Challenge to Vermont Yankee License Renewal Denied 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an opinion on June 26, 2012, holding that the petitioners who were challenging the license renewal for Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station on grounds that Entergy had failed to furnish a state Water Quality Certification (WQC) had waived their WQC objection because they repeatedly failed to present it directly to the Commission and thereby failed to exhaust their administrative remedies.  Thus, the Court denied the petition for review of the NRC’s Final Order to issue the license renewal.  The NRC issued the renewed license on March 21, 2011.

Final EIS for Levy Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2

The NRC and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have published a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the COL application for Levy Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2.  The FEIS is NUREG-1941 and is located in three volumes on the NRC website.  The two Progress Energy Florida Units are to be located in Levy County, Florida. 

Draft NUREG – Electrical Cable Fire Test Results

The NRC has released for comment proposed draft, NUREG-2128, “Electrical Cable Test Results and Analysis during Fire Exposure (ELECTRA-FIRE), A Consolidation of the Three Major Fire-Induced Circuit and Cable Failure Experiments Performed between 2001 and 2011.”  Comments are requested by July 31, 2012.  This report documents the effort to collect and analyze as a whole the results from the three tests performed between 2001 and 2011 in order to obtain insights to specific parameters that may influence the failure modes of electrical cables exposed to fire conditions.

Access Authorization Fees

The NRC has confirmed the effective date of June 22, 2012, for the direct final rule that it published in the Federal Register on May 3, 2012 (June 22, 2012, 77 Fed. Reg. 37,553).  The direct final rule (77 Fed. Reg. 26,149) amended the NRC’s access authorization fees charged to licensees for work performed under the Material Access Authorization Program (MAAP) and the Information Access Authority Program (IAAP).  These programs relate to access by individuals to special nuclear materials, restricted data, and national security information.