented that for the above item F, NRC must also consult with Native American tribes which are sovereign nations as they are directly affected by uranium mining, mill sites, transportation routes, and more impacts that must be considered in NEPA analyses. I know NRC staff are well aware and are very involved in tribal consultations and the Congressional text must be updated. I could not identify anyone on the public meeting representing Native American tribes and many of the public attendees complained about lack of notification for the meeting. I randomly learned about the meeting by looking at new documents entered into ADAMS. I suggest NRC make more of an effort to engage the general public through social media announcements.
As I reported about 10 months ago, I worked preparing environmental reports to build small modular reactors (SMR) in Idaho. We were very close to submitting the application before the utility shut the project down so the NRC officially did not start the NEPA process. However, NRC became very involved in “pre-application” meetings and reviews of draft documents so there was close coordination between industry and the regulators to make the process very efficient.
Regarding the ADVANCE Act mandate of considerations, NRC will need to determine and justify if other NEPA documents previously prepared by NRC or other Federal, State, or local agencies are relevant, reliable, and adequate to meet all requirements. While NRC consults with Department of Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service and Department of Commerce NOAA, I recommend NRC obtain reviews from the U.S. Geological Survey which is often closely involved in local and tribal resource issues. For example, see the DOE project involving USGS on tribal land related to impacts from uranium mill sites which I coauthored.
I advocate that NEPA documents need to consider alternative siting and sources of power. How did the applicant objectively consider various locations for the project and arrive at the proposed site? For the Idaho SMR project, the Shoshone-Bannock tribe wanted to know the same thing and wondered how the site construction might affect their reservation’s view of the mountains or noise during construction as well many other disruptive concerns.
I believe one of the failures of the Idaho SMR project, beyond the proposed rapid inflationary construction cost increases to the project, was the lack of public outreach to engage ratepayers such as in Salt Lake City to counteract the misinformation regarding baseload and alternative energy sources needed for grid stability. As coal plants get retired or replaced with natural gas plants, the only other source of baseload power (where the electricity flows 24/7) is with nuclear power. While wind and solar power alternatives are increasingly popular, without very expensive battery storage — grid stability will be impossible. So the public, especially the anti-nuclear activists need to face the energy and climate change realities. Therefore, I recommend NRC keep the requirement for industry to provide alternative siting and need for power sources in the environmental report which NRC reviews and incorporates in the EIS. I also do not advocate that first of a kind power plants receive an exemption from considering alternatives.
Similarly, for category J, I do not advocate for NRC adopting the industry environmental report as the draft EIS. That will skip the scoping process involving the pubic. For the Idaho SMR project, we almost completed the environmental report and there was no public involvement. How can NRC plagiarize verbatim industry reports then claim it meets their nuclear ASME quality assurance practices (NQA-1)? When I worked for NRC and learned that our consultant took information directly from the industry report without referencing the source of information this became a serious breach of trust. How will the general public perceive any government report written by industry proponents?
With the U.S. not creating a nuclear waste repository and having to pay industry to store nuclear waste, it is not reasonable for NRC to expect industry will resolve these issues in the environmental report as would be needed if category J were adopted.
I suggest NRC prepare a nationwide programmatic or generic EIS that can be tiered to site specific EIS documents. I do not agree that EAs can be substituted for EIS documents (category I) as nuclear power plants are major federal actions and public involvement with meetings is necessary and might be excluded in the EA process.
Plans to conduct another NRC public meeting on the ADVANCE Act is planned for October 16. This blog will serve as my official public comments submitted to Mr. Lance Rakovan: lance.rakovan@nrc.gov.
Update October 16, 2024
Big news today- Amazon Web Services announced plans to partner with a company to build nuclear energy sites. Here’s a report from AP discussing Amazon and Google’s recent announcements.
Today, I attended another NRC meeting on the ADVANCE Act - this time focusing on the big picture as the first public meeting involving the entire organization. Here are my comments that I posted online:
“I attended public meetings today and on September 25th, 2024. So far at both meetings, the NRC requested public "scoping" comments on the ADVANCE Act but has not provided proposed decisions that must soon be provided to Congress. I submitted comments on Section 506 to modernize nuclear reactor environmental reviews on September 26. The report to Congress on Section 506 is due in early January 2025. Will there be an opportunity to review and provide comments to this draft report to Congress or will it be considered a final report? How can the public provide comments in the process to evaluate NRC recommendations?
