Order Code RL33558
Nuclear Energy Policy
Updated December 26, 2006
Mark Holt
Specialist in Energy Policy
Resources, Science, and Industry Division

---

Nuclear Energy Policy
Summary
Nuclear energy policy issues facing Congress include the implementation of
federal incentives for new commercial reactors, radioactive waste management
policy, research and development priorities, power plant safety and regulation, and
security against terrorist attacks.
The Bush Administration has called for an expansion of nuclear power. For
Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear energy research and development, the
Administration requested $632.7 million for FY2007, an 18.1% increase from the
FY2006 appropriation. The request would boost funding for the Advanced Fuel
Cycle Initiative (AFCI) from $79.2 million in FY2006 to $243.0 million in FY2007.
The higher AFCI funding would allow DOE to begin developing a demonstration
plant for separating plutonium and uranium in spent nuclear fuel, as part of the
Administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The House-passed
version of the FY2007 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill (H.R.
5427, H.Rept. 109-474) would have cut the GNEP request in half and reduced the
overall nuclear energy request to $572.8 million, whereas the Senate Appropriations
Committee approved $36 million above the request for GNEP. However, the
FY2007 appropriations measure was not enacted, and DOE programs are currently
funded by a continuing resolution.
Significant incentives for new commercial reactors are included in the Energy
Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58), signed by the President on August 8, 2005. These
include production tax credits, loan guarantees, insurance against regulatory delays,
and extension of the Price-Anderson Act nuclear liability system.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States raised concern
about nuclear power plant security. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 includes several
reactor security provisions, including requirements to revise the security threats that
nuclear plant guard forces must be able to defeat, regular force-on-force security
exercises at nuclear power plants, and the fingerprinting of nuclear facility workers.
Disposal of highly radioactive waste has been one of the most controversial
aspects of nuclear power. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (P.L. 97-425), as
amended in 1987, requires DOE to conduct a detailed physical characterization of
Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a permanent underground repository for high-level
waste. The opening of the Yucca Mountain repository is now scheduled for 2017.
Whether progress on nuclear waste disposal and federal incentives will revive
the U.S. nuclear power industry’s growth will depend primarily on economic
considerations. Several utilities have announced that they will seek licenses for up
to 30 new reactors. Although no commitments have been made to build the reactors,
nuclear industry officials have predicted that the incentives in the Energy Policy Act
of 2005 will lead to the first new U.S. reactor orders since 1978.
This report replaces CRS Issue Brief IB88090, Nuclear Energy Policy, by Mark
Holt. It will be updated as events warrant.

---

Contents
Most Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Overview of Nuclear Power in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Nuclear Power Research and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Nuclear Power Plant Safety and Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Domestic Reactor Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Reactor Safety in the Former Soviet Bloc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Licensing and Regulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Reactor Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Decommissioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Nuclear Accident Liability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Nuclear Waste Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Federal Funding for Nuclear Energy Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
109th Congress Legislation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
List of Tables
Table 1. Announced Nuclear Plant License Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Table 2. Funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Table 3. DOE Funding for Nuclear Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

---

Nuclear Energy Policy
Most Recent Developments
The House on May 24 passed the FY2007 Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5427, H.Rept. 109-474) with $572.8 million for nuclear
energy research and development — $59.9 million below the Bush Administration’s
February 6, 2006, budget request but $20.8 million above the FY2006 funding level.
In contrast, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted June 29 to increase nuclear
energy funding by $151.5 million over the request, to $784.2 million.1 However, the
FY2007 appropriations measure was not enacted, and all Department of Energy
(DOE) programs are currently funded by a continuing resolution (H.J.Res. 102).
The Administration’s FY2007 request would boost funding for the Advanced
Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) from $79.2 million in FY2006 to $243.0 million. The
higher AFCI funding would allow DOE to begin developing an engineering-scale
facility to demonstrate new technology for separating plutonium and uranium in
spent nuclear fuel, as part of the Administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
(GNEP). The House-passed funding bill would have cut the AFCI funding request
to $120 million, which would still be 50% above the FY2006 level. The Senate
Appropriations Committee, calling GNEP “imperative” for reducing nuclear waste
and increasing energy supplies, boosted AFCI funding by $36 million over the
request.
The Administration requested $544.5 million for the civilian nuclear waste
program in FY2007, $50 million above the FY2006 level. The program is
developing a national nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The
House-passed funding bill would have provided the full request, plus $30.0 million
for interim nuclear waste storage if authorizing legislation were enacted. The Senate
Appropriations Committee voted to cut the request to $494.5, about the same as the
FY2006 funding level. Because of continued delays in the Yucca Mountain project,
the Senate panel added an extensive provision to the Energy and Water bill (section
313) to authorize the Secretary of Energy to designate storage sites for spent nuclear
fuel.
DOE announced on July 19 that it would submit a Yucca Mountain license
application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) by June 30, 2008. If
Congress passes proposed changes in the repository licensing process, according to
DOE, nuclear waste shipments to Yucca Mountain could begin by 2017.
1 The nuclear energy funding levels in the Administration budget request and the amounts
approved by the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee all include $72.9 million
in funding under the “other defense activities” appropriations account.

---

CRS-2
The Treasury Department on May 1 published interim guidance for a nuclear
power tax credit provided by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58), which
provides a strong incentive for the construction of new nuclear power plants. The tax
credit is available for up to 6,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity for the first
eight years of operation, up to $125 million annually per 1,000 megawatts. Under the
Treasury Department guidance, the 6,000 megawatts of eligible capacity will be
allocated proportionally among reactors that file license applications by the end of
2008 or, after that date, until enough applications are filed to use the capacity.
Because the nuclear industry has often blamed past nuclear reactor construction
cost overruns on licensing delays, the energy act authorizes the Secretary of Energy
to pay for up to $500 million in costs resulting from NRC delays for each of the first
two new reactors and up to $250 million for the next four. DOE published a final rule
for this “standby support” program on August 11.
Overview of Nuclear Power in the United States
The U.S. nuclear power industry, while currently generating about 20% of the
nation’s electricity, faces an unclear long-term future. No nuclear plants have been
ordered in the United States since 1978, and more than 100 reactors have been
canceled, including all ordered after 1973. No new units are currently under active
construction; the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA’s) Watts Bar 1 reactor, ordered
in 1970 and licensed to operate in 1996, was the most recent U.S. nuclear unit to be
completed. The nuclear power industry’s troubles include high nuclear power plant
construction costs, public concern about nuclear safety and waste disposal, and
regulatory compliance costs.
High construction costs are perhaps the most serious obstacle to nuclear power
expansion. Construction costs for reactors completed since the mid-1980s ranged
from $2 to $6 billion, averaging more than $3,000 per kilowatt of electric generating
capacity (in 1997 dollars). The nuclear industry predicts that new plant designs could
be built for less than half that amount if many identical plants were built in a series,
but such economies of scale have yet to be demonstrated.
Nevertheless, the outlook recently has been improving for the U.S. nuclear
power industry, which currently comprises 103 licensed reactors at 65 plant sites in
31 states. (That number excludes TVA’s Browns Ferry 1, which has not operated
since 1985; TVA is spending about $1.8 billion to restart the reactor in 2007.)
Electricity production from U.S. nuclear power plants is greater than that from oil,
natural gas, and hydropower, and behind only coal, which accounts for more than
half of U.S. electricity generation. Nuclear plants generate more than half the
electricity in six states. The near-record 818 billion kilowatt-hours of nuclear
electricity generated in the United States during 20052 was more than the nation’s
entire electrical output in the early 1960s, when the first large-scale commercial
reactors were being ordered.
2 “World’s Nuclear Performance in 2005 Close to 2004’s,” Nucleonics Week, Feb. 9, 2006,
p. 1.

