Congress takes aim at nation’s nuclear regulator

By NICO PORTUONDO, Politico.com 

Published on 01/24/2024 06:00 PM EST

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill on Nov. 30, 2023. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Lawmakers who support a new generation of advanced nuclear power are setting their sights on what they see as the technology’s top obstacle: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Biden administration has touted small, factory-built reactors as a possible lifeline for an aging nuclear industry and a crucial step toward cutting the nation’s planet-warming emissions. But only one reactor design has gotten the greenlight from the NRC, and administration-backed advanced nuclear energy projects are struggling to get off the ground.

Key leaders in the House and Senate are now considering fundamental changes to the NRC, an independent federal agency tasked with protecting public safety and health.

The House Energy and Commerce and Senate Environment and Public Works committees are negotiating a compromise legislative package that would streamline regulations at the NRC and potentially adjust the agency’s mission statement, as I write today.

The talks come after four Senate Democrats recently kneecapped a renomination bid for one of the NRC’s longtime regulators, Jeff Baran, who was first appointed by former President Barack Obama.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was among the Democrats who called Baran an overzealous regulator overtly hostile to nuclear energy. Today, Manchin said he won’t support any nominee who’s too focused on safety.

“We’re just looking for people who understand that we have to have nuclear energy in the mix,” Manchin said.

Lawmakers believe fundamentally changing the NRC, in leadership and policy, will give so-called small modular reactors a fighting chance to succeed.

However, activists worry what will happen to nuclear safety if the NRC becomes a voice of the industry. (As the NRC’s website notes, Congress created the commission in the 1970s to address criticisms that its predecessor agency’s regulations were “insufficiently rigorous.”)

“The nuclear industry’s disgraceful torpedoing of Jeff Baran’s reappointment to the NRC is a great loss for the agency and for public health,” said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

There’s still plenty of pitfalls to adjusting the NRC, especially for the compromise package, considering the difficulty House Republicans have had in passing substantive legislation.

Lawmakers, however, say the desire from both parties to overhaul nuclear regulations may be too big to fail.

“An election year always makes policy more difficult, but we have more overlapping interests than ever before,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.).