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BALTIMORE, MD – Attorney General Anthony G. Brown joined 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 unproven nuclear microreactor technology. The coalition argues that while these microreactors might provide fossil-fuel free sources of energy in the future, 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.
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. The proposed procedures are a sharp deviation from the NRC’s traditional practice of individually evaluating each license applicant. The comments note that the procedures conflict with NRC’s obligation to protect public health and safety – its primary duty under the Atomic Energy Act. This is a significant concern given the untested nature of microreactors, the wide array of technologies that fall within this category, and the variety of novel nuclear fuel and waste streams that will be used and generated in their deployment.
Among other serious issues detailed in the letter, the proposed regulations:
- Eliminate standardized emergency planning zones;
- Allow reactor manufacturers to deviate from approved designs, 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; and
- Create a pathway to categorically exclude microreactors from further analysis 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.
Joining Attorney General Brown in the letter are the attorneys general of California, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.
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