The coalition is calling on the NRC to take critical steps to work with states and stakeholders to develop a microreactor licensing framework that promotes innovation and energy security while honoring the Commission’s statutory obligation to protect the public, or else withdraw the rule.
Source: N.M. Department of Justice
Albuquerque, NM – The New Mexico Department of Justice this week led a multistate coalition in submitting a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) opposing a new set of regulations set forth by the Trump administration that would provide a fast track for licensing and deploying commercially unproven nuclear microreactor technology. The coalition argues that while these microreactors are intended to help migrate toward non-fossil fuel energy resources, they are largely untested and experimental, and the NRC has a responsibility to ensure public and environmental safety before they are allowed to be deployed.
The coalition is calling on the NRC to take critical steps to work with states and stakeholders to develop a microreactor licensing framework that promotes innovation and energy security while honoring the Commission’s statutory obligation to protect the public, or else withdraw the rule.
“Nuclear energy has potential to make real, meaningful changes to the energy structure in our country, but only if it’s done right,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “The NRC’s mandate is to protect the public – not to rubber-stamp an administration’s rush to deploy unproven technology at the expense of public safety and our environment.”
In the over 70-page comment letter, the coalition highlights that the proposed regulations unlawfully elevate licensing speed and mass deployment using generically approved designs, putting industry cost-savings above public safety and environmental protection.
Among other serious issues, the letter details that the proposed regulations:
- Allow for licensing of microreactors that could expose the public, in the event of an accident, to 10 times the radiation that the NRC currently allows for an entire year.
- Allow for maximum fuel loads that are not demonstrated to be appropriate or safe for the type of reactors regulated.
- Eliminate emergency planning zones.
- Allow reactor manufacturers to deviate from approved designs, without review or approval of the NRC, and then limitlessly propagate the modified reactors, while shifting the burden from the manufacturer (to prove the deviation is safe) to objectors (to prove it is unsafe).
- Allow applicants to choose their own methodology for determining site boundaries and safety classifications, such that identical reactor designs could have different safety parameters based solely on the operator’s preference.
- Create a pathway to categorically exclude microreactors from requirements for environmental assessments or environmental impact states under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
The coalition also identifies numerous shortcomings in the process by which this proposal was developed, including an unacceptably short 45-day comment period for a rule that will have major impacts for decades.
Copy of Comment Letter
New Mexico is leading this effort, joined by the Attorneys General of California, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
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