---

CRS-3
Average operating costs of U.S. nuclear plants dropped substantially during the
past decade, and costly downtime has been steadily reduced. Licensed commercial
reactors generated electricity at an average of 89.4% of their total capacity in 2005,
according to industry statistics.3
Forty-seven commercial reactors have received 20-year license extensions from
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), giving them up to 60 years of operation.
License extensions for eight more reactors are currently under review, and many
others are anticipated, according to NRC.4
Industry consolidation could also help existing nuclear power plants, as larger
nuclear operators purchase plants from utilities that run only one or two reactors.
Several such sales have occurred, including the March 2001 sale of the Millstone
plant in Connecticut to Dominion Energy for a record $1.28 billion. The merger of
two of the nation’s largest nuclear utilities, PECO Energy and Unicom, completed
in October 2000, consolidated the operation of 17 reactors under a single corporate
entity, Exelon Corporation, headquartered in Chicago.
Existing nuclear power plants appear to hold a strong position in the ongoing
restructuring of the electricity industry. In most cases, nuclear utilities have received
favorable regulatory treatment of past construction costs, and average nuclear
operating costs are currently estimated to be competitive with those of fossil fuel
technologies.5 Although eight U.S. nuclear reactors were permanently shut down
during the 1990s, none has been closed since 1998. Despite the shutdowns, annual
U.S. nuclear electrical output increased by more than one-third from 1990 to 2005,
according to the Energy Information Administration and industry statistics. The
increase resulted primarily from reduced downtime at the remaining plants, the
startup of five new units, and reactor modifications to boost capacity.
The good performance of existing reactors and the relatively high cost of natural
gas — the favored fuel for new power plants for the past 15 years — have prompted
renewed utility consideration of the feasibility of building new reactors. During the
past two years, electric utilities announced plans to apply for combined construction
permits and operating licenses (COLs) for up to 30 reactors (see Table 1). However,
no commitments have been made to build them if the COLs are issued. The
Department of Energy (DOE) is assisting with some of the COL applications and
site-selection efforts as part of a program to encourage new commercial reactor
orders by 2010.
3 Ibid.
4 [http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications.html]
5 Energy Information Administration, Nuclear Power: 12 percent of America’s Generating
Capacity, 20 percent of the Electricity, July 17, 2003, at [http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/
nuclear/page/analysis/nuclearpower.html].

---

CRS-4
Table 1. Announced Nuclear Plant License Applications
Planned
Announced
Application
Applicant
Site
Date
Reactor Type
Units
Amarillo Power
Not specified
2007
GE ABWR
2
Constellation
Calvert Cliffs (MD)
4Q 2007
Areva EPR
1
Energy (Unistar)
Nine Mile Point (NY)
1st half 2008
Areva EPR
1
Not specified
4Q 2008
Areva EPR
3
Dominion
North Anna (VA)
Nov. 2007
GE ESBWR
1
Duke Power
Cherokee (SC)
2007-2008
West. AP1000
2
Entergy
River Bend (LA)
May 2008
GE ESBWR
1
Exelon
Texas
Nov. 2008
Not specified
2
Florida Power and Not specified
2009
Not specified
1
Light
NRG Energy
South Texas Project
2007
GE ABWR
2
NuStart
Grand Gulf (MS)
Nov. 2007
GE ESBWR
1
Bellefonte (AL)
Oct. 2007
West. AP1000
2
Progress Energy
Harris (NC)
Oct. 2007
West. AP1000
2
Levy County, FL
July 2008
West. AP1000
2
SCE&G/Santee
Summer (SC)
3Q 2007
West. AP1000
2
Cooper
Southern
Vogtle (GA)
March 2008
West. AP1000
2
TXU
Comanche Peak (TX)
4Q 2008
Not specified
2
Texas
4Q 2008
Not specified
2
Texas
4Q 2008
Not specified
2
Total units
33
Sources: NRC, Nucleonics Week, Nuclear News, Nuclear Energy Institute, company news releases.
Strong incentives for building new nuclear power plants were included in the
Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58), signed by the President on August 8, 2005.
Particularly significant is a 1.8-cents/kilowatt-hour tax credit for up to 6,000
megawatts of new nuclear capacity for the first eight years of operation, up to $125
million annually per 1,000 megawatts.

---

CRS-5
The Treasury Department published interim guidance for the nuclear tax credit
on May 1, 2006.6 Under the guidance, the 6,000 megawatts of eligible capacity will
be allocated among reactors that file license applications by the end of 2008 or, after
that date, until enough applications are filed to use the capacity. If license
applications for more than 6,000 megawatts of nuclear capacity are submitted by
2008, then the tax credit will be allocated proportionally among the proposed
reactors.
Because the nuclear industry has often blamed licensing delays for past nuclear
reactor construction cost overruns, the new law would authorize the Secretary of
Energy to pay for up to $500 million in costs resulting from NRC delays for each of
the first two new reactors and up to $250 million for the next four. DOE published
a final rule for the “standby support” program August 11, 2006.7
Nuclear power plants would also be eligible for federal loan guarantees for up
to 80% of construction costs. DOE issued guidelines for the initial round of loan
guarantees on August 8, 2006. However, the initial round is limited to $2 billion and
does not include nuclear power plants.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has previously concluded that the
nuclear energy tax credit would stimulate construction of new commercial reactors,8
and nuclear industry officials recently predicted that the tax credits and other
incentives would prove effective.9 Without such assistance, EIA has projected that
no new reactors would be built by 2025.10
A new White House working group held its first meeting May 4, 2006, to
coordinate the Administration’s policies for encouraging the growth of U.S. nuclear
power. The group is headed by the National Economic Council and includes officials
from other White House offices and DOE.11
Global warming that may be caused by fossil fuels — the “greenhouse effect”
— is cited by nuclear power supporters as an important reason to develop a new
generation of reactors. On May 19, 2003, New Hampshire became the first state to
provide emissions credits for incremental nuclear generating capacity. But the large
6 Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Internal Revenue Bulletin, No.
2006-18, “Credit for Production From Advanced Nuclear Facilities,” Notice 2006-40, May
1, 2006, p. 855.
7 Department of Energy, “Standby Support for Certain Nuclear Plant Delays,” Federal
Register, Aug. 11, 2006, p. 46306.
8 Energy Information Administration, Analysis of Five Selected Tax Provisions of the
Conference Energy Bill of 2003, February 2004.
9 Fialka, John J., “Energy Bill May Revive Nuclear Power in U.S.” Wall Street Journal, July
28, 2005, p. A4.
10 Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2005, DOE/EIA-0383(2005),
February 2005, p. 6.
11 “White House Forms Group to Support Revival of Nuclear Power,” EnergyWashington
Week, May 19, 2006.

