Re: NRC regulation of DOE facilties

[William V Lipton <liptonw@dteenergy.com>]

"Since DOE no longer operates any reactors, NRC has no licensing regulations that
would apply..."  Nothing like leading with a non sequitur.  The NRC regulates
source, byproduct, and special nuclear material.  All of these are used at DOE
facilities, the last time I looked.

The budgeting issues can be resolved.  I believe that the NRC can provide better
regulation of these materials at a lower cost than is currently provided by DOE-EH.

The opinions expressed are strictly mine.
It's not about dose, it's about trust.

Bill Lipton
liptonw@dteenergy.com


Jacques.Read@eh.doe.gov wrote:

> Since DOE no longer operates any reactors, NRC has no licensing regulations that
> would apply.  They are into their nth year of proposing a new 10 CFR 70 to apply
> to fuel reprocessing plants.  A good reason for not being eager to regulate DOE
> is that NRC is largely funded by charging by the staff-hour, but are unable to
> do that to a federal agency.  They never solved the problem of whether it would
> be DOE or its contractor that needed the license, either.  On top of that, DOE
> has lost about 30% of its federal employees due to the downsizing of the last
> administrations "National Performance Review," and would be hard-put to lose
> many more.  The national labs were at first all gung-ho for NRC oversight ---
> until they found out that NRC charges $120/hour.
>
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