WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) questioned chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Stephen Burns about ways to improve the NRC permitting process. Burns was testifying before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee oversight hearing on the president’s budget request for the NRC.
On the NRC permitting process:
“I want to discuss the NRC permitting process.
“During its licensing reviews, the NRC staff frequently poses Requests for Additional Information, called RAI’s, to licensees, to applicants.
“It’s clear the NRC should request any information necessary to make a safety determination, process the information, because the process itself can become burdensome if it’s not properly managed. And that’s one of the concerns about how this works.
“Chairman Inhofe and Sen. Capito and I have tasked GAO with examining the very problem.
“I’ll just give you just one example of why we feel the process warrants some scrutiny from you as chairman. With regard to a Request for Additional Information, request made by the NRC to the United States Geological Survey—it regards their renewal application for a research reactor they have in Denver.
“This is what the NRC asks the United States Geological Survey, this is recent, Feb. 8, 2016, it says, ‘The application indicates that USGS is a Federal bureau within the U.S. Department of the Interior. To comply with 10 CFR 50.33(d), the staff requests that the applicant state whether USGS is owned, controlled, or dominated by an alien, foreign corporation, or foreign government, and if so, give details.’
“This is what your staff has decided to ask the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Now, I’m going to quote what the NRC’s instructions for developing these Requests for Additional Information are because you need to get additional information sometimes. Your own instructions say, ‘Before developing an RAI, the staff should ensure that the information isn’t already available to the staff or that the answer could not reasonably be inferred from general knowledge… (or) previously docketed correspondence…’
“So, not only can it be reasonably inferred that anyone outside NRC staff that the United States Geological Survey is part of the federal government, the fact had been docketed in previous correspondence with the NRC staff, they actually asked the same question in an RIA in 2010, they got the same answer.
“It just seems that project managers are supposed to be responsible for ensuring that these Request for Additional Information are actually necessary on companies in my state, other states.
“Do you have any idea how this sort of thing keeps happening?
Click here for video of Barrasso questioning NRC Chairman Burns on NRC permitting process.
On extending NRC uranium license terms:
“I asked a question for the record back in October, October 7th hearing that essentially asked how might a longer license duration help the NRC manage its workload a little better with regard to uranium recovery facilities.
“I think you said, ‘Extending the license term would reduce the administrative burden associated with the license renewal process for both the NRC staff and the uranium recovery licensees. . .’
“And I agree.
“Will you therefore commit to me to help pursue extending the license duration for uranium recovery facilities for the reasons that you had stated?
“Because you know, it used to be five years, we extended it to ten back in the ‘90’s which helped, but it takes about five years to get through the full process.”
Click here for video of Barrasso questioning Burns on uranium licenses.
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