Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're live. Everybody to House Energy and Digital Infrastructure. It is Thursday, May 7, and we are here to learn about the Federal Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Act of 2025 with a legislative assistant from the office of Senator Peter Welch. So we'll quickly go around the room and introduce ourselves and then we'll turn it over to you for the record. And very interested to hear your testimony today. Thanks for joining us, and I'm sorry we were running a few minutes late. So I'm representative Kathleen James from Manchester.

[Speaker 1]: Scott Campbell from St. John Ferry. Chris Morrow, Windham Windsor Bennington. Michael Southworth, Caledonia two. Christopher Howland, Rutland four.

[Speaker 0]: Dara Torre, Washington two. Bram

[Speaker 2]: Kleppner, Chittenden thirteen, Burlington.

[Speaker 0]: Great. We have a few members out today. Apologies for that.

[Speaker 3]: I'm I'm Gleason, intern for very. Super.

[Speaker 0]: Alright. Lucas, for the record, thank you for being here.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. Thank you for having me. As you know, I'm Lucas Caledonia, Senator Welch's legislative assistant for energy environmental policy down in DC, And I've been with his office since he was a member of the House about four and a half years now. So I guess to start, I can give sort of some background on this legislation, a high level summary, and then a quick overview of what we're seeing in nuclear policy down in D. C, but also would like to leave some time for questions if you all have any. So if that sounds good, I can get started.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Are you gonna share your screen?

[Speaker 4]: No. I don't have anything to share.

[Speaker 0]: Okay.

[Speaker 4]: So this bill, the Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Act, Senator Welch first introduced in 2014 with the rest of the congressional delegation from Vermont as well as some other members of the senate. They introduced it in the midst of Vermont Yankee's decommissioning process a couple of months before the plant permanently ceased operations and introduced it up until 2020 was our last iteration and subsequent biannual congresses. The goal of the bill is really threefold. First is to improve community engagement and state and local authority over the decommissioning process. Second is to invest in regions where nuclear power plants have closed recently. And the third is to guarantee that communities that are housing stranded nuclear waste are fairly compensated. As I mentioned, this bill was last introduced in 2020. We took a brief hiatus, but Senators Welch and Sanders felt that it was time to reinvigorate this push, given the bipartisan efforts to expand nuclear power generation across The US. So we felt that if we are to build out more nuclear power, must also look down the lines to what happens to those facilities when they are no longer in use. That includes centering host community voices during decommissioning, investing in energy communities and advancing consent based citing solutions. So at a high level, this bill has five main sections. The first relates to post shutdown decommissioning activity reports, which are currently required by the NRC. And our goal of this legislation was to improve community input and state oversight over the process of creating those reports that dictate decommissioning activities. So under this legislation, we would require the licensee as they submit their PSDAR to the NRC to hold at least a ninety day public comment period to public meetings. And then importantly, we give the state the option to review the PSDAR and submit a statement of either support, conditional support with recommendations to improve the document or non support if they fully object to the plan. The NRC Sorry,

[Speaker 0]: could you make sure that we may not be following along with some of the acronyms?

[Speaker 4]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: So back up for a sec to the acronym that you just used and explain to us what that is.

[Speaker 4]: Yep. PSD R is the post shutdown decommissioning activity report and outlines what the nuclear plant operator, the licensee will do in the decommissioning process to safely cease operations and store nuclear waste if it's still maintained So

[Speaker 0]: when the operator when the operator has made the decision to shut down, which is their purview, this is what they would then have to do?

[Speaker 4]: Yep. They submitted to the the NRC, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review to make sure it aligns with all safety regulations. So our bill would require that states also receive input into the PSDAR. Either another question or Uh-huh.

[Speaker 2]: Yeah. It sounds like this has gotten introduced every two years for a while. And why has it not advanced in previous biennia?

[Speaker 4]: Congress is a very slow moving body. I will say later on, have some sections related to economic development, which Senator Sanders actually got portions of passed as part of the Economic Development Administration reauthorization we passed in 2024. So these things take time. This long predates my time with the senator. It's always iterative. It's always socializing with our colleagues, exposing them to the ideas, and then bites at the apple are few and far between to actually pass things. So we'll continue pushing and it's a marker. We hope that things can pass bit by bit over time.

[Speaker 0]: Got it. Thank you. Perhaps Sibilia? Yeah.

