 Good afternoon everyone. We're going to get started here in just a second. So if you could come in from the outside Find a seat if you're walking in now hopefully those who are Attending virtually today are able to hear me and we're in good shape both in the room and for those who are participating online Thank you all for being here today. My name is Brad Crowell. I'm a Commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the newest commissioner. This is my first Rick And my first panel at a Rick so bear with me a little bit I'll hopefully get the both the logistics and the substance correct, but I'll be learning a little bit as I go a Little bit of housekeeping before we dive into the substantive nature of our of our program If you don't know the Wi-Fi code and you need to get online it's RIC 2023 You'll probably need that down here to access the The what the app for the for the conference and Submit questions which you can do through the app by scanning the QR code That's in in in your binder behind us on the screen here If you're logged in online, you can do the same through the through the online portal Other than that I do it Encourage everyone to ask questions for the Q&A. We're going to attempt all of us to do more Interactive Q&A then then speaking to you because I think there's lots of questions in this Under this topic that were that we're discussing today. So please do that But again, if you're in the room, please do it through the through the app and it'll get sent up to me So with that in mind, this is our our panel on Transformation and modernization of the NRC environmental review review process meeting the challenge And it is a challenge, but it is also one full of opportunities Just in the general terms to kind of Put the environmental review process in context at the NRC It's probably most folks in here. No, and I've learned over my time six months with the NRC You have kind of the column on the safety review side of the side of the equation Then you have the environmental review side of the equation Oftentimes that environmental review is synonymous with NEPA, but it is not exclusive to NEPA. It's much bigger than that and It doesn't necessarily Mean it's a formal process always under a Statute or or a consultation process. Lots of what can and should be done in the environmental review process is Cannons should be done informally both early on and and throughout the the permitting process as appropriate And we want to get into all of those things today and discuss the current process where improvements can be made and You know lessons learned for for from either your experiences as a stakeholder a permitting a licensee Local community state government tribal government, you know, what is what has worked well in the past? What hasn't what are other agencies doing that we could maybe think about incorporating into the NRC process and Hopefully as we move into a period at the NRC where we are doing lots of environmental reviews Be it on the reactor side the material side or you know anywhere where environmental reviews required in the NRC jurisdiction That's we're we're implementing best practices and doing it Thoroughly but also, you know quickly so that timelines don't drag out unnecessarily But that we're meeting the full mission and scope of what the environment review process Is intended to entail? We're very lucky to hear today to have a great panel to weigh in and on these on these topics three of them are with us in person and one virtually I'm going to Introduce them each one by one and as they go through their presentation and then I'll start off the Q&A and I'll be monitoring the the laptop for any Questions that come in from the crowd So without further ado first, I'd like to introduce many ship Patel. She's with She challenges the NRC for one of the best acronyms of the agency she's come come from but she's with with Fipsi The Federal Permanent Infrastructure Steering Council they get that right and Miss Patella has Been in this game a long time. She's been at Fipsi for a while. Certainly since it's kind of come back into the four during this administration and Since the major infrastructure Structure bills have been passed, but she has spent time at CEQ Focused on NEPA. She spent time in a EPA regional office and in the private sector So she's seen this topic from all angles and the goal of her organization is to make major infrastructure projects Go smoothly and comprehensively easier said than done but she's up to the task as is her staff and With that Manisha, I'd be happy to have you give your presentation and thank you for being here Thank you commissioner and thank you to all of the Amazing folks at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for hosting this annually for wealth welcoming us and providing a forum for these very very I think salient timely and critical conversations As the commissioner said my name is Manisha Patel and I'm the deputy executive director for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council That I that I gets everyone every time Infrastructure is a buzzword and in fact as I look out first of all, let me tell you My heart is just so warmed at the number of people sitting in this ginormous ballroom after lunch no less All eager to listen To us go on a little bit about permitting. Oh times have changed I am going to I promised the rest of the panel that I would quickly go through a set of slides here Simply and if you'll keep me honest and let me know on my timing But but I think that visually there are a couple of things that will help Orient you for all of for those of you who are not yet Intimately familiar with the permitting council and that is in fact We could go with the Fipsi acronym and and for a long time the agency did but I think permitting council As a short form name really captures what we're all about because Right here. You see the seals of several agencies in fact 13 by statute the council is an agency that is made up of the deputy secretaries from the 13 federal agencies who have a role in environmental review and authorization Along with then the chair of the council on environmental quality the director of the office of management and budget both executive office of the president offices and then a Presidentially appointed executive director my boss Christine Harada. I put this up here The slide just to sort of underscore We're a unicorn when it comes to federal agencies Because our job is not actually to permit anything or to do the environmental reviews and authorizations rather Our statutory mission is to help all those other agencies that we were just I had up on the screen It's to help the federal family Do what they are already tasked to do by statute or regulation better And by better what I mean is not just faster but more effectively more efficiently to really produce better environmental and community outcomes and I think the commissioner nailed it on the head when he said that is so much easier said than done So fast 41 is in fact a statute that was enacted in 2015 It was amended in November 2021 with the bipartisan infrastructure law which made the agency permanent and added a few additional Authorities and capacities for the executive director at the end of the day And I'm gonna put this in plain English because trust me I'll get up here and wonk out with the best of them when it comes to permitting. I love this stuff But in plain English what the statute does is provide predictability Not just a project applicants, but to other agencies Beyond the lead agency who might be involved in the process to the public who wants to know what's coming next What's the next phase? When do I get to when when can I comment? Right? So it provides predictability transparency and accountability It provides a way for issue resolution and that is key. I Know that NEPA often and as the commissioner said, it's not just about NEPA. It's section 106 the endangered species act Bald eagle and migratory birds. I just there's a whole panoply of federal environmental statutes that one must consider and Actually putting all those Jenga pieces together Is what our agency helps do? It's all about the collaboration and the coordination and how this all works is actually a Publicly available Dashboard it's a website permitting gov I'm gonna say that again permitting gov Essentially it takes every and I realize it's a little hard to read probably in the back I'm not gonna call in anyone but Trust me when I tell you what the slide contains here are the names of the statutes down The left hand column and then the timelines for where we are and you can see that there's a bar that says Here's where we are in the process and that way everybody knows what's coming and this gets posted after