NRC forced to "retreat" on nuclear waste

In response to petitions filed by Beyond Nuclear and twenty-three other environmental organizations to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) affecting a total of 36 reactors in new licensing and relicensing proceedings, the Commission granted the petitioners’ requests to hold all final licensing decisions in abeyance until the question of what is to be done with the nation’s growing mountain of nuclear waste is resolved.   Beyond Nuclear offered comments in a nationally distributed joint press release.

On June 18, 2012, Beyond Nuclear and the other organizations filed requests to reopen federal licensing hearings on new reactor construction and old reactor license extensions following the safe energy communities’ victory in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals which struck down the agency’s  long standing “Nuclear Waste Confidence Decision.” The so-called “confidence rule” had held that the public was denied environmental impact hearings on continued nuclear waste generation from  new reactor construction and 20-year license extensions on expiring 40-year operating licenses in the absence of a scientifically-accepted and license-approved nuclear waste management plan. The federal regulatory agency responsible for licensing these essentially nuclear waste factories held that it had “confidence” that someday, somewhere, somebody would come up with an acceptable plan.   In particular, the June 8, 2012 federal court ruling struck down the agency denial of public hearings based on NRC “assurance” that approval of a long term geological repository for high-level radioactive waste would be available “when necessary” and that high-level nuclear waste (tens of thousands of tons of irradiated nuclear fuel) can be stored indefinitely  in temporary water filled pools or in combination with onsite and offsite dry storage casks.

The August 7, 2012 NRC Order essentially accepts all of the petitioners’ requests to:   1) suspend any final decisions in reactor licensing cases, pending completion  of action on the remanded  Waste Confidence proceeding; 2) provide opportunity for public comment under the National Environmental Policy Act in Environmental Assessment and Environment Impact Statements and; 3) provide at least 60 days for public interventions in individual licensing cases of any site specific  concerns relating to the remanded nuclear waste proceedings.