[Speaker 3]: And just to this point, I mean, there there has been a lot of research that has been done about nuclear host communities and the impacts and planning that needs to go in. In fact, we have a colleague here in the state house with us who is part of that, Representative Cooper. But, you know, as you're that's one of the things that has taken so long, I would say. And so many came on at the same time and so many are looking to be decommissioned, you know, has created this groundswell of research and ability to say, here's what we've learned about closures. And so it's really fantastic that the senator has brought this forward to support all of them.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. On we go.

[Speaker 4]: Yep. On we go. I can cut the the PSDR section short there. Essentially, we're just giving states more input over the process and requiring that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission consider those recommendations and make sure that whatever PSDA is ultimately approved reflects the needs of the state as well. Our second section provides funding for community advisory boards. We provide some immediate federal appropriations to be granted to states to then support community advisory boards. And then we create a longer term solution whereby nuclear plant operators will fund the activities of community advisory boards, making sure that CABs can consult with experts, cover administrative costs, travel expenses, maintain a website or public presence, contract for any services they might need, prepare reports, reimburse volunteers, any necessary expenses regarding community input and consultation. The third section is economic development assistance to closure communities. So this is similar to what Senator Sanders passed in 2024. We provide 35,000,000 nationwide for the EDA, Economic Development Administration, to support economic development in communities that have recently had a nuclear plant close. And funds can be used to provide technical assistance or implement economic development projects. And the reason that we have this section still active despite Senator Sanders and his new program, the EDA, is that we had heard from excuse me, BDCC and the state generally that Vermont had had challenges accessing EDA funds. So we tailored this more specifically to Vermont needs, for example, whereas EDA might prefer to give grants to a single town or city. We recognize that in especially rural areas, a nuclear power plant has an economic impact beyond just the borders of the town that houses it. We made a focus here that it would be more regional eligibility as opposed to one off cities and towns and a couple other definitional changes to align with rural communities in Vermont to make sure that Vermont would be benefiting from this program. Section four, it creates a grant program for communities that host stranded nuclear waste. Our goal here was to make sure that the communities that have stranded waste are justly compensated and provide sort of a push towards improved consent based siting procedures. So communities will be compensated at a rate of $15 per kilogram of spent nuclear fuel stored in a decommissioned power plant, which is a pretty sizable figure. Estimates range for Vermont Yankees specifically between, you know, 12 and $18,000,000 for the fuel that we have on-site here. It's a marker and a statement, and, you know, any large appropriations of that size always are challenging to push through Congress. But as far as negotiating opening bid, we thought that this was a fair level given the duration of the waste that we've had in in Vernon. Last section is economic development in closure communities. Similar to the EDA, which is federal appropriation section we had earlier, we also wanted to make sure that licensees were investing adequately in economic development. So this would create a parallel account to the nuclear decommissioning trust, which licensees pay into during the duration of their operations. A nuclear decommissioning trust typically is just used for the safe decommissioning process to make sure that the cessation of operations and that any waste stored on-site is held securely. However, it doesn't look towards the economic ripple effects of a power plant closure. So we have tacked on an additional 2% of what would typically be deposited in the nuclear decommissioning trust to be submitted to a separate economic development account annually so that by the time the plant closes, there are also sufficient funds, not taxpayer funds available for the region to invest in economic development activities. And we believe based on the most recent public figures from the Public Service Department of Vermont's NDT that this would be around $800,000 for Vermont Yankee dedicated to economic development. So that is high level our bill. I'm happy to touch on any of the developments that we've seen in nuclear energy policy in Washington or answer any questions before we move on on any of those sections I just ran through.