all the agencies come together and Within 60 days of a project being identified and posted onto this dashboard as a covered project under fast 41 The agencies have 60 days to come up Collectively with us now is this gonna change sure is their movement sure But it is a little bit embarrassing for me to be up here to say Before fast 41 we didn't have that as a federal family Right, we took us took a statute to make us do what I feel like maybe we ought to have been doing all along But that's fine. We have a statute now that does drive this process What we have found from where we sit is that because of that public transparency and because of the force collaboration and I hate to use the adjective force But sometimes it does require a little nudging to get the agencies to come together and it's not that they don't want to work together a Lot of times as they just don't They don't see the connections or they don't realize I don't need to wait until all of the information is Totally there and perfect to crack open the application and start looking at it I can start having discussions with the NRC right now on what they're seeing so that we can be prepared and I Can maybe even help shape what additional information may be required or asked of the applicant, right? It's again about reducing duplication and extraneous effort in the federal permitting process So what we have seen is that because of the statute there's definitely increased visibility and predictability for the public There's more accountability and coordination We see an alignment across the federal family and this is my last slide so don't get nervous But I also would be remiss if I didn't take this moment up at the podium to tell you what fast 41 isn't right, it is not a Get out of jail card or The analog to that in the permitting world, which is I want my permit tomorrow card Right, it does speed up the process But the way it speeds up the process and this kind of gets to the heart of why there's delay in the process in the first place sometimes NEPA gets kind of picked on but honestly sometimes delays happen because Application landed on someone's desk. They're not sure what to do with it They have six other applications that they do know what to do with and so they start working on those other six and Then they come back to this one and they're like oh Having a process that puts everything out there transparently there's a forcing mechanism And So what we don't do is cut corners on the quality of the environmental review or the permitting process It's not a short circuit to to meeting all of the statutory and regulatory requirements that are already there You know under the combined process the part 52 process for NRC You still have to follow that process but think about this if you're a covered project What that means is You've got your your safety track going over here You've got your environmental review track here chances are you've got investors who are trying to watch you figure out Is this gonna happen? Isn't this gonna happen? The dashboard provides a little bit of certainty and predictability And so it's valuable in that sense It does not cut corners on public participation and certainly not about not any corners around consultation with sovereign tribes Fast 41 itself doesn't prescribe any new process or any deadline all it really does is make the process We have work better and that's really the point So I know we're gonna get into some discussion, so I'm not gonna belabor this but I will tell you again permitting gov and Honestly if the fast 41 process is something you're not familiar with I do commend you to our website. It's There are a lot of projects on the federal dashboard. There's a tab that says fast 41 There are more projects coming But I think it's a very valuable tool and it's gonna get into some of the other bigger topics We're gonna talk about I think hopefully today, you know How do we permit for the future, right? We're so used to using the processes and Doing environmental reviews and authorizations embedded in a culture That quite frankly sprung from statutes that were enacted 50 75 a hundred years ago and For a different time in a different era And so I think thinking about how we course correct ourselves and use the environmental review and authorization process to really deliver Great projects for our energy grid for our communities and for the environment For me, that's the holy grail and it's what gets me up every day and makes me come into work So I love it. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. I think there's gonna be lots of questions for you about how your Agency works when we get into the Q&A and just for context heard really quick You know, she used the word covered, you know, if you're a covered project, so That's an important thing that we'll dive into a little bit more But there are certain agencies that are that are called out as as members of the steering count this the steering committee Council steering council And you know in general those projects are are ripe or appropriate for inclusion on the dashboard But really any major Infrastructure project that has an environmental review process should be utilizing The the permitting dashboard and I really wish that the C in Fipsi was for coordination because that's really the value that you play is I Think external stakeholders and local government will often and tribal government think that you know Take for granted that the federal family's coordinated amongst itself to do these things and it's that's not the case but but Fipsi helps provide that service. So Yes, I think that'd be great. Thank you Our next panelist is joining us virtually today I'd like to introduce Lorraine bill. She is with the Shoshone Bannock tribe and she's the interim tribal and department of energy director and I believe also The current or previous cultural resources program manager as well in a cultural resource specialist Lorraine has experience with the section 106 process within the National Historic Preservation Act The section 110 of historic preservation, which is American Graves and Protection Reparation Act all of the NEPA all of the Traditional statutes that One goes through as a cultural resource specialist. She has worked closely with other federal agencies as well as You know, some of you in the crowd and DOE laboratories and the like we're very lucky to have her joining today virtually and Lorraine, thank you for being here and please Go ahead and tell us more about your role and And introduce yourself further. Thank you All right, Lorraine, I'm gonna let you figure that if you can still hear me I'll let you figure that out offline and we'll come back to you and we'll we'll move from Lorraine to to Ray She'll with the Tennessee Valley Authority and Many raised familiar to many of you as well. He's the licensing manager for TVA's new nuclear program He's part of the TVA leadership in that in that in that role and has been doing Permitting and environment reviews reviews for most of his 45 year career, which includes Service in the United States Navy Additional time as a nuclear power plant control room supervisor shift manager and Most recently for 20 years as the senior project licensing manager at TVA comes to us with a unique perspective on how a Local entity of quasi-fedal entity Works with various stakeholders in doing large infrastructure projects and small infrastructure projects quite frankly you know in a Geographically diverse part of our country. So with that rate, please feel free to tell us more A commissioner. Thank you for inviting me to participate today. It's a very important topic that we're all interested in especially with the Interest in deploying all sorts of advanced reactors Good afternoon everybody as commissioner said I'm Ray Shealy senior manager licensing for the new nuclear program And I'd like to give you a little information about the clincher of a project and the new nuclear program Where we are today and our journey So this is a little quick history of The Clint River site and the project As you can see it was the original home for the breeder reactor project Didn't get finished What you see in the picture there is just the big hole and the base mat That's as far as they got before they said stop and they Did a reclamation Um 2010 2014 we started looking at technologies decided to do an early site permit in May of 2016 early site permit application was submitted to the nrc And in december of 2019 TVa was issued an early site permit For a small module reactor first in the country In february of 2022 the tva board decided to have a new nuclear program to evaluate opportunities to deploy advanced reactors in the valley and in the summer of 2022 a programmatic eis Was approved and