Federal government proposes to lessen nuclear reactor environmental reviews
Source: The Hill
07/09/26 5:34 PM ET
A key government agency is proposing to lessen the scope of environmental reviews for nuclear reactors, limiting public input and exempting some reactors altogether. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Wednesday announced that it is narrowing review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a bedrock environmental law.
This includes exempting reviews of some activities altogether, including the reapproval of existing reactors, as well as some new reactors. For other projects, the agency will still review radiological impacts — but it is proposing to no longer consider factors such as dust, noise and air pollution that it says are beyond its scope.
NRC Chair Ho Nieh also said that the agency is also proposing to no longer issue draft environmental reviews, limiting the public’s ability to weigh in to the start of the process before the environmental impacts are considered.
Nieh described the move in a written statement as “concentrating on impacts the NRC can address,” adding that it would “strengthen environmental protection while making licensing reviews more timely and predictable.” However, Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the move takes away an education tool for the public.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5961792-nrc-nepa-nuclear-power/
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... and will eventually bring misery and untimely deaths to billions of us.
Fossil fuels are killing people today. Air pollution and global warming are killing people today.
But oh, let's panic about nuclear power!
Lazy journalists keep calling upon the Union of Concerned Scientists for comment, I don't know why. It's a group of mostly non-scientists little better than other crap charities and non-profits that spend most of the money they get on self-promotion.
I used to be an anti-nuclear activist, the kind of radical who might make many moderate people nervous even here on the Democratic "Underground." Eventually I did the math and now I'm not.
Do I trust the Trump Administration to adequately regulate any potentially dangerous industry? No. But there are worse things to come beyond poorly regulated industries if we don't flush these fascists and criminals out of our government. They have demonstrated that they are willing to kill, imprison, and deport people in their quest for greater political power. They are far, far scarier than any tritium emissions from the nuclear cleanup at Fukushima or used nuclear fuel stored safely in robust containers..
Humanity is caught between a rock and a hard place. This planet cannot support eight billion people without high density energy resources. The only energy resource capable of displacing fossil fuels entirely, which we must do soon, is nuclear power. Anti-nuclear activism is just another flavor of climate change denial. The biggest beneficiary of anti-nuclear activism is the filthy natural gas industry which claims it will be an important component of some energy "transition." But the energy transition people celebrate is a lie. It's not happening and it won't happen.