[Speaker 0]: I think my question is you're probably gonna answer it when you talk about what you're seeing about nuclear policy in DC. I'm I'm very curious about spent fuel and where it goes nowhere, I guess. So if you could fill us in on what you know, that'd be great.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah, happy to. Over the past few years, we've seen a lot more bipartisan interest in expanding nuclear energy's presence in The US. It's one of the few bipartisan overlaps in energy policy. In 2024, Congress passed and was signed into law the Advance Act, which was meant to streamline nuclear regulatory commission approvals for new power plant models with an eye towards expanding nuclear generation in The US. The Big Beautiful Bill act that the Republicans passed last summer rolled back a lot of the clean energy tax credits that Senator Welch was supportive of and fought for in the IRA, but maintained them for geothermal and nuclear energy and also expanded some of them to include bonus credits for plants that remain operational in nuclear power plant host communities. At the same time, as there's been effort to push for more nuclear as a climate baseload energy solution, there have also been some really concerning developments from the Trump administration, regarding nuclear safety. The NRC is an independent agency. Its mission is to regulate commercial nuclear power plants and the use of nuclear materials, essentially with a sole focus on safety. However, the administration has started to to strip away some of the autonomy and independence of the NRC and pushed for more political influence over their activities. That included installing DOGE and DOE staffers at the agency, where typically there's been a firewall between DOE as sort of the promoter of nuclear technologies and the NRC as the regulator. As with everything DOGE, saw a lot of loss of senior staff and staff experts at the NRC. And Trump made a pretty unprecedented mood firing a commissioner, Chris Hansen, who was appointed by a Democrat four years before his term expired without cause, which I believe was the first time a commissioner has been removed without cause in about fifty years. So at a time when we're grappling with more applications for nuclear plants coming online, at a time when we're interested in promoting new technologies, small modular reactors, These regulatory, you know, aggressive approaches to agency independence have been concerning.

[Speaker 0]: Stop there for a minute, Lucas, because I want to understand a little bit more about the NRC and about just plant, I guess, longevity and safety in general. So, I was going to ask you, but you sort of spoke to this, whether the members of the NRC are appointed and by whom?

[Speaker 4]: Yep. They're appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. And there's, like most of the independent agencies, a partisan balance that's required. So you can't have, of the five member commission more than three from a single party.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. So the NRC is appointed and you outlined some of your concerns, I think with what's happening there. I had a question about sort of existing or legacy nuclear plants just because we have a couple of them that are feeding our isogrid here in New England. Is there a typical, like, lifespan for you know, I'm thinking of Seabrook and and or god. I'm sorry. Millstone. Right. I'm sorry. I can't I have a glitch in my head about their names. Anyway, there's a big one in New Hampshire and a big one in Connecticut that have been for a while feeding the New England grid and therefore us. And I'm curious what you can tell us about the safety of those plants that have been around a while, the confidence you have in the safety regs at the NRC. Just want to

[Speaker 3]: learn about that.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. The caveat being I'm not an expert. Yeah. I understand nuclear plants typically are gonna stay online, you know, thirty to fifty years. As you cited, a lot of the fleet that we built in the, you know, fifties, sixties, seventies are nearing the end of their operational lifespan. The NRC historically has been a very, you know, small c conservative, cautious body regarding safety regulation. So we've had a fairly high degree of trust in them, even despite President Trump's sort of infringement on some of NRC's independence. The commissioners that he has nominated have had a high degree of qualification, with industry experience, NRC experience, and in their testimony to the Senate, a real commitment to safety. So despite some of those infringements, I think there is still, especially in Congress where we ultimately have to approve these appointments, a firm belief that safety has to be a top priority. And I think the NRC has done a good job carrying out that mission, although I can't speak to individual safety regulations or the plants here in New England.

[Speaker 0]: Thanks.

[Speaker 4]: Regarding the DOE stranded waste and consent based siting process, I personally haven't seen much, and I'm not aware of much activity in the past two years. DOE in 2023, 2024 under the Biden administration was more active on this front. We saw them put out several reports recommending best practices for consent based citing. And they launched in 2024 a consortium. I believe it was 12 different consortia across the country focused on community engagement and finding localized consent based solutions for power plants. However, we really haven't seen much activity that I'm aware of since then, although it remains an issue that members of Congress are still very active in. So Senator Welch with this bill, Congressman Levin from California has several facilities in his district and has been leading a charge. I know they have some legislation over there, although I don't believe we have a senate companion, so I'm not as well versed. So it's something that continues to be a concern that we hear vocally from our constituents. In Vermont, constituents in other districts that are home to nuclear plants. And it's something that I think that,

[Speaker 0]: you

[Speaker 1]: know,

[Speaker 4]: as we see nuclear power policy move through Congress, will become a louder conversation. And I would say regarding the Advance Act, which was the legislation to streamline NRC permitting of new reactor designs, it is rare that we move standalone bills in Congress. Usually they're tacked on to larger packages. And the Advance Act was tied to wildland firefighters, but it was just those two provisions. So to see nuclear power get that much time on the Senate floor and that much individual attention paid to actually pass belies the fact that this is an issue that we are taking seriously and that there is real interest and momentum behind. We're lucky we have Senator White house of Rhode Island who's the ranking member of the Environment Public Works Committee. He is a good friend of Senator Welch, and I think also a very, very outspoken climate advocate, cares deeply about nuclear safety and power plant regulation. So we do have a trusted leader leading those negotiations for Democrats in the Senate.