put on the federal register for the clinch river site So this slide here is just a picture for those of you who don't know where clinch river is Uh on the picture to the left You can see noxville oak ridge the oak ridge reservation in the little tiny pink Area it's expanded on the right And that is the clinch river site It's bounded by the clinch river arm of the watts bar reservoir Why do you say Watts bar reservoir? Because upstream of that is melt and hill dam downstream is the watts bar dam So basically it's a pool that is managed by tva for level. So it's not a free flowing river That's where the site is So here's some fun facts about the early site permit in the red is some key milestones for pre-app engagement There was an extensive amount of pre-app engagement prior to submittal The more important details though are in the black the key milestones for the nrc The application was docketed in january of 2017 and the final environmental impact statement Was issued april of 2019 With as I said before the early site permit issued in december of 2019 So it took from an environmental perspective About 26 28 months from docketing to issuance of the final environmental impact statement We had an extensive amount of activity with audits and they were very efficient Safety side environmental side qa We used the audit process to share information get resolution on information issues And eventually submitted just a few RAIs that had to be docketed the pictures there just Fun facts the picture on the right We're trudging into one of the backcapes on property near the clincher oversight And on the far left that we had all the core boards out for inspection It was an interesting interesting audit The bottom line is the information sharing both in the face-to-face portions At noxville towers and then going out into the field and comparing that information with field studies proved to be invaluable It's a very good process So you heard me mention a programmatic eis. Why do we do a programmatic eis? The clincher oversight is designated to be an advanced nuclear reactor technology park We want to be able to deploy multiple reactor designs as demonstration projects to do that and to be forward-looking A programmatic eis evaluated the impacts of multiple designs multiple megawatt levels impacts of the site and The purpose is As you can see on the picture There's two one in the purple is area one One in the yellow is area two Area in the purple layer is where probably most The demonstrations will be the larger reactors And in the yellow area will probably be like micro smaller Programmatic eis was Issued in july of 22. So it was a big accomplishment. It's the next step forward For the technology park So what's the tva new nuclear program? Well As you can see on this slide The board said we're going to go evaluate all technologies that are available and make some forward-looking decisions To support our carbon reduction goals And right now we are looking at the feasibility of the G itachi dwx 300 as as a possibility For licensing at the clincher oversight So here's the the roll-up of our journey the vision for tva We've done site investigation We've done a technology evaluation and right now we're doing extensive planning Part of that planning is can we put a construction permit application together? Can we put together an environmental report application? That's successful If so and then with board approval will submit those two applications to support A deployment at clincher over Successful deployment at clincher over will enable The next two columns of The fleet focus is multiple deployments In the valley maybe multiple smrs at some sites with the ultimate goal of the carbon reduction By 2050 So that's the vision of clincher over and the new nuclear program for tva Thank you Thank you ray Do we have the ray back have we sorted that technical issue yet? Ray give another shot to try and talk to us Can you hear me? There you are right The floor is yours, please go ahead Okay Uh, good afternoon. I guess it's afternoon over there. It's late morning here. Um, I'm marae bill I'm an enrolled member of the shoshone abatic tribes in Idaho southeast Idaho I work for the shoshone abatic tribes Culture resources office, but right now for the past Oh Almost two months now. I'm the interim tribal dui director tribal department of energy director So with our program we Do we Idaho they interact with the shoshone abatic tribes by Um Doing their consultation or any activities That do we Idaho proposes on the Idaho national laboratory site and So they work through the travel dui department and also My other department the culture resources and the project that came up. Oh in 2016 16 was the small modular reactor project It is now called the carbon free power project And so we've been working on that Since 2016 um We were told this was kind of new for them to for nrc to interact with tribes We had our pickups With consultation and culture resources reviews But now we are Going forward informative with us. We've also met with the contractor new apps a few times and Um, it's going forward and we're just waiting to hear what what is next on the cftp project Also, we ensure that all federal agencies including dui um Contacts us Really early in the process when they decide to have a project um Although the Idaho national laboratory is 50 miles north of us It is still part of the shoshone and abatic tribes ancestral territory We stress that uh federal agencies consult with the tribes Because the shoshone and abatic people we have a large ancestral area and it basically It runs from southern Southern Canada into alberta and all the way down to into mexico. That's how far we've traveled prior to The european contact There's even stories that um, some of our people went all the way down to the south america So but mainly we focus on focus on um, Idaho In our as our ancestral territory because it's so close to where we are now um And so Yes, the tribes we We really stress consulting with us early Um, especially with the cultural resources part We have a lot of history out there meaning There's a lot of archaeology out in our area. So we need to protect that and And preserve it as much as we can um with projects we like to have um If our sites can be avoided with that's what we'd rather have like say a transmission lines going through an area They come upon an archaeological site we um Ask them to move it say 100 feet north that's a part of mitigation To protect our site and so Yeah, we in our um business council that our leadership the fort hall business council We report to that and Make sure and do we Idaho is pretty good about coming to our uh business council to um give us briefings give the council briefings on projects and updates and We work really well with um DOE Idaho Um, this was kind of new to us working with nrc And so we're learning to the the cola and the application process So, um, and we look forward to working with nrc more. Thank you Thank you very much the ray and um We'll look forward to hearing more from you during the the question answer period both from your experience, uh with your Uh tribe and tribal government. Um, and also any general lessons or uh pointers you can provide for interacting with with different tribal governments Each of whom as we know are unique Last but not least, um, I would like to introduce my nrc colleague, uh, ken erwin. He's the branch chief in the environmental new reactors branch at The nrc currently, uh, he's been at the nrc for almost 25 years as a technical reviewer of spent nuclear fuel Transportation and storage tasks. Uh, he has since moved on to positions of progressively more responsibility including financial financial analysis new reactors licensing technical assistant external hazards analysis team leader for ocean oceanography And meteorology and for the last seven years ken has been the chief of the environmental review new reactors branch, um, and has a deep appreciation and understanding of of nipa and its related uh, The related laws and processes from the nrc perspective and uh, we look forward to hearing more about your role ken. Thank you Thank you commissioner for that wonderful introduction and and thank you everyone for coming to our nipa session Um, i'm one of three branch chiefs in the environmental center of expertise We are a group of about 40, um, nipa professional project managers and technical reviewers And we also have several contractors, uh that support us in in, uh, undertaking our mission But i'd like to give a special thank you to p&l They give us just invaluable support in accomplishing all of our casework and and helping ensure that the agency meets its casework goals Um, and and our group is responsible for for agency compliance