Republican senators support NRC efforts to modernize reactor oversight process
In a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Kristine Svinicki, Republican senators expressed support this week for efforts to evaluate and modernize the Reactor Oversight Process (ROP), the commission’s nuclear safety inspection program.
Those efforts have been pushed under the ROP Enhancement Initiative, which looks to eliminate redundancies and unnecessary inspection areas, efficiently utilize resources, make program implementation more flexible, and, on the whole, determine whether or not the standard inspection program is still relevant at its core. The senators, specifically, hope to see nuclear safety activities prioritized in ways that help both the economy and the environment.
“America’s nuclear plants provide clean, reliable energy that powers our economy,” the senators wrote. “These reactors dependably generate carbon-free electricity over 90 percent of the time. They are performing at historically high levels of safety and efficiency. As the nation’s largest source of carbon-free energy, the continued safe and affordable operation of our nuclear power plants is critical to protecting the environment. The ROP Enhancement Initiative will help to achieve this goal by modernizing the ROP that has effectively contributed to safe nuclear power operations for the past 20 years.”
Based on the ROP Enhancement Initiative proposal submitted to the Commission last year, plant safety has improved over 20 years. With a mix of public feedback and data analysis, staffers at the NRC recommended modest updates prioritizing the most significant safety issues — an effort the lawmakers supported.
Signatories on the letter included U.S. Sens. John Barrasso (R-WY), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Mike Braun (R-IN), Mike Rounds (R-SD), John Boozman (R-AR) and Roger Wicker (R-MS). As one, they noted that in coupling the NRC’s experience with modern data collection methods, it was only natural to re-examine the regulatory processes.
“A hallmark of a strong nuclear safety culture is a questioning attitude, one that continually challenges the status quo in pursuit of safe, secure, and efficient operation of the nation’s nuclear power plants,” the senators wrote. “Ensuring the programs and processes at the heart of nuclear safety regulation continue to evolve and keep pace with innovation and technological improvement is essential to maintaining a strong internal safety culture at NRC. We request you act on the NRC staff’s recommendations for near-term ROP improvements. We also encourage you and the NRC staff to consider additional actions in the second phase of the initiative.”
The senators also pointed to Congress’s efforts at nuclear modernization, through the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), passed last year. The ROP Enhancement Initiative would, they said, support the same goals as that act: integrating risk and performance information more significantly into regulatory decisions.
