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> 2002 > 02-136 |
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No. 02-136 | November 25, 2002 | ||||||||
NRC ISSUES FINAL
RULE ON DECOMMISSIONING |
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
is revising its regulations on decommissioning trust provisions for commercial
nuclear power plants, and issuing a regulatory guide that could be used by power
plant licensees to implement the regulations.
The final rule will (1) help safeguard decommissioning trust funds from investment risks; (2) ensure licensees provide adequate information to NRC about their trusts; and (3) provide safeguard against improper payments from these trusts. The rule requires that decommissioning trust agreements be in an appropriate form to provide greater assurance that an adequate amount of decommissioning funds will be available. Until recently, direct NRC oversight of the terms and conditions of the decommissioning trusts was not necessary because State regulators typically exercised this authority. With deregulation, however, this oversight may cease and the NRC may need to take a more active oversight role. Also, based on the NRC’s recent experience with transfers of operating licenses of several nuclear power plants, the NRC believes the final rule will help expedite similar transfers in the future by providing increased regulatory predictability. The final rule and accompanying revisions to regulatory guidance will provide uniform decommissioning trust terms and conditions for nuclear power reactor licensees that are not subject to State or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regulation. All power reactor licensees will be required to notify the NRC in advance of decommissioning trust withdrawals if made prior to permanent cessation of operations. Under the final rule, the criteria that have been required as conditions of license transfer in connection with the sale of nuclear power reactors will be incorporated as part of a proposed new section of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations under Part 50.75. The conditions are as follows:
A proposed rule on this subject was published in the Federal Register (66 FR 29244) on May 30 of last year. A total of 36 comments were received from licensees, utility groups, State agencies and commissions, the National Association of State Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), and investment management companies. Regulatory Guide 1.159, “Assuring the Availability of Funds for Decommissioning Nuclear Reactors,” Revision 1, contains guidance to be used by nuclear power plant licensees in implementing the changes in NRC regulations. It will be available shortly on the NRC Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS). Help in using ADAMS is available by contacting the NRC Public Document Room staff by telephone at 301-415-4737 or 1-800-397-4209, or by e-mail at pdr.resource@nrc.gov. Single copies of the documents will also be available for inspection and/or copying for a fee in the NRC Public Document Room, located at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. |
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