The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy approved four bills on Thursday for release to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The chairman of the subcommittee said that these four bills “would take important steps to address key challenges facing the U.S. nuclear energy industry today.” He went on to say, “Throughout this Congress, we have repeatedly heard about the immense challenges facing all parts of our nation’s nuclear industry. While individual states have taken steps to preserve specific nuclear power plants, the underlying intellectual and industrial nuclear infrastructure is at risk of further atrophy in the absence of a coherent and defined policy from the federal government.”
The Advancing U.S. Civil Nuclear Competitiveness and Jobs Act is aimed at improving the competitiveness of the U.S. nuclear industry in the global marketplace. The bill instructs the Secretary of Energy to analyze how regulations, policies and legal requirements affect the ability U.S. nuclear companies to compete internationally. The Act also requires the Secretary of Energy to report on possible ways to improve that ability. My concern is that the Secretary of Energy may conclude that proper regulation of nuclear power plants is less important that making the plants more competitive in the energy market.
The Advanced Nuclear Fuel Availability Act provides for the establishment of a new program inside the Department of Energy. This program would be charged with task of making “high-assay low enriched uranium” more available to researchers who are working on advanced nuclear technology development. This bill would also create public-private partnerships to help overcome the regulatory and market barriers that prevent nuclear engineers and scientists from obtaining the advance nuclear fuel they need for their research. This is obviously a good idea as long as the research balances the need for safe fuels with the need for cheap and efficient fuels.
The Nuclear Utilization of Keynote Energy is dedicated to enhancing the ability of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recover fees. The bill would make the NRC fee recovery more predictable, transparent and efficient. I am definitely in favor of this idea. The nuclear industry must foot the bill for proper nuclear power plant regulation.
The fourth bill does not have a long name. It is just referred to as H.R. 6141. The purpose of this bill is to direct the Secretary of Energy to research and write a report on a pilot program whose purpose is to select a site, carry out construction and then operate micro-reactors at critical national security locations and other sites. This bill would help ensure that facilities connected to national security would have a local and reliable source of energy if the national electrical grid collapsed.
The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said, ““Each of these bills can help reinvigorate different components of our nuclear ecosystem In doing so, the legislation will facilitate innovation and competition, which provides the dual benefit of both being good for consumers while protecting our national security interests.”