At the meeting today, the NMSS Director responded to a question that the ADVANCE Act is being considered beyond the Congressional direction for "advanced nuclear reactors" and being considered for all parts of the agency. This increase in scope warrants an increase in public awareness to all programs nationwide and internationally with participation including from IAEA, other federal agencies, state and local governments and sovereign Native American tribal governments. For example, questions were asked at today's meeting about nuclear waste storage and disposal but no one from the Department of Energy responded. However, the Advance Act (Section 506 items D-F) directs NRC to coordinate with other agencies during the NEPA process. Before changes are made to the process, more public meetings are needed to involve these other groups with public engagement to understand what the NRC recommends.
I recommend NRC consider providing the draft report on Section 506 to Congress and offer a public comment period to review and incorporate comments as is typically done in the EIS process: scoping, draft EIS, final EIS. This would enable NRC to meet its obligation for submitting a report on time and for including additional public input. Support for carbon-free nuclear power is increasing and this is a timely opportunity to increase public pressure on Congress for finding a permanent geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste.
The statement that taxpayers will be subsiding about half of the increased mandates resulting from the Act needs to be detailed. What aspects of the pre-application and application process will be paid by the industry or by taxpayers? The public are not generally involved in pre-application meetings so using taxpayer dollars would be inappropriate.
While the current process of 25 tasks presented today is efficient for NRC to accomplish requirements on many different timelines over the next few years, a reasonable person will not be able to put the pieces together. Therefore, I recommend one overarching mission document is needed in responding to the ADVANCE Act.
Another question asked was how will these changes might affect Reg Guides and other documents. No answer was provided. The industry and public need clarity for what will be affected by regulatory changes and the timelines. For example, Reg. Guide 4.2 to prepare environmental reports will need to be updated for changes to the Act Section 506 and 10 CFR Part 51.
With the 50th anniversary of NRC and preparing for the RIC in March 2025, I suggest the EDO recommend to the Commission:
1) that the ADVANCE Act is vital for the nation's civilian nuclear program and necessitates demonstration as an independent regulatory, similar to the Federal Reserve
2) one holistic agency-wide document describing all functions of NRC will be prepared focusing on proposed changes
3) the NRC organize a panel for the RIC involving a wide number of agency experts to describe the changes being made from the Advance Act.”
UPDATE January 16, 2026
The NRC completed the report to Congress directed by Section 506 of the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024 (ADVANCE Act). Here are links to the letter and report. Based on my reading, the report proposes potential changes to the way NRC conducts environmental reviews for new power plants with the overall theme for industry to have a much larger role in the NEPA process. For example, utility consultants may take the lead in several areas including: 1) threatened and endangered species biological reviews and preparing assessments, 2) interactions with tribal governments, and 3) preparing environmental assessments (EA) as the preferred option over full environmental impact statements (EIS). Previously, NRC took the lead in all these areas including having industry submit the environmental report that fed into the expanded EIS. In addition, issues common to all future nuclear plants could be resolved in the Generic EIS for New Reactors in the same way NRC regulates other fuel cycle entities.
The use of “incorporation by reference” will expand where the applicant cites previous public information so the reader must track down information. The NRC focus will be on new and significant information as well as only consider alternative sources of energy as part of the no action alternative as related only to nuclear options. Therefore, NEPA documents will no longer consider various sources of non-nuclear energy which for adoption of future nuclear power and generating additional nuclear waste needs to become part of the national and international conversation. The report is very brief with summary tables provided in Enclosure 1. NRC acknowledged my previously submitting public comments along with eight other commenters as shown in Enclosure 2.
When I worked for NRC preparing EIS documents to relicense nuclear power plants, we needed several staff and about 15 experts from national laboratories to conduct environmental reviews. There are extensive data requirements such as for air and water that must begin several years before the application stage, so there will be much more burden on industry consultants to fully plan and execute the expanding requirements.
Please let me know if you are interested in discussing how these changes could impact your business when interacting with the NRC.
