Whitehouse Files Comment on Department of Energy’s Ill-Conceived “Categorical Exclusion” that Threatens to Undercut Nuclear Progress

“American nuclear innovation, including the development of new advanced reactor technologies, can achieve improved safety and efficiency.  But the delivery of such performance improvements should be assured—not assumed,” writes Whitehouse

Washington, D.C. – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, filed a public comment on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) “categorical exclusion” (CE) for advanced nuclear reactors, which creates a pathway for such reactors to be exempted from detailed environmental review otherwise required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  The leniency of DOE’s advanced reactor CE—coupled with the dramatic changes to DOE’s safety, health, and environmental requirements for reactors that were recently been made public—introduces unnecessary, avoidable risks that threaten to undermine America’s hard-won nuclear leadership.

DOE justifies its CE by claiming that advanced reactors have inherent improvements in safety and environmental impacts.  However, Senator Whitehouse notes, “it is circular logic to claim that a project will achieve the safety characteristics of an advanced reactor simply because it intends to.  New, untested nuclear reactor designs cannot be assumed to be inherently safe by virtue of being ‘advanced reactors.’”

The advanced reactor CE is the first and only DOE CE for a nuclear fission facility.  Only two of DOE’s existing CEs specifically relate to nuclear materials, both of which cover only limited operational activity.  Beyond these CEs, every reference to nuclear equipment, fuel, or waste in DOE’s CEs is to exclude nuclear materials from existing CEs. 

The scope of the advanced reactor CE, Senator Whitehouse notes, “is significantly greater than those of existing CEs for energy activities.  It contains no restrictions on project size, meaning even commercial-scale projects could be included.  It covers full lifecycle activities (authorization, siting, construction, operation, reauthorization, and decommissioning) and contains no limitation on project duration, meaning that a project could operate permanently for decades.  It also permits inclusion of multiple reactors within a single facility under the CE, multiplying the potential environmental impacts of a single reactor.”

DOE has also dramatically weakened safety, health, and environmental impact mitigation and reporting requirements in its internal policies.  In his comment, Whitehouse documents the changes, which include:

• Increased thresholds for investigation of a nuclear accident
• Removed requirements on leak prevention, characterization, and monitoring for highly radioactive nuclear waste
• Removed requirements on drinking water protection, ground water protection, radionuclide discharges into sewers, and animal and plant life protection
• Removed requirements on monitoring radiation exposure and dispersal pathways
• Removed requirements on monitoring, independent verification, or government notification before sites with radioactive material are released from DOE control
• Removed reporting on worker health and environmental performance indicators.

Whitehouse’s full comment is available here.