with all of the nipa And related laws. So, you know, I think people have talked about it already a little bit in hpa esa there's there's just a A raft of um of rules and regulations that we implement So I always like to um, give a presentation like this and I I like to put the agency's mission up Um, when I took this job I started reading this mission to say the nrc licenses and regulates the nation's civilian use of radioactive materials to protect the environment And i'll tell you every single well almost every single Licensing action that this agency does goes through our environmental center of expertise It's really an incredible amount of work And the dedication of the staff and the contractors and the nipa professionals You just I've never seen anything like it at the agency in my career So this next slide, um, I like to use to sort of illustrate the agency's dual mandate Um, we'll focus on this session on the left one. So, you know, the environmental review We really look at impacts on the environment from the facility And, you know, we have our our, um, our authorizing legislation We use all these rules and regulations really we use 10 CFR part 51 to complete our mission and the outcome is an impact focused document and It's a disclosure document and generally we do eis's but we also do cat-exes and ea's for For all the various projects under under under review by our center of expertise So here, um, this I like to sometimes think about, um, processes and flow charts This is a a really good way to look at, um, those two different types of reviews that that the agency does You can see you get the you get a lot of pre-application activities are really trying to increase that That really helps increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our reviews to have really strong Pre-application engagement and we're and we're seeing that, um For a lot of major applications that are that are coming in and new reactors and and in licensed renewal and materials Um, so I won't I won't spend too much time on this slide or go through every box But the environmental reviews on the bottom and you can see there really is a lot of public engagement in the environment review That's one of the things that struck me when I transferred over from being a technical reviewer In the safety side of the house over to the environmental side of the group So, um, I also like this slide quite a lot. So this just shows, um, a lot of the technical review areas that we cover during our review And, um, you know nipa being a disclosure disclosure based document, you know the the um the technical expert Or the or the analysts who's doing the review they'll describe the current environment that's that's uh at the location of the facility The baseline conditions, um, they'll look at the consequences of the proposed action And then they'll also look at each reasonable alternative and they'll look at the consequence of that And they'll write all that up and disclose all of that to the decision makers And we also take a look at um at cumulative impacts. So any, um activity on the site that's been known from the past present or or um or recently foreseeable future actions And this is my last slide and municia covered this pretty well already But we do an immense amount of coordination with other federal state local and tribal governments And that's another thing that really struck me when when I transitioned from the safety side of the house We really spend a lot of of of of energy Working with with these these other organizations And that's my last slide. So thank you very much Thank you, Ken. I'm sure there'll be lots of questions Uh for you on uh more with more specifics about how the nrc process Works or could work. Definitely. Um I think i'm going to start off um going to municia because some of the questions that have come in um are Reflective of ones I had already prepared to ask um based on her presentation. I think Uh, there's a general appetite to hear more about uh, what falls within fipsi's purview So like what kind of Agencies what kind of projects And um And then whether fipsi's role is one of Describe the difference between coordinator and and and kind of gentle implementer pusher. Yeah Not the most graceful thing that I've done all day today, but that'll work um Yeah, I um Let me see. That was a compound question commissioner. I'm just gonna see if I can unpack that a little bit. Um Uh Let's start with uh, how do you become a covered project or or even actually one step before that? What are the sectors that are covered? Um under the fast 41 statute and You know, um, I realize I should have explained that acronym before I just dove into the content of my slides. Um The acronym comes from fixing america's surface transportation act and it's title 41 of Essentially the highway bill the surface transportation act from 2015 um There was back in 2015. I think a recognition that the federal family Really did need a singular Forum for all of the myriad agencies and statutes That um come to bear on the environmental review and authorization of infrastructure projects So when the statute was enacted back in 2015 There were 11 sectors Uh identified Um energy So renewable energy wind and solar but also nuclear um conventional Meaning oil and gas Are among the sectors that were identified also identified Um manufacturing, uh, just basically your panoply of if you're gonna build Uh an infrastructure project The sectors that congress identified would have captured that Um congress and its infinite infinite wisdom decided that wasn't quite enough. So they added carbon capture Utilization and storage in 2020 Um the permitting council by vote, which it has the authority to do added mining critical minerals mining Um And then most recently with the inflation reduction act and with the chips act Um a whole panoply of additional sectors were added around Um semiconductor manufacturing One that I think we're all still kind of trying to figure out one of the sectors that was added was artificial intelligence and i'm not Sure exactly what that would mean from the standpoint of infrastructure or a project. I don't know You know, um my brain goes immediately to sci-fi movies when I think of an ai project Leave that where it is for now, but suffice to say they are currently 16 different sectors and We need not dive into the specifics because I think generally for everyone in this room energy um the generation and transmission Of energy is covered um Now how do you become a covered project the statute lays out? three uh criteria One it must be something that's subject to nipa now that does not mean that you have initiated nipa You don't have to wait until you file your until an noi Is put out by the agency, but if you know and in general mostly under nipa We know the kinds of projects that are going to be subject to nipa if there's a federal hook You're going to be subject to nipa so subject to nipa And then in the original statutory language, there was a requirement that the project be Have a value of 200 million or more There have been subsequent amendments to additions to the statute that have added Language that removes that monetary threshold for tribal projects And um the final sort of key criteria is that has to involve more than one agency It kind of makes sense The way the process works is if if you are a project applicant or a project sponsor or proponent and you would like your project to be Subject to the fast 41 process Then you file what's called a fast act initiation notice the acronym we use as fin I sometimes wish that I could place scrabble with all of the acronyms that come rolling off my tongue every day I think I would be unbeatable But fin Is what we call our The application that you file with the permitting council to become a covered project And in that you just have to show that your project actually is a viable project A little bit around the costs And the value of the project the permits you anticipate And authorizations you anticipate having to acquire Generally geographically where it's situated The basically a description of the project um Once we receive that the federal family has 14 days 14 calendar days I'll say that again 14 calendar days to decide Whether it's a covered project That meets the terms of the statute if so we post it there is no So If you meet the statutory criteria your project is a covered project once it's posted like I mentioned before Within 60 days the federal family has to get together and come up with a nominal permitting schedule That it that covers soup to nuts all the different permits that you may need to get um, of course the statute allows for modification um of that Permitting schedule as things happen in the real world, but I think those