---

CRS-6
obstacles noted above must still be overcome before electric generating companies
will risk ordering new nuclear units. (For more on federal incentives and the
economics of nuclear power, see CRS Report RL33442, Nuclear Power: Outlook for
New U.S. Reactors, by Larry Parker and Mark Holt.)
Nuclear Power Research and Development
For nuclear energy research and development — including advanced reactors,
fuel cycle technology, nuclear hydrogen production, and infrastructure support —
DOE requested $632.7 million for FY2007, an 18.1% increase from the FY2006
appropriation. The request would boost funding for the Advanced Fuel Cycle
Initiative (AFCI) from $79.2 million in FY2006 to $243.0 million in FY2007. The
higher AFCI funding would allow DOE to begin developing an engineering-scale
facility to demonstrate new technology for separating plutonium and uranium in
spent nuclear fuel, as part of the Administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
(GNEP). The nuclear energy program is run by DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy,
Science, and Technology.
The House on May 24, 2006, passed its version of the FY2007 Energy and
Water Development Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5427, H.Rept. 109-474) with $572.8
million for nuclear energy research and development — $59.9 million below the
Bush Administration’s request but $20.8 million above the FY2006 funding level.
The House-passed funding bill would have cut the AFCI funding request to $120
million, which would still be 50% above the FY2006 level. In contrast, the Senate
Appropriations Committee voted June 29 to increase nuclear energy funding by
$151.5 million over the request, to $784.2 million, including $279.0 million for AFCI
(S.Rept. 109-274). However, the FY2007 appropriations measure was not enacted,
and all DOE programs are currently funded by a continuing resolution (H.J.Res. 102)
at the FY2006 level.
According to DOE’s FY2007 budget justification, the nuclear energy R&D
program is intended “to enable nuclear energy to fulfill its promise as a safe,
advanced, inexpensive and environmentally benign approach to providing reliable
energy to all of the world’s people.” However, opponents have criticized DOE’s
nuclear research program as providing wasteful subsidies to an industry that they
believe should be phased out as unacceptably hazardous and economically
uncompetitive.
Under the Administration’s GNEP initiative, plutonium partially separated from
the highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear reactors would be recycled into new
fuel to expand the future supply of nuclear fuel and potentially reduce the amount of
radioactive waste to be disposed of in a permanent repository. The United States and
other advanced nuclear nations would lease new fuel to other nations that agreed to
forgo uranium enrichment, spent fuel recycling (also called reprocessing), and other
fuel cycle facilities that could be used to produce nuclear weapons materials. The
leased fuel would then be returned to supplier nations for reprocessing. Solidified
high-level reprocessing waste would be sent back to the nation that had used the

---

CRS-7
leased fuel, along with supplies of fresh nuclear fuel, according to the GNEP concept;
see [http://www.gnep.energy.gov].
Although GNEP is largely conceptual at this point, DOE issued a Spent Nuclear
Fuel Recycling Program Plan in May 2006 that provides a general schedule for a
GNEP Technology Demonstration Program (TDP),12 which would develop the
necessary technologies to achieve GNEP’s goals. According to the Program Plan,
the first phase of the TDP, running through FY2006, consisted of “program definition
and development” and acceleration of AFCI. Phase 2, running through FY2008, is
to focus on the design of technology demonstration facilities, which then are to begin
operating during Phase 3, from FY2008 to FY2020.
Nuclear critics oppose GNEP’s emphasis on spent fuel reprocessing, which they
see as a weapons proliferation risk, even if weapons-useable plutonium is not
completely separated from other spent fuel elements, as envisioned by the
Administration. “As the research of DOE scientists makes clear, the reprocessing
technologies under consideration would still produce a material that is not radioactive
enough to deter theft, and that could be used to make nuclear weapons,” according
to the Union of Concerned Scientists.13
Nuclear Power 2010. President Bush’s specific mention of “clean, safe
nuclear energy” in his 2006 State of the Union address reiterated the
Administration’s interest in encouraging construction of new commercial reactors —
for which there have been no U.S. orders since 1978. DOE’s efforts to restart the
nuclear construction pipeline have been focused on the Nuclear Power 2010
Program, which will pay up to half of the nuclear industry’s costs of seeking
regulatory approval for new reactor sites, applying for new reactor licenses, and
preparing detailed plant designs. The program is intended to provide assistance for
advanced versions of existing commercial nuclear plants that could be ordered within
the next few years.
The Nuclear Power 2010 Program is helping three utilities seek NRC approval
for potential nuclear reactor sites in Illinois, Mississippi, and Virginia. In addition,
two industry consortia are receiving DOE assistance over the next several years to
design and license new nuclear power plants. DOE awarded the first funding to the
consortia in 2004. DOE’s FY2007 budget request included $54.0 million for Nuclear
Power 2010; the House-passed funding bill would have provided the full request,
whereas the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to increase the program’s
funding to $88.0 million. DOE assistance under the program, including the early site
permits, is planned to reach a multiyear total of about $550 million.
The nuclear license applications under the Nuclear Power 2010 program are
intended to test the “one-step” licensing process established by the Energy Policy Act
of 1992 (P.L. 102-486). Even if the licenses are granted by NRC, the industry
12 DOE, Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycling Plan, Report to Congress, May 2006.
13 Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing Initiative,
[http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_terrorism/doe_proliferation_resistance.
html]

