NRC Publishes Licensing, Inspection, Annual Fees for Fiscal Year 2006

June 5, 2006

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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) amended its regulations to reflect the licensing, inspection and annual fees it will charge applicants and licensees for fiscal year (FY) 2006.

NRC is required by Congress to recover much of its annual appropriated budget through two types of fees. One is for specific NRC services, such as licensing and inspection activities; this fee is calculated using an hourly rate. The other is an annual fee paid by all licensees, which recovers generic regulatory expenses and other costs not recovered through fees for specific services. These fees are contained in NRC regulations 10 CFR Part 170 (fees for licensing and inspection services) and 10 CFR Part 171 (annual fees). These fees are paid to the U.S. Treasury and go into the general fund.

By law, the NRC must recover 90% of its budget for FY 2006 (Oct. 1, 2005 - Sept. 30, 2006) from fees, less the amount appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund for high-level waste activities and appropriated from general funds for waste-incidental-to-reprocessing activities. The total amount to be recovered for FY 2006 is approximately $624M, about $83M more than in FY 2005.

The FY 2006 fees rule will become effective July 31. The final rule sets the hourly rates for Part 170 fees at $217 for the Nuclear Reactor Safety Program and $214 for the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety Program. The FY 2005 rates are $205 for the reactor program and $197 for the materials program.

The NRC will begin charging federal agencies Part 170 fees under its new authority from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, with the exception of federally owned test and research reactors that meet certain criteria.

Annual fees will increase for nearly all licensees, primarily because of the approximately $83M increase in the agency's recoverable budget for FY 2006 as the NRC prepares for an anticipated increase in new reactor licensing reviews.

The FY 2006 annual fees include the following:

• Operating power reactors (including spent fuel storage/reactor decommissioning annual fee) - $3,704,000
• Spent fuel storage/reactor decommissioning - $173,000
• Test and research reactors (non-power reactors) - $80,100
• High enriched uranium fuel facility - $5,420,000
• Low enriched uranium fuel facility - $1,596,000
• UF6 conversion facility - $1,046,000
• Rare earth mills - $95,900
• Radiographers - $15,400
• Well loggers - $4,800
• Gauge users (category 3P) - $2,900.

Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).