are the big values I will say just one last thing um that You know, I think part of the challenge that We face Here in the us when it comes to environmental reviews and authorization and I love can I love that you Uh identify the mission of the agency in the way that you do. I think that's exactly right But one of the challenges we face is that over the years congress has enacted statutes Um environmental statutes Statutes to protect our natural resources our air our water They have singular purposes They have a mission and the agencies who are charged with implementing those I mean, I've been with the federal government coming up on three decades now and With I really can't even think of any exceptions that I sit up here. Everybody is committed People are mission driven. They believe in what they do And they try to do the best they can and where we run into Issues as a federal family trying to Permit a particular project is because everyone has their own missions that they are committed to and so sometimes That means that you've got one statute that kind of butts up against another and it's in that sort of coordination and conflict resolution That the permitting council can really play a role Thank you. I think that's it was helpful for me. So I think it's helpful for others as well That was a lot of words. So sorry, and I'm wondering if if um Ray and and ken can put a little bit of color on this in terms of how Either tba or nrc has uh engaged the permitting council in terms of what it offers Um or how you maybe intend to leverage it going forward And maybe ray. I'll turn to you first Yeah, thank you. Uh, I don't believe tba thus far has engaged The council it doesn't mean we won't in the future tba has so far a good record of permitting turning around environmental assessments and environmental impact statements, but when New opportunities sit where there's volume and and new regulations Come through there may be the need To garner to garner some efficiency from engaging It's not off the table Yeah, and I'll just add from the nrc's perspective. I mean we have been um We have been working with fipsi from the very beginning. We have attended every meeting we we um Under both administrations, we sent a detail e down to help stand up the previous um The previous administration's implementation of fipsi and and I will just say that um The the work that they do with best practices and sharing best practices and allowing us to share best practices and interact with Other members of the federal family. That's really um, one of the things I've seen great benefit from is Um, really, you know, seeing what other federal agencies have done that's worked seeing what's not works Listening to the presentation seeing the projects on the dashboard Um, I I personally am keen to see an nrc project go up on the dashboard. Um Right now we don't have any but I don't think there any right now. We've had some in the past Yeah in the past there were some there were some And they were Again, I think In the real world when you're building a project so many different things can happen that may or may not result in a project Getting to construction let alone operation and so The process Is the process right it doesn't it's not determinative of the outcome per se In the sense of the environmental reviews and so I think the handful Three that i'm remembering two or three um of the projects we did have nrc projects on the dashboard, but they um They finished they finished. Yeah, we got them done. Yeah, so they were cols. Yeah Thank you both um LeRae, um Could you tell us a little bit from your experience if a um If either a a private project, uh A proponent, you know, someone who is going to uh Engage you wanted to do a large infrastructure project or a Uh a federal agency who was involved in the permitting process for a um, uh, a large infrastructure project If if they haven't worked with Your tribe before What is you know, what's the one-on-one on how they begin that uh engagement where who who do they call first and then what does the Uh process start to look like in general terms Okay, so if the proponent is um like a private company, um They will have to go through the federal agency. They're getting the permit from to do the project So the federal agency would would have to um begin consultation with the tribes because um our Tribal government only works with federal agency the consultation portion um the proponent the The private company they can um They can have meetings with our council, but that would not be considered um True government to government consultation because they're a private agency The true government to government consultation would be between the tribe Our leadership, which would be our council and the federal agency That thank you and and Manisha, then can i'm gonna have you jump in on this one too in a second Yeah Well, can i was gonna ask you, you know, um Earlier in your in in your slide presentation you noted the pre-application process and engagement, you know, uh And I think we could all benefit from understanding who that involves and what it means I mean, generally, I would assume that pre-application is with the Applicant more than it is with other stakeholders, but it doesn't have to be exclusive to just the applicant That being said with certain stakeholders like a tribal government Uh, you can probably engage at that point, but it doesn't Constitute consultation necessarily is that fair absolutely? Yeah, I mean I mean our pre-application really um is information gathering process And the goal is um is is it's sort of twofold. Yeah one we want to meet with the applicant We want to understand the technology We want to understand where they're at with their environmental report But we also want to reach out to you know federal state and local um agencies in you know groups that are impacted And in fact, um, we went out that's kind of how I met l'array. We went out to uh, Idaho Back in october with the with the goal of sort of understanding one of the one of the future applications That's coming in here the carbon-free power project And we and we had a whole special trip to go meet with the fort hall business council Talk about who we were why we were why we were out at the site And start building that relationship with the tribe and and interacting and and and sort of reaching out and letting them know if they had questions that they could they could Come come and talk to us and and in fact we've done it for for a lot of other different different applications, you know The um, there's a there's a really interesting project in in alaska where the air force is talking about procuring a microreactor at a At an air force base there We went out there at their request and sort of Gave kind of gave a similar presentation to what I gave today and just talked about who we were You know, we got pulled into the state of alaska They wanted us to give a to give a to give that presentation and talk about Talk about what what we were doing and and and what our role is and our mission and And even right now there's a there's a A native american organization called the tanana chief's conference. They're having a conference They're having a a convention right now. We have a team of people out there right now At a table at that convention talking about hey, we're the nrc. Here's here's who we are Here's our website and and really just trying to reach out and build that build that tribal tribal engagement Thanks. Thanks again. Yeah, I just wanted That I actually chimed in earlier to echo something loray had said to underscore The value Even as a project proponent project applicant there is a lot a lot of value in reaching out And establishing and developing the relationship with the tribes early on so that you understand What the issues are what the concerns are where there may be sensitivities? There is no worse feeling as a project manager Then having designed a hundred million dollar preliminary design only to then realize There may be protected native and cultural resources there and you've got to Go rejigger that like if you talk early you can identify some of that stuff early with that said I want to underscore And and can use the word relationship and I think that's exactly what it is But for tribes they are sovereign nations. They're not just stakeholders like any other community group And so that there is a higher level of public trust That is comported to them Under our public trust doctrine and so there there's a very special component to that discussion Which is the consultation that loray mentioned, which is what ken is talking about the federal agencies doing But all of this is to underscore something that we've seen time and time again at the permitting council Regardless