Up & Atom

The NRC’s Office of Enforcement (OE) recently published its Enforcement Program Annual Report for Calendar Year 2022. In 2022, the NRC issued 73 escalated enforcement actions to licensees, non-licensees, and individuals. This is 13 more than in 2021, an increase of 22%, and is higher than the five-year average of 60. Even so, this remains below the highs seen in 2016 and 2017, which had more than 80 each year. Non-escalated enforcement actions also increased in 2022 for reactor and materials licensees.

The NRC published a draft interim staff guidance (ISG) on June 15, 2023, reemphasizing limitations on the use of funds previously reported to the NRC as providing radiological decommissioning funding assurance (DFA).

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has set a course to create a regulatory framework for fusion energy systems that builds on NRC’s existing nuclear materials licensing process. As we have previously reported, NRC had considered three options for regulating nuclear fusion. NRC chose to work from the existing process for licensing the use of byproduct materials contained in 10 CFR Part 30, which requires only a limited-scope rulemaking.

After 13 years, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued revised guidance for cybersecurity programs for nuclear power reactors. All nuclear power reactor owners must review the NRC’s latest guidance and confirm their cybersecurity programs are in compliance.

The NRC commissioners unanimously approved on January 23, 2023 the publication of a proposed rule to update the NRC’s environmental regulations in Part 51 and issue a draft update to the NRC’s Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (the GEIS) to encompass both initial and subsequent license renewal (SLR). This rulemaking, when complete, will resolve the dispute about whether 10 CFR 51.53(c)(3) and the GEIS apply to SLR, and will allow the environmental review of pending SLR applications that rely on the GEIS to resume. The proposed rule will soon be published in the Federal Register to allow for public comments on the proposed rule and draft GEIS.

The NRC recently issued a final rule in the Federal Register, along with a corresponding update to its Enforcement Policy, that updated the maximum amounts of civil monetary penalties it can impose for violations. Because these amounts are adjusted annually for inflation, the maximum civil penalties jumped for the second year in a row, reflecting the continued inflationary environment in the broader economy.

The NRC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) proposing a rule, “Alternatives to the Use of Credit Ratings,” that would amend its decommissioning financial assurance mechanisms in 10 CFR Part 30.

In a 2-1 vote, NRC Commissioners have approved a new approach for evaluating where reactors can be sited in the United States, opening the door to siting advanced reactors in more densely populated areas than has been allowed for large, light-water reactors.

It’s getting harder to send anything from the US to Russia, including radioactive materials and nuclear-related equipment. Below are some recent examples of actions that the US government has taken to clamp down on nuclear trade with Russia. In this ever-changing geopolitical landscape, exporters must maintain export compliance vigilance for the items and technology they export.

The NRC recently issued its Allegation Program Annual Trends Report, analyzing regional, national, and site-specific allegation trends for calendar year 2021. The report’s top-line numbers show that allegations increased approximately 40% from 2020. The broad-based increase spanned reactor and materials licensees, as well as their vendors.