---

CRS-8
consortia funded by DOE have not committed to building new reactors. As discussed
above, loan guarantees and tax credits to encourage construction of new reactors are
included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-58). The 2005 act also
authorizes DOE to provide compensation to the first six new reactors for regulatory
delays beyond their control. The following two consortia receive COL assistance
under the Nuclear Power 2010 program:
! A consortium led by Dominion Resources that is preparing a COL
for an advanced General Electric reactor. The proposed reactor
would be located at Dominion’s existing North Anna plant in
Virginia, where the company is seeking an NRC early-site permit
with DOE assistance.
! A consortium called NuStart Energy Development, including Exelon
and several other major nuclear utilities, which announced on
September 22, 2005, that it would seek a COL for a Westinghouse
design at the site of TVA’s uncompleted Bellefonte nuclear plant in
Alabama and for a General Electric design at the Grand Gulf plant
in Mississippi.
The advanced Westinghouse reactor selected by NuStart, the AP-1000, may first
be built in China. Under a contract signed December 16, 2006, four of the
Westinghouse reactors are to be constructed at two sites, with the first two units to
begin operating by 2013.14 The contract could help pay for detailed engineering and
demonstrate the commercial viability of the new design, which received final design
certification from NRC effective February 27, 2006.15 A preliminary commitment
to provide almost $5 billion in financial support for the China reactor sale was
approved on February 18, 2005, by the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
Critics contend that the Ex-Im financing could provide unwarranted subsidies to the
nuclear power industry and unwisely transfer U.S. nuclear technology to China.
Generation IV. Advanced commercial reactor technologies that are not yet
close to deployment are the focus of DOE’s Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems
Initiative, for which $31.4 million was requested for FY2007 — 30% less than the
FY2006 request and more than 40% below the final appropriation of $54.5 million.
The House-passed funding bill would have provided the requested amount; most of
the proposed reduction would have come from the Next Generation Nuclear Plant
(NGNP), which would have dropped from $40 million to $23.4 million. The Senate
Appropriations Committee voted to provide $48.0 million for the program and
continue level funding of $40.0 million for NGNP. The Energy Policy Act of 2005
authorizes $1.25 billion through FY2015 for NGNP development and construction
(Title VI, Subtitle C). The authorization requires that NGNP be based on research
conducted by the Generation IV program and be capable of producing electricity,
hydrogen, or both.
14 “Westinghouse Wins China Contract; Chinese Look at Next Expansion,” Nucleonics
Week, Dec. 21, 2006, p. 1.
15 71 Federal Register 4464, Jan. 27, 2006.

---

CRS-9
The Generation IV program is focusing on six advanced designs that could be
commercially available around 2020-2030: two gas-cooled, one water-cooled, two
liquid-metal-cooled, and one molten-salt concept. Some of these reactors would use
“fast” neutrons, whereas others would use “thermal” neutrons, as explained below.
The GNEP Technology Demonstration Program plans to focus on the “fast
neutron” reactors. Existing U.S. commercial nuclear reactors use water to slow
down, or “moderate,” the neutrons released by the fission process (splitting of
nuclei). The relatively slow (thermal) neutrons are highly efficient in causing fission
in certain isotopes of heavy elements, such as uranium 235 and plutonium 239.16
Therefore, fewer of those isotopes are needed in nuclear fuel to sustain a nuclear
chain reaction (in which neutrons released by a fissioned nuclei then induce fission
in other nuclei, and so forth). The downside is that thermal neutrons cannot
efficiently induce fission in more than a few specific isotopes.
In contrast, “fast” neutrons, which have not been moderated, are less effective
in inducing fission than thermal neutrons but can induce fission in a much wider
range of isotopes, including all major plutonium isotopes. Therefore, nuclear fuel for
a fast reactor must have a higher proportion of fissionable isotopes than a thermal
reactor to sustain a chain reaction, but a larger number of different isotopes can
constitute that fissionable proportion.
A fast reactor’s ability to fission most heavy radioactive isotopes, called
“transuranics” (TRU), makes it theoretically possible to repeatedly separate those
materials from spent fuel and feed them back into the reactor until they are entirely
fissioned. In a thermal reactor, the buildup of non-fissile isotopes sharply limits the
number of such separation cycles before the recycled fuel can no longer sustain a
nuclear chain reaction.
“Given the benefits of continuous recycling, at this time GNEP-TDP is focused
on the development of fast reactor technologies, recognizing that fast reactor
operating experience is much more limited than thermal reactor operating experience,
and that fast burn reactor fuels, or transmutation fuels, are not fully developed,”
according to the DOE Program Plan.17
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative. The nuclear energy program’s Advanced
Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) was the primary component of GNEP in the FY2007
budget request. The $243 million budget request for AFCI constituted nearly all of
the $250 million GNEP program (with the remaining $7 million requested for
program direction).
According to the budget justification, AFCI will develop and demonstrate
nuclear fuel cycles that could reduce the long-term hazard of spent nuclear fuel and
recover additional energy. Such technologies would involve separation of plutonium,
uranium, and other long-lived radioactive materials from spent fuel for re-use in a
16 Isotopes are atoms of the same chemical element but with different numbers of neutrons
in their nuclei.
17 Spent Nuclear Fuel Recycling Program Plan, p. 8.

---

CRS-10
nuclear reactor or for transmutation in a particle accelerator. Most of the proposed
AFCI funding ($155 million) would be for an engineering-scale demonstration of a
separations technology called UREX+, in which uranium and other elements are
chemically removed from dissolved spent fuel, leaving a mixture of plutonium and
other highly radioactive elements. Proponents believe the process is proliferation-
resistant, because further purification would be required to make the plutonium
useable for weapons and because its high radioactivity would make it difficult to
divert or work with.
However, the House Appropriations Committee expressed concern that more
fundamental research on the UREX+ process was needed, particularly on waste
byproducts, before moving ahead to the demonstration phase. As a result, the House-
passed energy and water funding bill would have held the program’s spending
increase to $120 million. But the Senate Appropriations Committee, calling GNEP
“imperative” for reducing nuclear waste and increasing energy supplies, boosted
AFCI funding by $36 million over the request.
Removing uranium from spent fuel would eliminate most of the volume of spent
nuclear fuel that would otherwise require disposal in a deep geologic repository,
which DOE is developing at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The UREX+ process also
would reduce the heat generated by nuclear waste — the major limit on the
repository’s capacity — by removing cesium and strontium for separate storage and
decay over several hundred years. Plutonium and other long-lived elements would
be fissioned in accelerators or fast reactors (such as the type under development by
the Generation IV program) to reduce the long-term hazard of nuclear waste. Even
if technically feasible, however, the economic viability of such waste processing has
yet to be determined, and it still faces significant opposition on nuclear
nonproliferation grounds, as noted above.
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative. In support of President Bush’s program to
develop hydrogen-fueled vehicles, DOE requested $18.7 million in FY2007 for the
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative, a 25% reduction from the FY2006 level. The House-
passed funding bill would provide the same amount, but the Senate Appropriations
Committee would boost the program to $31.7 million. According to DOE’s FY2005
budget justification, “preliminary estimates ... indicate that hydrogen produced using
nuclear-driven thermochemical or high-temperature electrolysis processes would be
only slightly more expensive than gasoline” and result in far less air pollution.
Nuclear Power Plant Safety and Regulation
Safety
Controversy over safety has dogged nuclear power throughout its development,
particularly following the March 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania
and the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union. In the United
States, safety-related shortcomings have been identified in the construction quality
of some plants, plant operation and maintenance, equipment reliability, emergency
planning, and other areas. In a relatively recent example, it was discovered in March