of what sector the project is in The most successful projects and the projects that actually get built On time delivered You know per spec except The successful projects Are the ones where you do have all of the parties coming together and talking And that doesn't mean it's always kumbaya. And I think that's the real takeaway, right? You you are potentially going to have conflicts or disagreements or differences of opinion But working that all out is precisely what the interagency process is about and oftentimes i'll hear people say something Oh, we have a problem. We found You know, we found Pottery Well, that's not a problem like the process section 106 this is designed precisely to do that So that is the process working um And people talk about nipa taking an extra two months or an extra three months By gum folks, i'm going to tell you right now take those two to three months Figure it out because you don't want to spend two to three to four to five six seven eight years in litigation Only to be told by a court to go back and do the very same thing you could have done in three months So these are lessons we are learning by having a public Dashboard where we're actually seeing in documenting Projects as they go through the process and and doing exactly what ken is talking about is Sharing information across the federal family of what works what doesn't work And when it didn't work why didn't it work? So thanks Yeah, and an applicant should be able to gain that same insight by looking at the You know past projects that have come to convention or ones that are further along that have similarities Every project is a little bit different, but still I'm going to ask you maybe an unfair question. So if it is unfair you can toss it back, but Even odds it is so tba has More than just nuclear assets in their energy portfolio you know, can you Enlighten this at all to the differences in the permitting process the environmental permitting process With respect to working state with the epa versus the nrc Yes, so as a federal agency tba has to follow nipa and whether it's a Categorical exclusion process or an environmental assessment or environmental impact statements Whether it's for fossil nuclear coal The process is the same in value in new tax and as a consulting agency Tba has consulted with the epa And asked them for comments on their draft environmental impact statements, however, because the nrc is a Separate from our permitting process. We don't consult with the nrc Because they're reviewing a separate product, but we have consulted with epa And then I assume you've got the state level permits as well that they get thrown So yeah, no shortage of stuff to get through and manisha does the Um Does the permitting dashboard capture the state level permits? Excellent question So there is a process by which a state Can opt in and be held accountable to the same timelines and requirements of the dashboard um, that's an opt-in process for states because again A federalist system that we have under the constitution. You can't just automatically subject a state To federal certain federal requirements. So states opt in If they want to what we have found is that one of the requirements of the statutory process under fast 41 is that Agencies develop what I referred to earlier as a coordinated project plan of which the permitting timetable is a part That is an opportunity where as The federal family starts talking to one another and identifying who's a cooperating agency who has you know How are all like oh, sorry as I said before how all the jenga pieces are going to fit together um, it's an excellent opportunity to reach out To states even if they're not formally a part of the process on the dashboard. We've got a couple of projects They are sediment diversion projects down in the Gulf of Mexico Where the state of louisiana has opted in signed an mo you and We actually just issued the record of decision for the first of those projects this past december but Again, I think that it is the coordination and the collaboration Forcing mechanism of the statute that allow The engagement with state agencies And to identify that and be cognizant cognizant and aware of where that fits in So it's kind of up to the state. You can't force them. Thank you. So I think as most of us know there's been a recent effort to look at Where to cite new new nuclear generation projects And one of those concepts is to do it on you know former brownfield sites and specifically coal Places where A coal or natural gas plant was that has shut down or coal plant that may be slated to shut down and There's potentially lots of opportunity there, but there's potentially also lots of complications there as well And it's still early in the process. The department of energy has identified a done a report that identifies Sites and site characteristics and things like that And you know can i'm going to start with you and see if you can just offer any insights on to how the nrc is thinking about the permitting challenges and opportunities of potentially Licensing a reactor on a former site of a former coal plant Yeah, and and thank you for the question. So it has it has come up recently I do think there are There are both challenges and opportunities with with licensing a reactor on a coal plant or a closed coal plant I think you know, you've got a lot of infrastructure in place already. I think there's um, there's there's probably you know Met data, you've got endangered species act data. You really you really can Gain a lot of efficiencies. I think from a NEPA perspective. There's probably transmission lines already built You're not plowing under wetlands. I mean there's a Really from a NEPA technical perspective. There's a lot of things. I think um, you could incorporate by reference You know do a new and significant review um, I think that really could inform the NEPA the NEPA review I think Some of the challenges I guess and and You know, maybe I'm not really my area of expertise, but there's you know, there could be some waste on the site I think there's some questions of um of liability um, how would you How would you do your radiation measurements? For example, if there's you know, coal ash laying around and things like that so Um, I don't know. I don't maybe I don't know ray if you have any insight into Yeah, I mean, that's a it's a really good question that a lot of people are looking at right now. Um Clincher was the only site that's had a siting study that's been selected, but As aging power plants need to be replaced with whatever kind of plant you have to go evaluate the sites that are available and brownfield sites or Aging coal plants that are going to be retired They do offer some advantages. You have transmission lines. You have a switch yard. You have for tba tba managed water supplies throughout the valley It probably has an area that the workforce is supportive of replacing That with something new. So there's lots of advantages of looking taking a hard look at brownfield and coal sites that are going to be retired Thanks ray in an effort to Confuse everyone even more with all the federal government is doing to streamline and Make the permitting process easier Many shows going to turn to you to maybe speak about a recent event or at least The recent report released by the steering council Along with ceq and omb that was providing direction to federal agencies With implementation guidance for the biden harris permitting action plan You probably want to start first with what the action plan is and then how the guidance and et cetera so Last summer the biden harris administration issued The permitting action plan Which in a stroke of genius is precisely what it's named um I think when you look back over time you see that every administration Has had its imprimatur on infrastructure permitting You know the previous administration had an executive order. They created a system called one federal decision That was revoked. Um, but when the trump administration came in they had revoked the obama era EO around infrastructure permitting So the biden administration has issued a plan not an EO a plan And what is different I think about this one and what has me really excited and I think What's spot on is that This particular permitting action plan Approaches it from the standpoint of what do we in this country need as infrastructure How's the infrastructure going to support jobs? How is it going to support the communities in which the infrastructure is built? All of this is sort of folded in into the policy of the plan And the approach of the plan is really to take a look from a cross sector like they've identified six Sectors where they've created cross agency teams the critical sectors. And so It's really a plan the