NRC chairman says Yucca Mountain closeout to include license panel

WASHINGTON -- Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Wednesday that the agency is continuing to close out its activities on the Yucca Mountain repository, a process that eventually will include halting the work of the project's licensing board.

Jaczko said the commission is in the midst of a ramp-down of high-level nuclear waste activities that will stretch from one to two years. His comments appeared to be the first time NRC officials have said the closeout would extend to proceedings of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a semi-autonomous arm of the agency.

"The agency budget encompasses the licensing board, so if there is no money for the program, there is no money for licensing activities and for the licensing board itself," Jaczko said. "Our overall focus is on closing out our review of the (Yucca) license application, and so that includes the licensing board, it includes everything that is involved in that. If there were unresolved legal questions, they would stay unresolved legal questions. "

A panel of three administrative judges affiliated with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board held preliminary hearings on Yucca Mountain in 2009 but suspended the process early last year when the Obama administration proposed to withdraw the project from consideration. Most recently, officials at the Department of Energy have suggested the judges continue the suspension at least until mid-May.

Jaczko's comments followed a media round-table assembled by the Platts Energy Forum. During the session, Jaczko said that when it came to nuclear waste, the agency has shifted from an approach of when does nuclear waste need to be discarded, to how long might it safely be stored at reactor sites.