[Speaker 0]: Do you think that do you think I mean, I know you don't have crystal ball, but it seems to me unlikely anyway that there will ever be a national central repository like Yucca Mountain. It's just never gonna happen. In my I mean, it just seems to me super unlikely unless you think otherwise. And so I'm assuming that going forward, spent fuel will stay where it's at. And you generate more, that will stay there too.

[Speaker 4]: I think that's generally the posture. I think that's also why DOE had an interest in looking at consent based sightings, of recognizing some of the political headwinds beyond against centralized storage. Yucca Mountain is one of those Harry Reid debates that predates my time in Congress. But I think the principles are the same, right? That there was such intense opposition to Yucca Mountain in Nevada. So whether we're talking about individual storage at power plants or a central repository, either way, those consent and community based solutions are still our path forward to alleviating that severe opposition that is standing in the way of a long term solution. I know Department of Energy and and now Congress will still use the term interim storage solutions, although they feel less interim every year that passes.

[Speaker 0]: Rick Howland?

[Speaker 1]: Is that $15 a kilogram? Is that a onetime payment or is that an annual payment?

[Speaker 4]: I believe that would be an annual payment.

[Speaker 1]: Great. Did you I may have missed it at the beginning. What are the chances that S thirty four forty one is is is going to get a hearing, is going to get worked on? What's going happen with it?

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. We've been talking, with several of our, counterparts on the Environment Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over this bill, and Senator Walsh is unfortunately not a member of, but Senator Sanders is. The prospects of a hearing in Republican controlled Senate are low, but this is part of the glacial pace of federal legislating that will continue to put it out there, continue to refine the text. We worked closely with Vermont stakeholders on the version of the bill that we put out here, but as long as we have it out there publicly, you know, we're able to engage more with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, stakeholders from different states like California or other other states that have nuclear closure communities. That's a polite way of saying the chances are low, but we are going to keep working on it. The slow progress has never stopped, Senator Welch, before.

[Speaker 1]: Must be even slower than ever never mind, General Assembly. Sure.

[Speaker 0]: I can't even imagine. Great. Other do you have more?

[Speaker 4]: That's essentially everything I had to walk through. I'm happy to follow-up any other questions. If things come up, after we conclude here, feel free to reach out. I know someone answered my email, but we're always available. And Rebecca, our state director, who's my counterpart on energy policy in the state, I know is also happy to engage. So please don't be a stranger and I can answer any more questions now, but that concludes what I had written up.

[Speaker 0]: Great. We do have a few more questions, but first, are you able to provide written testimony, just some bullet points going over what we talked about today?

[Speaker 4]: Yep, I can.

[Speaker 0]: That would be really great. Much appreciated. You can just send it to our committee assistant, Alex.

[Speaker 4]: Great, will do.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Rob Kleppner.

[Speaker 2]: How much, if any, conversation is there on the hill about fusion power?

[Speaker 4]: There's a lot. There's a lot of interest and I think, again, it's one of those rare areas of bipartisan agreement when it comes to energy policy, especially around fuel source. At the same time, that was part of the reason why we passed the Advance Act, looking at next generation reactors and whether it's fusion or small modular reactors, creating a framework for the NRC to actually approve them. I know the administration too has tried to increase DOE's authority over new reactor design approval. Typically, that would have been mostly under the purview of the NRC. But now DOE has been authorized to issue prizes to the first approved reactors that follow certain designs to incentivize private sector innovation and investment there. It's slow. A lot of it is nuclear physics that is well above my pay grade being pushed in the private industry. But there is a deep interest in Congress to hopefully see that technology come along the line. Although I feel like it's always claimed to be ten years away and has been ten years away for several decades now. We will continue supporting research and innovation, Although, you know, the horizon for actual approval of a fusion reactor is anyone's guess.

[Speaker 1]: Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Great. Anybody else? Lucas, that was really helpful, appreciate it, and we will look forward to your written testimony, and we appreciate you being here.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah, of course, thank you for having me. Great, any other way we can help, don't be a stranger, please feel free to reach out.

[Speaker 0]: Sounds great. We can, I think, briefly go offline