energy is one of them So it's really a plan um on how We're going to take and apply the lessons learned over the last several years The best practices as ken was saying things we know as a federal family work And also has a a fair measure of things that we aspire to um That plan that policy document um necessarily needed some Additional guidance for for the agency specific guidance on you know what kinds of projects and And how will the agencies work together and what are the policy aims and the policy goals of the administration And so that is the guidance that was um provided to agencies just last week And I would say the big marquee item in that guidance is direction on how to identify transparency projects So I spent a little bit of time earlier discussing The sectors and the process for fast 41 And the the criteria The statute also allows the executive director to post on the dashboard Projects that don't meet all the statutory criteria, but in the interest of transparency could benefit from that Public exposure the predictability and accountability that comes from just being posted on a dashboard and so what the guidance is is Internal direction to federal agencies on how to identify Those projects and the executive director's office is going to work with the agencies to identify those projects and post them Onto the dashboard so this gets at some of those projects that May not meet the 200 million dollar threshold, but nonetheless we all know it when we see it that like that's a big deal kind of project Those kinds of projects will get posted and this is direction to the agencies on how to do that Thank you. That's helpful. I'll admit. I haven't read the action plan recently and I haven't read the implementing guidance either, but Does it include items like Environmental justice and tribal consultation. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, these are hot. I mean and again I think Certainly the biden harris administration has leaned into those concepts Very heavily and rightly so But I think as a federal family We've also recognized that again as I was saying in response to to loray's comments If you're if you're a project applicant At this point It It should just be part of your game plan to know that you should be looking at Making sure that you're doing the appropriate cultural consultations Making sure that the community in which you're citing Is part and parcel of the early discussions Again, it's just it's a smart practice because it saves you a lot of headache and having to reduce stuff at the back end And at the end of the day We do what we do again. I wish I could just flash the mission statement again can right We do what we do to improve all of our lives and and so It doesn't make sense to To build out infrastructure for the future By repeating some of the mistakes of the past and and doing that Building that infrastructure out on the backs of a few and those are lessons we've learned over time And so we shouldn't repeat those And that makes sense and I'm going to Put loray on the spot here and truth test that a little bit and see if she can offer any perspectives on whether the engagement and consultation between tribal governments and I guess you can probably only speak for your your specific government And the federal agencies that have gotten better or worse or which Specific areas where it maybe has been improved but areas other areas that need improvement You know, where do you see things right now in terms of how well the federal family is doing in engaging tribes and and Fulfilling the consultation obligations um Well, I think it's gotten Really good since I started working for the tribes Which has been like 20 years Especially with um DOE. They have gotten really good at consulting Giving us information And plus it helps when our leadership our business council is um Adament about these federal agencies coming to us to consult and Give us updates and inform us about projects um Other federal agencies um since we work up most all of them. Um, I would say Forest service needs a little bit more work. Um Yeah, so Yeah, DOE has been been doing really good um and um They're very um the way they give their updates and information to our leadership um They make it so that our leadership understands what the projects are and Um what each project entails and so yeah, I would give kudos to DOE Um As a uh a former DOE alum myself, I'll Give a little bit of kudos to DOE as well but give them a scapegoat as well, which is it's it's it's easier for an agency that Is more of a giving out resources agency than one that is a uh solely focused on on regulation agency And there's a different kind of interaction that goes with those two two missions and functions and um, there's pros and cons of both, but um, you know That kind of begs the other question. All right, which is you know, how much is it how much are resource constraints, uh, a real impediment to the Your tribe being able to engage effectively with one or more federal partners on a particular project that are you Able to keep up and have the resources you need to do that engagement or is it a um a challenge in most or all instances Oh commissioner. I'm so glad you asked that question That is no pun intended a million dollar question. Okay, go ahead Far away the right We actually we are able to keep up with a lot of the interactions with the federal agencies Um, sometimes it becomes overwhelming, but we I think we do a pretty good job Yeah, and I can I piggyback on that because I think this is um another aspect of fast 41, um I was joking earlier about um You know back in the day Permitting was not cool Okay, and I was a nerd sitting in some dark office in the back halls of epa Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say about rulemaking or the administrative procedure actor Any of that stuff made people people's eyes roll back It is the hot topic these days um And what I'll say is one nice thing about that is that congress Has appropriated a lot of money Um with the bipartisan infrastructure law and then the inflation reduction act I think you see a real emphasis um on as a Federal family not just the executive branch, but the legislative branch as well Putting our money where our mouths are And To that end congress gave the executive director $350 million under the inflation reduction act to help improve the timeliness and Efficiency of the federal permitting program. And so we are looking at different And it's really nice because the executive director pretty much has like Direct transfer authority We're working through the mechanics of how we do that with the agencies But the statutory authority is there to move this money and one of the very Primary areas uh that the executive director has already identified She's already earmarked at least five million of that money as a starter money Seed money if you will um to build out tribal capacity So that tribes can engage and so that the the time that it takes to do a consultation Is not hindered because the tribe is unable to Find the resources that it needs to be able to meaningfully engage and participate And then of course that money comes with sort of support the tools the training And so we're actually Walk in our talk we had a consultation with the tribes on Where does it make sense to put this money? How should we set up the program? But that is one of the big things that I think the permitting council can serve to do in addition to the coordinating function the executive director can essentially throw money at resource problems, and I think that The resource issues our workforce is probably Right now I think on the minds of most federal managers front and center I was I was actually just going to add that you know There's a there's a lot of money out there, but it's a little bit harder to find the right skill sets and You know you don't want to compete with other federal agencies And I know fibs he's got some initiatives to kind of help with that too, but that's that's probably one of our biggest challenges is You know is is hiring up to our budgeted number I mean congress has given us the budget we've asked for but hiring up to it and And then executing and then getting ready for all this case We we're going to see a wave of case We're coming from all of these all of the infrastructure, you know inflation reduction act and the Infrastructure laws is really going to result in a lot of work And so I think there's a lot of opportunity, you know out there in in permitting across the federal government at the nrc at Dipsy all over so so can you without even Talking telepathically I think but I'm going to stick with you on that theme and try to bring this home a little bit As relevant to as many folks in the audience and