Part 2 of 3 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
The Accelerating Deployment of Versatile Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act bill’s sponsors have attracted bipartisan support. They know that it will likely need to hitch a ride on a larger legislative vehicle moving through Congress. The “ADVANCE Act” authors may have a more unconventional target for their bill. Their target is a still-nebulous China competition bill from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Carper said that “Sen. Schumer’s working on putting together another, well, I think he’s called it a China bill. That might be a possibility for the bill as well.” Schumer has only described his work on the China bill in broad terms, but no text is available yet. Schumer said that he intends to develop a package aimed at competing with China ahead of the August recess.
The ADVANCE Act does contain several provisions to boost U.S. nuclear exports to better compete with state-owned nuclear enterprises found in countries like China and Russia.
Supporters of the ADVANCE Act are trying to generate as much support as possible to give the bill a better chance. Capito said, “We’re socializing it with some more members to see if we need to incorporate some different ideas in there.” Sponsors are still attempting to gain the support of progressives who initially voted against the bill in committee because of proliferation concerns over the bill’s nuclear export provisions. Senate EEPW staff are still negotiating potential changes to address those concerns with Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
Both of these Senators voted against the bill in committee. Markey said, “There are nonproliferation concerns that are essential to ensuring that there’s a gold standard of safety in nuclear exports. Otherwise, plutonium and uranium could end up in the hands of the wrong people.”
In the House, Republican nuclear boosters are working on a separate track. They are coalescing around an effort from House Energy and Commerce Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) to ban Russian uranium from being used in U.S. reactors.
The H.R. 1042 bill is the latest and most prominent effort to reduce Russian nuclear dependence by slowly phasing out and eventually banning Russian uranium imports by 2028. About twenty percent of the enriched uranium in the U.S. is imported from Russia. Sponsors of the bill are taking a more conventional approach in getting the bill passed. They hope to get it to the House floor as a stand alone bill. They are also moving on other efforts to propagate small modular reactors (SMRs) and overhaul regulatory processes.
Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) is the Chair of the House E&C Subcommittee on Energy, Climate and Grid Security. He has taken the lead in forwarding a broader nuclear agenda in his Blueprint for Nuclear Innovation and Competitiveness. It lays out policy goals like revamping licensing pathways for the next generation and expedited environmental reviews of nuclear reactors. It also has ambitions to reduce emergency planning zones surrounding those advanced reactors.
Duncan said that House Republicans would prioritize their own licensing reforms and other nuclear work such as the uranium ban bill before looking at Senate bills. However, he has shown a willingness to work with the Senate in a bipartisan manner. The ADVANCE Act does archive some of his regulatory reform goals. Duncan said, “Right now we’re trying to get domestic sourcing of enriched uranium, meaning [Rodgers’] bill, to the floor. Then, we’ll look at what we can do to propagate SMRs and advanced technology.”
Please read Part 3 next