NRC staff: “We’ve already made progress”—Part 2

King, a special assistant and executive lead for the ADVANCE Act implementation within the NRC, was one of the staff members to report out and answer questions about at a March 4 briefing for commissioners on the legislation. The bipartisan ADVANCE Act (an acronym for Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy) was signed into law by former President Joe Biden in 2024 and is considered one of the most impactful bills in recent history to support nuclear energy innovation and implementation.

Commissioners heard from and asked questions of both external stakeholders in the nuclear industry and its own staff. The external stakeholder interactions were covered last week in Part 1 of this series.

The staff reports offered insight into actions already taken by the NRC to implement the ADVANCE Act, and what is in the works to streamline nuclear regulatory and licensing processes.

What’s already done: “We have made progress in addressing the requirements and taking actions consistent with the spirit of the act through open and transparent communications, engaging our stakeholders to discover innovative ideas, delivering on early milestones, and establishing mechanisms to monitor our impact,” King said.

To meet the need for transparency in the process, King pointed to the NRC’s new publicly facing website and metrics that were launched to share progress from the agency in real time.

Staff identified 36 actions that needed to respond to the act. These actions were assigned to 20 different project teams, which are sharing ideas across business lines, according to King. So far, eight of the 36 milestones have been completed. Some examples of early actions include the following:

• A memorandum of understanding was signed with the Department of Energy on advanced nuclear fuels.
• Reports have been issued on new hiring and pay authorities for the NRC, advanced methods of manufacturing and construction, and required environmental reviews.

“Our work does not stop with issuing these reports,” King said. “It’s imperative that these changes move beyond just words in a report and become embedded in our culture to drive efficiencies.”

Chris Regan, director of the NRC’s Division of Rulemaking, Environmental and Financial Support (REFS), pointed to some concrete actions taken to improve processes:

• Implementing a 5,500-hour resource model for completing environmental reviews of operating reactor license renewals (a 30 percent reduction from previous estimates).
• Assessing a streamlined, phased approach to licensing microreactor technology, potentially incorporating generic environmental impact statements (saving as much as 4,000 resource hours per application).
• Developing an “e-portal” for microreactor applications to support transparent and timely communication between all parties involved in the environmental review process.

Expediting known technology: More than 70 percent of current reactor licensees plan to request power uprates in the coming years, said Michele Sampson, director of the Division of Renewed Licenses in the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.

Benchmarking against the 172 power uprate applications approved by the NRC since 1977, Sampson said the agency is now using a graded approach to streamline the review based on safety significance.

“For extended power uprates, the graded approach is expected to reduce resource expenditures from the uptick to 8,000 hours in recent years back down to about 5,000 hours,” she said. “We will be tracking results to ensure these changes have the intended effect.”

NRC staff has also made progress in implementing an expedited combined license (COL) procedure for qualifying applicants, and the agency is ready to review such applications now, Sampson said. One example of the type of application the NRC expects to receive for this procedure would be an existing design, such as the AP1000 reactor, planned for deployment at an existing reactor site, she added.

“In this scenario involving a previously approved design and existing early site permit,” Sampson said, “significant portions of the staff’s safety review have already been completed and . . . can be incorporated by reference into the applications, saving time and resources for applications and the staff.”

Securing staff: Eric Dilworth, deputy chief human capital officer within the NRC, said the agency is conducting strategic workforce planning, with initial results expected by June.

“That’s going to identify gaps where we really need to focus our critical hiring needs,” he said. “With limited resources and funding, we need to be able to hire the right people in [the] right places and fill those gaps.”

Commissioner Bradley Crowell asked if hires deemed necessary under the ADVANCE Act would be exempt from the current hiring freeze across the federal government, to which NRC general counsel Brooke Poole Clark responded, “If we were to seek an exception from the hiring freeze on a public safety basis and we wanted to use ADVANCE Act hiring authorities, I do not believe we would be limited in that regard.”

Increasing engagement: In the months since the ADVANCE Act became law, King said that NRC staff have used multiple channels to gather public input: verbal feedback from meetings, written comments submitted before and after meetings, electronic communications, and direct messages to the staff lead who attends each meeting.

One important aspect of the NRC’s new mission statement—which was updated as an ADVANCE Act directive—is ensuring that the public understands that decisions are not make by a select few, said Mirela Gavrilas, director of operations for the NRC.

“We want to engage everybody so that they understand the rationale for every word that’s going to appear in the guidance,” she said.

Commissioner Matthew Marzano asked staff to identify a directive from the ADVANCE Act that will need a longer lead time, maybe several years, to really affect the agency.

“That’s easy. Culture,” Gavrilas said. “Culture does not happen overnight.”

She pointed out that the NRC isn’t starting from scratch, since a renewed focus on such change began 12 to 18 months ago.

“As you well know, culture develops. There are the early adopters, the bulk of us who are learning, and then there’s going to be some people who we’re going to have to bring along. I think we’re already past the early adopters, and we’re in the midst of where the majority of us are buying in.”

Commissioner Annie Caputo challenged NRC staff to move beyond actions that come across as “business as usual” when the presidential administration and Congress are expecting change.

“How can you be sure that these activities are actually shifting culture and having a real measurable impact on how things are done?” Caputo asked.

King said he’s been impressed with the “thirst” to contribute to this inflection point in nuclear history, which has bubbled up as ideas and other contributions from staff.

“How do we make sure that’s sustainable and we measure our progress?” he added. “One thing staff . . . or inspectors love to do is follow procedures. . . . We have to find everywhere in our procedures where there’s a decision point and we need to change consistent with our mission to make sure we’re making those decisions. We ingrain and measure the outcomes.”

This is Part 2 of a two-part series on the NRC’s ADVANCE Act hearing. Catch up on Part 1 of the NRC hearing coverage on Nuclear Newswire.