---

CRS-11
2002 that leaking boric acid had eaten a large cavity in the top of the reactor vessel
in Ohio’s Davis-Besse nuclear plant. The corrosion left only the vessel’s quarter-
inch-thick stainless steel inner liner to prevent a potentially catastrophic loss of
reactor cooling water. Davis-Besse remained closed for repairs and other safety
improvements until NRC allowed the reactor to restart in March 2004.
NRC’s oversight of the nuclear industry is an ongoing issue; nuclear utilities
often complain that they are subject to overly rigorous and inflexible regulation, but
nuclear critics charge that NRC frequently relaxes safety standards when compliance
may prove difficult or costly to the industry.
Domestic Reactor Safety. In terms of public health consequences, the
safety record of the U.S. nuclear power industry in comparison with other major
commercial energy technologies has been excellent. During approximately 2,700
reactor-years of operation in the United States,18 the only incident at a commercial
nuclear power plant that might lead to any deaths or injuries to the public has been
the Three Mile Island accident, in which more than half the reactor core melted.
Public exposure to radioactive materials released during that accident is expected to
cause fewer than five deaths (and perhaps none) from cancer over the subsequent 30
years. A study of 32,000 people living within 5 miles of the reactor when the
accident occurred found no significant increase in cancer rates through 1998,
although the authors noted that some potential health effects “cannot be definitively
excluded.”19
The relatively small amounts of radioactivity released by nuclear plants during
normal operation are not generally believed to pose significant hazards, although
some groups contend that routine emissions are unacceptably risky. There is
substantial scientific uncertainty about the level of risk posed by low levels of
radiation exposure; as with many carcinogens and other hazardous substances, health
effects can be clearly measured only at relatively high exposure levels. In the case
of radiation, the assumed risk of low-level exposure has been extrapolated mostly
from health effects documented among persons exposed to high levels of radiation,
particularly Japanese survivors of nuclear bombing in World War II.
The consensus among most safety experts is that a severe nuclear power plant
accident in the United States is likely to occur less frequently than once every 10,000
reactor-years of operation. (For the current U.S. fleet of about 100 reactors, that rate
would yield an average of one severe accident every 100 years.) These experts
believe that most severe accidents would have small public health impacts, and that
accidents causing as many as 100 deaths would be much rarer than once every 10,000
reactor-years. On the other hand, some experts challenge the complex calculations
that go into predicting such accident frequencies, contending that accidents with
serious public health consequences may be more frequent.
18 Nuclear Engineering International, “Country averages as at end March 2006,” August
2006, p. 38.
19 Evelyn O. Talbott et al., “Long Term Follow-Up of the Residents of the Three Mile Island
Accident Area: 1979-1998,” Environmental Health Perspectives, published online Oct. 30,
2002, at [http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/5662/abstract.html].

---

CRS-12
Reactor Safety in the Former Soviet Bloc. The Chernobyl accident was
by far the worst nuclear power plant accident to have occurred anywhere in the
world. At least 31 persons died quickly from acute radiation exposure or other
injuries, and thousands of additional cancer deaths among the tens of millions of
people exposed to radiation from the accident may occur during the next several
decades.
According to a 2006 report by the Chernobyl Forum organized by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the primary observable health consequence of
the accident was a dramatic increase in childhood thyroid cancer. The Chernobyl
Forum estimated that about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer have occurred in children
who after the accident drank milk contaminated with high levels of radioactive
iodine, which concentrates in the thyroid. Although the Chernobyl Forum found only
15 deaths from those thyroid cancers, it estimated that about 4,000 other cancer
deaths may have occurred among the 600,000 people with the highest radiation
exposures, plus an estimated 1% increase in cancer deaths among persons with less
exposure. The report estimated that about 77,000 square miles were significantly
contaminated by radioactive cesium.20 Greenpeace issued a report in 2006 estimating
that 200,000 deaths in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine resulted from the Chernobyl
accident between 1990 and 2004.21
Licensing and Regulation
For many years, a top priority of the nuclear industry was to modify the process
for licensing new nuclear plants. No electric utility would consider ordering a
nuclear power plant, according to the industry, unless licensing became quicker and
more predictable, and designs were less subject to mid-construction safety-related
changes required by NRC. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-486) largely
implemented the industry’s licensing goals, but no plants have been ordered.
Nuclear plant licensing under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (P.L. 83-703;
U.S.C. 2011-2282) had historically been a two-stage process. NRC first issued a
construction permit to build a plant and then, after construction was finished, an
operating permit to run it. Each stage of the licensing process involved complicated
proceedings. Environmental impact statements also are required under the National
Environmental Policy Act.
Over the vehement objections of nuclear opponents, the Energy Policy Act of
1992 provides a clear statutory basis for one-step nuclear licenses, which would
combine the construction permits and operating licenses and allow completed plants
to operate without delay if construction criteria were met. NRC would hold
preoperational hearings on the adequacy of plant construction only in specified
circumstances. DOE’s Nuclear Power 2010 initiative (discussed above) proposes to
pay up to half the cost of combined construction and operating licenses for two
20 The Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005, Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and
Socio-Economic Impacts, International Atomic Energy Agency, April 2006.
21 Greenpeace. The Chernobyl Catastrophe: Consequences on Human Health, April 2006,
p. 10.