listening online as possible You know as we title this this conference is Navigating the nuclear future So, you know as we navigate that nuclear future. How is the nrc Working to make the environmental review process work more effectively More more quickly without undermining the goals and requirements of the various statutes included in environmental review like How are you going to be modernizing environmental review or you and your team at the nrc To make sure that The this this renaissance is not held back because of antiquated permitting Roles so absolutely and I I appreciate the fact that you said that you know We do want to make sure that the agency's nipa goals and compliance are not Are not challengeable and so that's always the forefront of our nipa professionals Their analyses have to be extremely high quality I probably the biggest innovation that I I've saw I've seen a lot of innovation in my career at the nrc The biggest one was the creation of the center of expertise So we used to have three separate groups doing nipa in three separate offices in three separate business lines And they were dedicated professionals. They were doing great work But they really there were quarterly meetings, but there were really never any kind of cross pollination So we created the ecoe and it just unleashed a wave of innovation And so I mean you you get all the benefits of centralization you get centralized You know we you have centralized SharePoint centralized guidance centralized handbooks A lot of mentoring capability a lot of Increases there, but one of the first things we did was we took a look at our nipa documentation itself And especially from the nuclear renaissance the large light water reactors. Some of these documents were massive. I mean 1400 pages Very difficult. I mean redundant Very difficult honors. So we we started over from scratch and we created a template that anybody in the ceo We can use for a cat x or an ea or eis And I mean it was a long process But the one of the outcomes of that we just published the kairos deis a few months ago And it was about 170 pages From 1400 So that's a big big deal Big accomplishment and and and and the other thing that we really really wanted to look at was generic evaluations Right and I was actually really happy to hear commissioner barron talk about the The license renewal guys this morning and his remarks and he even mentioned the a and r guys in his remark So we came in and said some of these facilities have been around for 40 60 80 years Surely there's got to be you know increased use of generic environmental impact statements that we can do And so you know the license renewal guys is on the street the draft is right on the street right now If I put a plug in there's a public meetings on thursday in this hotel at two o'clock and six o'clock So if anybody's interested in that you know, please come to that meeting and then you know We we came up with one of another huge innovation that I really I couldn't believe it when when we did it was the a and r guys So we had just finished I think 15 environmental impact statements For large light water reactors and there's a huge investment by the agency a huge effort The environmental staff Really had done an exhaustive review and we said What can we do to sort of capture all this knowledge from all of these reviews? And we created the a and r guys. So we we came up with the concept of a technology inclusive um You know performance based document with like something like 140 different variables going back to that slide where I had all the technical parameters 140 of those where and then we the staff divided them into into categories one and two where If you met the plant and we invented this thing called the plant parameter envelope the site parameter envelope So if you met The the parameter that came up like for example, if you were going to use I'll make this number up But if it says 30 acres and you're not going to disturb any wetlands You if the if the nr guys is approved you will get environmental review finality on that Parameter and so that's a that we really see if we if we get this huge way of advanced reactors And some of these things are pretty small and they're they're they're located at sites that are that are Pretty remote now. You still have to do esa. You still have to do ej. You still have to do tribal consultation Those are all outside of the category ones are all in category two So those are those are some pretty major things that we've undertaken I guess the latest thing we're doing we're we're going to revise our environmental standard review plan This is the guidance that all of the environmental center of expertise uses to provide guidance to the staff Hasn't been revised in two since 2007. So we just launched that initiative. I think last week we got the funding moving forward on that So those are those are some of the some of the things that we do to to really try and Make these reviews go quicker. I mean we have we have a lot of other little things We have schedule goals page goals, you know, we have quality goals all of that as well But I think that's those are the main big efficiency generators from my from my perspective And I appreciate they can and I you know Uh when I ask Ken a question I'm always Uh cognizant of the fact that it's asking myself the same question because you know, we're in it together and that's success is only going to be Achieved when the commission and the staff are closely aligned in understanding what needs to get done Why and um and just playing off the same page and I've been pulling questions from the audience and integrating them into the question I've been asking today So hopefully you've you've noticed that if you asked one of the questions that I've referenced and Someone did send in the question that was directly to me and I think it's a good one too To to end on and also build on from what ken said, which is You know, how is my perspective on environmental reviews changed going from being a You know running a state level environmental regulatory agency to a federal one and For those of you who don't know me my quick bio is spent most of my professional career in dc at the federal level, but Before the nrc most recently I was the head of the department of conservation natural resources in nevada Which is a diverse entity that has environmental permitting Historic preservation travel review fire water every you name it and You know one of the big differences that I learned is that environmental review is not just about the The strict permitting process and going through The boxes of what this law or this regulation requires it's about Looking broadly at who all the stakeholders are building relationships and making sure that even the folks who aren't You know directly part of the permitting process Um That they are still informed Throughout the whole process to as of what's going on and why so that at the end of the day you have a community that is supportive of the ultimate project being there or At least has trust or faith in the permitting agencies that Allowed it to move forward and so you know, I think that's something that nrc is hoping to do better going forward is in addition to these improvements and reforms that can mention also just doing that Everyday public outreach and engagement to make sure we're talking to the community and anyone who wants to be kept informed or made aware of the project or be more involved And if you want to be more involved the nrc is a tough Place for the average person to figure out how you get how you get in the process Be it from a commenting Standpoint or as an intervener or whatever It's a challenge. And so it's to the nrc's benefit to be doing that outreach writ large both within the Guidelines of a permitting process as well as more broadly And that's how we're going to build our relationships with tribal governments Like this is shown in benach and and and many others And local communities where tba, you know, there's so many local communities Many in in impoverished areas that need these these jobs these infrastructure projects But they want to know how it's going to benefit them So it's all part of the big picture of being a responsive federal agency and a responsive family of federal agencies Who ultimately It's the the the taxpayers and the american citizens that we work for so Kind of the big picture goals there and always much to be improved upon and We at the nrc at the release are going to continue to improve upon it And look where we can leverage resources and relationships like we have represented on the panel today With that, thank you all for being here. Thank you to our panelists for participating and look forward to working with all of you going forward. Thank you