---

CRS-13
advanced reactors. Section 638 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes federal
payments to the owner of a completed reactor whose operation is delayed by
regulatory action.
A fundamental concern in the nuclear regulatory debate is the performance of
NRC in issuing and enforcing nuclear safety regulations. The nuclear industry and
its supporters have regularly complained that unnecessarily stringent and inflexibly
enforced nuclear safety regulations have burdened nuclear utilities and their
customers with excessive costs. But many environmentalists, nuclear opponents, and
other groups charge NRC with being too close to the nuclear industry, a situation that
they say has resulted in lax oversight of nuclear power plants and routine exemptions
from safety requirements.
Primary responsibility for nuclear safety compliance lies with nuclear plant
owners, who are required to find any problems with their plants and report them to
NRC. Compliance is also monitored directly by NRC, which maintains at least two
resident inspectors at each nuclear power plant. The resident inspectors routinely
examine plant systems, observe the performance of reactor personnel, and prepare
regular inspection reports. For serious safety violations, NRC often dispatches
special inspection teams to plant sites.
In response to congressional criticism, NRC has been reorganizing and
overhauling many of its procedures. The Commission is moving toward “risk-
informed regulation,” in which safety enforcement is guided by the relative risks
identified by detailed individual plant studies. NRC’s risk-informed reactor
oversight system, inaugurated April 2, 2000, relies on a series of performance
indicators to determine the level of scrutiny that each reactor should receive.
Reactor Security
Nuclear power plants have long been recognized as potential targets of terrorist
attacks, and critics have long questioned the adequacy of the measures required of
nuclear plant operators to defend against such attacks. All commercial nuclear power
plants licensed by NRC have a series of physical barriers to accessing the operating
reactor area and are required to maintain a trained security force to protect them.
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, NRC began a “top-to-bottom”
review of its security requirements.
A key element in protecting nuclear plants is the requirement that simulated
terrorist attack exercises, monitored by NRC, be carried out to test the ability of the
plant operator to defend against them. The severity of attacks to be prepared for are
specified in the form of a “design basis threat” (DBT). After more than a year’s
review, on April 29, 2003, NRC changed the DBT to “represent the largest
reasonable threat against which a regulated private guard force should be expected
to defend under existing law.” The details of the revised DBT were not released to
the public.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires NRC to revise the DBT based on an
assessment of terrorist threats, the potential for multiple coordinated attacks, possible
suicide attacks, and other criteria. NRC’s proposed DBT revision was published in

---

CRS-14
the Federal Register on November 7, 2005. The new energy law also requires NRC
to conduct force-on-force security exercises at nuclear power plants every three years
(which was NRC’s previous policy), authorizes firearms use by nuclear security
personnel (preempting some state restrictions), establishes federal security
coordinators, and requires fingerprinting of nuclear facility workers.
(For background on security issues, see CRS Report RS21131, Nuclear Power
Plants: Vulnerability to Terrorist Attack, by Mark Holt and Anthony Andrews.)
Decommissioning
When nuclear power plants end their useful lives, they must be safely removed
from service, a process called decommissioning. NRC requires nuclear utilities to
make regular contributions to special trust funds to ensure that money is available to
remove radioactive material and contamination from reactor sites after they are
closed. The first full-sized U.S. commercial reactors to be decommissioned were the
Trojan plant in Oregon, whose decommissioning received NRC approval on May 23,
2005, and the Maine Yankee, for which NRC approved most of the site cleanup on
October 3, 2005. The Trojan decommissioning cost $429 million, according to
reactor owner Portland General Electric, and the Maine Yankee decommissioning
cost about $500 million.22 Those costs are within the range estimated by a 1996 DOE
report of about $150 million to $600 million in 1995 dollars.
The tax treatment of decommissioning funds has been a continuing issue. The
Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides favorable tax treatment to nuclear
decommissioning funds, subject to certain restrictions.
Nuclear Accident Liability
Liability for damages to the general public from nuclear incidents is addressed
by the Price-Anderson Act (primarily Section 170 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954,
42 U.S.C. 2210). The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Price-Anderson coverage
for new reactors and new DOE nuclear contracts through the end of 2025.
Under Price-Anderson, the owners of commercial reactors must assume all
liability for nuclear damages awarded to the public by the court system, and they
must waive most of their legal defenses following a severe radioactive release
(“extraordinary nuclear occurrence”). To pay any such damages, each licensed
reactor must carry financial protection in the amount of the maximum liability
insurance available, currently $300 million. Any damages exceeding that amount are
to be assessed equally against all covered commercial reactors, up to $95.8 million
per reactor. Those assessments — called “retrospective premiums” — would be paid
at an annual rate of no more than $15 million per reactor, to limit the potential
financial burden on reactor owners following a major accident. According to NRC,
104 commercial reactors are currently covered by the Price-Anderson retrospective
premium requirement.
22 Sharp, David, “NRC Signs Off On Maine Yankee’s Decommissioning,” Associated Press,
Oct. 3, 2005.

---

CRS-15
For each nuclear incident, the Price-Anderson liability system currently would
provide up to $10.8 billion in public compensation. That total includes the $300
million in insurance coverage carried by the reactor that suffered the incident, plus
the $95.8 million in retrospective premiums from each of the 104 currently covered
reactors, totaling $10.3 billion. On top of those payments, a 5% surcharge may also
be imposed, raising the total per-reactor retrospective premium to $100.6 million and
the total available compensation to about $10.8 billion. Under Price-Anderson, the
nuclear industry’s liability for an incident is capped at that amount, which varies
depending on the number of covered reactors, the amount of available insurance, and
an inflation adjustment that is made every five years. Payment of any damages above
that liability limit would require congressional approval under special procedures in
the act.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 raised the limit on per-reactor annual payments
to $15 million from the previous $10 million, and required the annual limit to be
adjusted for inflation every five years. As under previous law, the total retrospective
premium limit of $95.8 million is to be adjusted every five years as well. For the
purposes of those payment limits, a nuclear plant consisting of multiple small
reactors (100-300 megawatts, up to a total of 1,300 megawatts) would be considered
a single reactor. Therefore, a power plant with six 120-megawatt pebble-bed
modular reactors would be liable for retrospective premiums of up to $95.8 million,
rather than $574.8 million (excluding the 5% surcharge).
The Price-Anderson Act also covers contractors who operate hazardous DOE
nuclear facilities. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 set the liability limit on DOE
contractors at $10 billion per accident, to be adjusted for inflation every five years.
The liability limit for DOE contractors previously had been the same as for
commercial reactors, excluding the 5% surcharge, except when the limit for
commercial reactors dropped because of a decline in the number of covered reactors.
Price-Anderson authorizes DOE to indemnify its contractors for the entire amount
of their liability, so that damage payments for nuclear incidents at DOE facilities
would ultimately come from the Treasury. However, the law also allows DOE to fine
its contractors for safety violations, and contractor employees and directors can face
criminal penalties for “knowingly and willfully” violating nuclear safety rules.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 limits the civil penalties against a nonprofit
contractor to the amount of management fees paid under that contract. Previously,
Atomic Energy Act §234A specifically exempted seven nonprofit DOE contractors
and their subcontractors from civil penalties and authorized DOE to automatically
remit any civil penalties imposed on nonprofit educational institutions serving as
DOE contractors. The Energy Policy Act eliminated the civil penalty exemption for
future contracts by the seven listed nonprofit contractors and DOE’s authority to
automatically remit penalties on nonprofit educational institutions.
The Price-Anderson Act’s limits on liability were crucial in establishing the
commercial nuclear power industry in the 1950s. Supporters of the Price-Anderson
system contend that it has worked well since that time in ensuring that nuclear
accident victims would have a secure source of compensation, at little cost to the
taxpayer. Extension of the act was widely considered a prerequisite for new nuclear
reactor construction in the United States. Opponents contend that Price-Anderson

---

CRS-16
inappropriately subsidizes the nuclear power industry by reducing its insurance costs
and protecting it from some of the financial consequences of the most severe
conceivable accidents.
Nuclear Waste Management
One of the most controversial aspects of nuclear power is the disposal of
radioactive waste, which can remain hazardous for thousands of years. Each nuclear
reactor produces an annual average of about 20 metric tons of highly radioactive
spent nuclear fuel, for a nationwide total of about 2,000 metric tons per year. Each
reactor also annually generates about 50-200 cubic meters of low-level radioactive
waste, plus contaminated reactor components that are also disposed of as low-level
waste, especially after a reactor is decommissioned.
The federal government is responsible for permanent disposal of commercial
spent fuel (paid for with a fee on nuclear power) and federally generated radioactive
waste, whereas states have the authority to develop disposal facilities for commercial
low-level waste. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (42 U.S.C. 10101, et seq.),
spent fuel and other highly radioactive waste is to be isolated in a deep underground
repository, consisting of a large network of tunnels carved from rock that has
remained geologically undisturbed for hundreds of thousands of years. Yucca
Mountain in Nevada is the only candidate site for the national repository. The act
required DOE to begin taking waste from nuclear plant sites by 1998 — a deadline
that under DOE’s latest schedule will be missed by nearly 20 years.
After numerous delays, DOE announced July 19, 2006, that it would submit a
Yucca Mountain license application to NRC by June 30, 2008. If Congress passes
proposed changes in the repository licensing process, according to DOE, nuclear
waste shipments to Yucca Mountain could begin by 2017. The waste program is run
by DOE’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM).
For FY2007, the Administration requested $544.5 million for the civilian
nuclear waste program, $50 million above the FY2006 level. Because of the Yucca
Mountain delays, the House added $30 million to the request “to initiate the process
for selecting and licensing one or more interim storage sites,” as explained by the
House Appropriations Committee:
If the Congress has not provided the Department with clear statutory authority
for interim storage by the end of FY2007, the remaining funds shall be re-
directed to non-site-specific activities to select a second repository for nuclear
waste disposal, consistent with Section 161 of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
[which prohibits site-specific activities on a second repository].
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to cut the request to $494.5
million, about the same as the FY2006 funding level. Delays in the Yucca Mountain
program “have forced the Committee to reconsider the project’s budget needs,”
according to the panel’s report.

---

CRS-17
Because of the continued delays, the Senate panel added an extensive provision
to the Energy and Water bill (section 313) to authorize the Secretary of Energy to
designate storage sites for spent nuclear fuel. The Secretary would be required, after
consultation with the governor, to designate a storage site in each state with a nuclear
power plant, if feasible, or to designate regional facilities. Such sites would have to
be federally owned or able to be purchased by the federal government from a willing
seller and could not be located in Nevada or Utah (which has a licensed but
undeveloped private storage site). DOE would be required to take over all
responsibility for spent fuel stored at shutdown reactors, upon the reactor owners’
request. The storage provisions in this section would be deemed sufficient to satisfy
NRC requirements that new nuclear power plants demonstrate the ability to safely
dispose of nuclear waste before being licensed to operate. However, the
appropriations bill died at the end of the 109th Congress, and the waste program is
currently funded by a continuing resolution.
The delays in the Yucca Mountain program follow a July 9, 2004, ruling by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that overturned a key
aspect of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) regulations for the planned
repository.23 The three-judge panel ruled that EPA’s 10,000-year compliance period
was too short, but it rejected several other challenges to the rules. EPA proposed a
new standard on August 9, 2005, that would allow higher radiation exposure from
the repository after 10,000 years.
The quality of scientific work at Yucca Mountain was called into question by
DOE’s March 16, 2005, disclosure of e-mails from geologists indicating that some
quality assurance documentation had been falsified. DOE announced February 17,
2006, that the technical work conducted by the geologists was sound but that some
work would be redone or further corroborated before submission of a repository
license application.
Further delays in the nuclear waste program could prove costly to the federal
government under a settlement announced on August 10, 2004, between the
Department of Justice and Exelon Corporation, which had filed a breach-of-contract
suit over DOE’s failure to begin accepting spent fuel by 1998 as required by NWPA.
Under the settlement, Exelon is to be reimbursed from the federal Judgment Fund for
its spent fuel storage costs caused by the waste program delays. Exelon estimates
that it will receive up to $600 million if waste acceptance does not begin until 2015.
Several other utilities have also negotiated settlements. The Tennessee Valley
Authority on January 31, 2006, won a $34.9 million judgment from the U.S. Court
of Federal Claims for waste storage costs incurred through September 2004, and
three New England reactor owners were granted awards totaling $143 million in
23 Nuclear Energy Institute v. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit, no. 01-1258, July 9, 2004.

---

CRS-18
September 2006.24 Numerous other utility claims are pending.25 (For further details,
see CRS Report RL33461, Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposal, by Mark Holt.)
Federal Funding for Nuclear Energy Programs
The following tables summarize current funding for DOE nuclear fission
programs and NRC. The sources for the funding figures are Administration budget
requests and committee reports on the Energy and Water Development
Appropriations Acts, which fund all the nuclear programs. President Bush submitted
his FY2007 funding request on February 6, 2006. The House passed the FY2007
Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill (H.R. 5427, H.Rept. 109-474)
on May 24, 2006, and the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its version of
the measure June 29, 2006. The bill was not enacted by the 109th Congress, so all
DOE programs are currently funded under a continuing resolution.
Table 2. Funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(budget authority in millions of current dollars)
FY2006
FY2007
FY2007
FY2007
Approp.
Request
House
Sen. Com.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
— Reactor Licensing
302.8
341.3
— a
— a
— Reactor Inspection
212.4
222.0
—
—
— Fuel Facility Licensing and Inspection
40.1
37.6
—
—
— Nuclear Materials
80.1
74.3
—
—
— High-Level Waste Repository
45.7
41.0
—
—
— Decommission. and Low-Level Waste
27.4
25.7
—
—
— Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation
24.8
26.5
—
—
— Inspector General
8.3
8.1
8.1
8.1
Total NRC budget Authority
741.5
776.6
816.5
816.5
— Offsetting fees
624.7
627.7
663.6
663.6
Net appropriation
116.8
148.9
152.9
152.9
a. Subcategories not specified.
24 U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Yankee Atomic Electric Company v. the United States, No.
98-126C, unsealed Oct. 4, 2006.
25 Hiruo, Elaine, and Tom Harrison, “TVA, Negotiated Settlements Add to Taxpayers’
Yucca Mt. Bill,” NuclearFuel, Mar. 13, 2006, p. 11.

---

CRS-19
Table 3. DOE Funding for Nuclear Activities
(budget authority in millions of current dollars)
FY2006
FY2007
FY2007
FY2007
Approp.
Request
House
Sen. Com.
Nuclear Energy (selected programs)
University Reactor Assistance
26.7
0
27.0
27.0
Nuclear Power 2010
65.3
54.0
54.0
88.0
Generation IV Nuclear Systems
54.5
31.4
31.4
48.0
Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative
24.8
18.7
18.7
31.7
Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative
79.2
243.0
120.0
279.0
Nuclear R&D Infrastructurea
241.1
218.0
257.0
243.0
Program Direction
60.5
67.6
64.6
67.6
Total, Nuclear Energy
535.7
632.7
572.8
784.2
Civilian Nuclear Waste Disposalb
495.0
544.5
574.5
494.5
a. Funded under “other defense activities” and naval reactors until FY2007. In FY2007 request, all
infrastructure except $72.9 million for Idaho Sitewide Safeguards and Security is transferred to
the Energy Supply and Conservation account.
b. Funded by a 1-mill-per-kilowatt-hour fee on nuclear power, plus appropriations for defense waste
disposal and homeland security.
109th Congress Legislation
H.R. 6 (Barton)
Energy Policy Act of 2005. Omnibus energy legislation that provides incentives
for new nuclear power plants, extends Price-Anderson nuclear liability system,
authorizes nuclear R&D programs, and requires security measures at nuclear
facilities. Introduced April 18, 2005; referred to multiple committees. Passed House
April 21, 2005, by vote of 249-183. Passed Senate June 28, 2005, by vote of 85-12.
Conference report (H.Rept. 109-90) passed House July 28, 2005, by vote of 275-156;
passed Senate July 29 by vote of 74-26. Signed by President August 8, 2005 (P.L.
109-58).
H.R. 526 (Berkley)
Redirect the Nuclear Waste Fund established under the Nuclear Waste Policy
Act of 1982 into research, development, and utilization of risk-decreasing
technologies for the onsite storage and eventual reduction of radiation levels of
nuclear waste, and for other purposes. Introduced February 2, 2005; referred to
Committees on Energy and Commerce; Science; Ways and Means.
H.R. 966 (Saxton)
Require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to consider certain criteria in
relicensing nuclear facilities, and to provide for an independent assessment of the
Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station by the National Academy of Sciences prior
to any relicensing of that facility. Introduced February 17, 2005; referred to
Committee on Energy and Commerce.

---

CRS-20
H.R. 2419 (Hobson)
Energy and Water Development Appropriations for FY2006. Includes funding
for DOE nuclear programs. Introduced and reported as an original measure by the
House Appropriations Committee May 18, 2005 (H.Rept. 109-86). Passed House
May 24, 2005, by vote of 416-13. Passed Senate July 1, 2005, by vote of 92-3
(S.Rept. 109-84). Signed by President November 19, 2005 (P.L. 109-103).
H.R. 4538 (Matheson)/S. 2099 (Reid)
Spent Nuclear Fuel On-Site Storage Security Act of 2005. Requires commercial
nuclear power plants to transfer spent fuel from pools to dry storage casks and then
convey title to the Secretary of Energy. Introduced December 14, 2005. House bill
referred to Committee on Energy and Commerce; Senate bill referred to Committee
on Environment and Public Works.
H.R. 4601 (Lowey)
Nuclear Accountability Act. Prohibits operation of a nuclear power plant unless
NRC finds that the state in which the facility is located, as well as each affected
county or county-equivalent located within a 10-mile radius of such facility, has
certified within the last year a radiological emergency response plan that provides
reasonable assurance that public health and safety is not endangered by the facility’s
operation. Introduced December 16, 2005; referred to Committee on Energy and
Commerce.
H.R. 4602 (Lowey)
Nuclear Security Act of 2005. Instructs NRC to (1) establish a nuclear security
force composed of NRC employees to provide for the security of all sensitive nuclear
facilities against the design basis threat and (2) develop and implement a security
plan containing specified elements for each sensitive nuclear facility to ensure the
security of all sensitive nuclear facilities against such threat. Introduced December
16,2005; referred to Committee on Energy and Commerce.
H.R. 4825 (Weller)/S. 2348 (Obama)
Nuclear Release Notice Act of 2006. Requires notification of federal and state
agencies about releases of radioactive materials above allowable limits. Introduced
March 1, 2006; referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Senate
Committee on Environment and Public Works.
H.R. 5360 (Barton, by request)/S. 2589 (Domenici, by request)
Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act. Changes requirements for
licensing, construction, and operation of planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste
repository. Senate bill introduced April 6, 2006; referred to Committee on Energy
and Natural Resources. House bill introduced May 11, 2006; referred to multiple
committees.
H.R. 5427 (Hobson)
Energy and Water Development Appropriations for FY2007. Includes funding
for DOE nuclear programs. Introduced and reported as an original measure by the
House Appropriations Committee May 19, 2006 (H.Rept. 109-474). Passed House
May 24, 2006, by vote of 404-20. Approved by Senate Appropriations Committee
June 29, 2006, by vote of 28-0.

---

CRS-21
S. 10 (Domenici)
Energy Policy Act of 2005. Includes provisions on electricity regulation and
reliability, energy research and development, alternative fuels, and energy access to
public lands. Introduced as an original bill and reported June 9, 2005, by the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (S.Rept. 109-78). Ordered reported
May 26 by a vote of 21-1. Text substituted for H.R. 6.
S. 387 (Hagel)
Amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide tax incentives for
investment in greenhouse gas intensity reduction projects, including a production tax
credit for nuclear-generated electricity. Introduced February 15, 2005; referred to
Committee on Finance.
S. 388 (Hagel)
Amend the Energy Policy Act of 1992 to direct the Secretary of Energy to carry
out activities that promote the adoption of technologies that reduce greenhouse gas
intensity, including advanced nuclear power plants, and to provide credit-based
financial assistance and investment protection for projects that employ advanced
climate technologies or systems. Introduced February 15, 2005; referred to
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
S. 2610 (Inhofe)
Amends the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 regarding Yucca Mountain site
application procedures to provide that an application for construction authorization
shall not be required to contain information relating to any surface facility other than
those necessary for initial operation of the repository. Introduced April 7, 2006;
referred to Committee on Environment and Public Works.
S. 3962 (Domenici)
Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act. Authorizes interim storage of
spent nuclear fuel at the Yucca Mountain site, repeals the capacity limitation on the
Yucca Mountain repository, authorizes a rail line to Yucca Mountain, and exempts
Nuclear Waste Fund appropriations from budget allocations. Introduced September
27, 2006; referred to Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

---